Edward Ritchie Candidate Number - 1203016

Edward Ritchie Extended Essay
Candidate Number -1203016 International School Of Toulouse
3,894 Words
The
1 Contribution To The French Resistance By The
www.google.co.uk/search/resistance-in-france
Special Operations Executive

1
Abstract
This essay enabled the author to gain a greater understanding of the resistance within
one of the most momentous events in Europe’s history, World War Two. It seeks to
understand the contribution of the British armed forces in the shape of The Special
Operations Executive to the Resistance within France.
The evaluation is an in-depth analysis of the contribution of the SOE to the
indigenous resistance of France. In order to assess this question, the author has visited
various museums including the Imperial War Museum and le Musée Departemental
de la Résistance et de la Déportation. Within the evaluation the case studies of
George Starr a chief member of the SOE and Emile Coulaudon a member of the
Auverne Resistance both give an insight to the structure and power role within the
resistance.
The problems the author faced in researching this analysis, are explained in
the methodology, where the publication of memoirs have been affected by the date of
publication and their providence.
To conclude the author states, that the contribution from the SOE was an
essential factor to the resistance, however we are hindered by the lack of hard
evidence within sources. And as we know that the SOE’s input was of great aid, we
cannot deny and forget the indigenous resistance who were of course the vital
backbone and key to moral success in rural and urban France.
www.google.co.uk/search/frenchresistance
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The Contribution To The French Resistance By The Special

Operations Executive
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. 2
THE CONTENTS PAGE ........................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 4
NARRATIVE............................................................................................................... 5
THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE........................................................ 7
EVALUATION............................................................................................................ 9
THE S.O.E IN SOUTH WEST FRANCE. .................................................... 9
THE ROLE OF THE INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE ................................... 11
METHODOLOGY.................................................................................................... 14
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................... 17
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 18
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ 20
3
Introduction
This essay seeks to evaluate the significance of the involvement of The

Special Operations Executive to the Resistance in South West France. There is ample
evidence to prove the importance of the S.O.E, however with all the current
publications of resistance memoirs from members of the S.O.E F2 sector we do tend
to forget the actual acts of resistance carried out by the paysans of South West France.
In order to understand the significance of the question one must first learn of
The Special Operations Executive itself, and how it became known. Section two will
be its involvement in France, focusing mainly on its contributions in the South West,
but more precisely the regions in and surrounding Toulouse, the capital of the Region.
Section three will be an examination of the magnitude of indigenous resistance. And it
is from this counter argument that Section four reaches a conclusion to distinguish the
involvement of the S.O.E whether it really was an influential contribution to the
Resistance of France. Finally, I assess the value, and reliability of the sources from
which I have been using and analyzing, in a methodology which is, an essential factor
for studying a topic with such poignancy and one that is still in living memory.
2
The part of the S.O.E based in France.
4
Narrative
First acts of resistance against German rule were isolated and ill-coordinated3.
In time men, women and children joined together in a variety of groups to confront
their oppressors. The Legal press provided an alternative to Nazi propaganda. Escape
lines and intelligence networks helped the allies War effort. Armed resistance was
largely dependant on support from one of the clandestine organizations, the Special
Operations Executive, the SOE. The SOE was ordered by Winston Churchill to “ set
Europe Ablaze” . The main task was to link up with resistance movements primarily
the French resistance to undermine the Germans in the countries they had occupied.
The French Resistance movement is an umbrella term, which covered numerous anti-
German resistance movements that were based within France. There were resistance
movements that took direct orders from the SOE, the communist resistance, groups
loyal to General De Gaulle, as well as regional resistance movements that wanted
independence.
The non-occupied region of France, known as Vichy France, was created by
the Germans and governed by Marshall Pétain, a World War One hero. His reputation
remained high and in the early days of Vichy, ‘his leadership gave it some stability
and strength’4. Also in the Early days of Vichy there was high elements of anti-British
sentiments following British attacks on Mers el Kébir. This showed no instant drive to
create a resistance en masse in southern and central France. Yet when the Germans
carried operation Barabarossa, the invasion of Russia, the various communist
sympathizers joined the resistance against the totalitarian regime. At this point Politics
stepped back and the French Communist force gained the reputation of harsh,
3
Kedward. R. The Resistance in Vichy France, Published 1978, Military Paperbacks, Page 1
4
Ousby.I Occupation- The Ordeal Of France 1940-44, Published 1997, Page 13
5
scrupulous resistance fighters. Many more French people joined as the support for
Vichy quickly waned. ‘The majorities in the south were angered by the compulsory
labour service that had been implemented’5, creating another key factor to persuade
the formation of the resistance.
The SOE in Britain realized the potential behind organizing the secret armies
of occupied Europe, as a mass as opposed to separate blocks. The agents of the SOE
working in the Vichy region of south westerly France ‘were heroic to say the least’6,
where a single mistake could prove fatal, they dared to pit their wits against a ruthless
enemy who was constantly on their trail. It is a wonder that any emerged alive, but
miraculously over half of them did7. This essay is to highlight the contributions and
importance of the SOE in the south of France under the control of The Vichy
Government, a place of vigorous resistance and ‘defying tales of courage and
bravery’8.
5
Ousby.I Occupation- The Ordeal Of France 1940-44, Published 1997, Page 19
6
www.edenbridgetowen/in_the_past/SOE_storyheroesoffrance.html
7
Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, Published 1958, Narrative page 3.
8
Squadron Leader Beryl E.Escott, Mission Improbable, A Salute to the RAF, Women of the SOE in
Wartime France, Published 1991, Patrick Stephens, Page 1.
6
The Special Operations Executive

This essay endeavours simply to record the contribution to the French Resistance of a
single vital organization otherwise known as the SOE, and especially a single section
of it, the F section, which concentrated its efforts on the conflict in France that was
raging between the French Resistance and the occupying Nazi forces. The Special
Operations Executive, was an independent British Secret service, set up in July 1940,
based at 64 Baker street in the heart of London. The main business was one of
‘conducting subversive warfare’9. The forming of Churchill’s coalition Government
in May 1940, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in the
first day of June, combined with the French surrender on the 22nd of the same month,
sent the British Government into turmoil, and brought on a complete rebuilding of
British strategy and the British war machine.
The creation of the SOE was vital to the government, its arrival had
impeccable timing. The Minister of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, wrote to the
foreign secretary Lord Halifax expressing his ideas on “ a new organization to co-
ordinate, inspire, control, and assist the nationals of oppressed countries who must
themselves be the direct participants.” This letter was in turn passed on to Winston
Churchill who after much discussion asked Dalton to implement the new project. His
infamous directive to Dalton was “Now set Europe ablaze.” The task was to organize
and co-ordinate subversive and sabotage activity against the enemy rule. In every
German occupied country there were constant spontaneous outbursts of national fury
at the Nazi-rule. The SOE had the job to seek out where these attacks and out-bursts
were, and then to encourage them if they were feeble by arming their members, even
as they grew, and coaxing them when they were strong into the greatest form of
9
Peter Norwick, The Resistance Versus Vichy, Published 1968, Chatto And Windos Press, page 7
7
advantage to the allies. Its size extended the world over, yet this essay is only
concerned with what it did in France.
The French section of the SOE was lead by Maurice Buckmaster; Vera Atkins
was put in charge of preparing his agents for the field. The SOE recruited its agents
from a wide range of backgrounds. It was common place that people were asked to
leave their jobs, loved ones and homes immediately to be swept up into the world of
espionage for reason that he or she possessed the skill to speak French like a native.
All agents obtained false identities in order to protect their precarious existence.
Again all were trained in marksmanship, sabotage, explosives, survival in the
wilderness, how to resist interrogation and perhaps most importantly the ability to
transmit coded messages.
The SOE played a variety of roles throughout the war, each of inestimable
value. The SOE conducted their operations with precision and rarely failed10. Winston
Churchill in his letter to the cabinet on 15th November 1943, recognised the
disproportionate loss of firemen and drivers between “locomotives attacked by fighter
command aircraft in comparison with the damage done to the locomotives themselves
[SOE].”11 The SOE conducted thousands of detonations on tracks. Operations like
these were vital for the Allies and had crippling effects over Germany for many
reasons. Firstly and perhaps most importantly it destroyed and delayed Germany’s
transportation system, of arms, men and other supplies. For operations like D-day
missions, objectives were sent throughout France in order to delay or destroy any
resistance that the Germans could send to Normandy in time for the D-day landings of
194412. Secondly it was brilliant anti German propaganda for the reason that it
showed how just a few men and women could cause such an effect to the oppression
of the German rule. Not forgetting that locomotives were expensive machines, and by
the end of the war a total of 1,800 engines were destroyed by the resistance within
France13.
10
George Millar- ‘Maquis’ 1945, newly published 2003 Cassel Military Paperbacks, page 17
11
National Archives, -Catalogue reference HS/8/897, Image reference: 152
12
www.64_baker_street.org/main/index.html
13
www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/worldwartwo/SOE_01.html
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Evaluation
The S.O.E in South West France.
SOE agents would work under code names. Each Code name was assigned to
a group of resistants14. This meant there was no indication of a major operation
carried out by the SOE without the input of the French. However this is not to say that
their input was minimal. As I have already explained the operations main objective
was to create, unify and supply groups of armed and trained resistance in place of the
scantily armed forces of locals. Among the Gersoise15 resistance the SOE created
three networks16. The Prunus network17, The Stationer18, and perhaps the most
influential network created by the SOE was the Wheelwright network.
Creator of the Wheelwright was the legendry George Reginald Starr, a key
figure of the organisation in South West France. Under the Code name “Hilaire” he
conducted his primary mission of constituting reserves of weapons for their use, at
appropriate times, by the resistance. From starting in June 1943, and continuing
through the bitter winter, of 1943 to 1944, which made the reception of supplies so
harder with the moonlit evenings, Wheelwright was able to harass the Germans in the
run up to D-Day. However it was in the spring of 1944 when the network ‘swung into
action’19, with the destruction of railway lines, telephone wires, fuel dumps and
14
Roderick Kedward’s, The Resistance in Vichy France, published 1978 Page 54
15
Gersoise, a term for anything from the region of the Gers, in southwest France.
16
Networks, being resistance organisations.
17
A network which on March 16 1943 was infiltrated by a German agent. However the network was
created to cause havoc between the city Auch, in the Lot-Garonne and Toulouse Power station.
Supplies were received by submarine and by air, there was no major offensive planned.
18
The Stationer network covered many areas in the unoccupied zone, from January 1943 the resistance
organised many air drops and parachutes of key figures and arms, essential for success and the creation
of power and unification of the sporadic groups of the Haute-Garonne.
19
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/starr_george.shtml
9
cutting communications. George Starr was not only vital for military knowledge and
ability to organise an offensive, yet one of his key successes was the unifying of the
communist and anti communist movements of the French resistance. An essential
move to create a formidable army of over one thousand men, which were able in a
series of spectacular attacks force 2nd SS Panzer division 'Das Reich' to fight their
way north to the beaches of Normandy, ultimately arriving disorganised and
essentially too late to attack the Allied invasion of the beaches on June 6th 194420.
20
June 6th 1944- Allied Invasion of the Normandy beaches D’Day.
10
The Role of the Indigenous resistance
The French Resistance did not always depend on the SOE, through all the
bravery of the undercover agents do we forget that the French locals fought the real
war of resistance? The foundations, were first and foremost laid out by the radio
announcements carried out by de Gaulle; crying out for the unification, of various
resistance movements into the C.N.R21, because at first when the French resistance
commenced, it consisted of unprepared groups of “vengeful renegades”22 yet
gradually the Maquis23 became disciplined, and formed a well armed, rigorously
trained military organisation, which a posed a genuine threat to the Germans or
French Militia.
“Our goal first and foremost was to attempt to create a climate of psychological fear
for the Germans, To keep them in a state of fear, to cut off communication lines, and
hopefully blow everything up. That was it. The goal wasn’t to kill the Germans.”
M. Leiris Former mayor of Combronde
Member of the resistance24
The French Resistance supplied Allies with vital intelligence reports as well as
conducting huge amounts of work to disrupt the German supply and communication
lines within France. In the early years of the Vichy Government there were areas of
anti British sentiment following the attack on Mers el Kébir25, and some of this
sentiment continued throughout the SOE’s existence in France. What part did the
SOE intend to play in the remaking of France? After all the levels of mistrust between
the British government and General De Gaulle were incredibly high. By what right
did the SOE attack property and belongings that were not theirs? There were many
21
C.N.R= Comité National de Resistance, created by De Gaulle
22
www.64_baker_street.org/main.html
23
Maquis, is an Umbrella term for resistance.
24
An extract chosen from the documentary film The Sorrow and The Pity, By Marcel Ophuls 1969.
25
In 1940 the British Royal Navy attacked the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir to stop it falling into
German hands.
11
controversial ideas like these became apparent during this period. Le Conseil National
De La Resistance was the program for a “plan d’action immédiate” and it formed a
unity of the people suffering from the oppression of Vichy Government and German
rule. The ideas presented in the Conseil were those, which appealed to all the
establishment of the broadest possible democracy by allowing the people to voice
their desires through the reestablishment of universal suffrage.
Not only were the French hounded by the Germans but also unknown, until
recently, by the British. The British mistrusted De Gaulle for his communist beliefs
and were worried about the paysans of France and the possibilities of forming a
communist country so close to Britain. On the 19th June 1943, Winston Churchill sent
a classified minute to the Minister of Economic Warfare making him aware of his
belief of the danger of giving De Gaulle the power of money. “Carry on the
underground work without admitting de Gaulle or his agents to any effective share…
and without letting any sums of money get into their hands.”26
Despite all this, there were a multitude of resistance groups that did not take
orders, direct or indirect, from the Special Operations Executive. Groups such as the
P.C.F27, and other various regional movements, which were plentiful in the southwest
due to the involvement of F.T.P.M.O.I28. February 1939 marked the victory of Spain’s
dictator Franco. This caused an exodus of over five hundred thousand people, 300,000
civilians and 200,000 republican soldiers, to flee over the Pyrenees into southwest
France. The Majority of these people joined the resistance, an immense contribution
to a force, which only contained two percent of the countries involvement.
Furthermore, there were steady flows of Italians crossing the border into France,
combined with Germans and Austrians fleeing the tyrannical rule of Nazism, Eastern
Europeans escaping the rule of Stalin, and of course the Jews seeking refuge. With
this great mixture of ethnic communities, resistance arose, and through the
F.T.P.M.O.I it gained leadership and cohesion. For every one thousand militants, in
the Haute-Garonne there was said to be an input of 250 Spanish. It was these regional
movements of resistance that were vital to the success of not only minor achievements
but effectively to overall outcome of the war. Many of the real resistance against the
German military and the Vichy regime received no outside assistance for the duration
26
National Archives, -Catalogue reference HS/8/899, Image reference: 158
27
P.C.F, is the Parti Communiste Français, the French Communist party.
28
F.T.P.M.O.I, is the Francs Tireurs, Partisans et Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée- an organisation grouping
foreign resistance movements together.
12
of the war. There were many different forms of resistance and there is ample evidence
to show that a vast majority of the French people contributed in their own way at
varying levels.
“Our goal was never to be an army facing another army. And yet, what eventually
happened, due to ever increasing enthusiasm, was that we ended up with 10,000
men.”
Emile Coulaudon
Head of the Auverne Maquis
‘Colonel Gasper’29
The importance of statements like this shows how, the resistance was essentially a
local affair, not intended for a mass scale. However but through a combined ambition
to rid France of its oppression
The local story of the “Prêtre et resistant, L’abbé Rousseaux cure de
Campagnac 1940-45”30, situated in the Haute-Garonne, Campagnac and the “l‘abbé
Rousseaux” harboured three Belgians attempting to reach Spain. “Beaucoup de
familles lui témoignèrent leur approbation et leur soutien par des dons réguliers et
souvent anonymes.” Acts of resistance like this went unnoticed but all contributed to
the cause of liberation. As General Dwight D. Eisenhower exclaimed. “ Throughout
France the Resistance had been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their
great assistance the liberation of France would have consumed a much longer time
and meant greater losses to ourselves.”31
Furthering the argument against the SOE, there is plentiful evidence within the
‘Musée Departemental de la Résistance et de la Déportation’ which shows very little
input from the British setup. The museum, which I have purposely visited several
times now is principally designed for the general public and provides a brief overview
of the Toulousain and the South Western Maquis. There are 40 boards each in
chronological order, each providing evidence either taken from sources at the time or
concocted by the museum itself through plentiful research, highlighting their
29
Quote from Emile Coulaudon, Head of The Auverne Maquis, taken from the documentary film The
Sorrow and The Pity, By Marcel Ophuls 1969
30
Prêtre et resistant, L’abbé Rousseaux cure de Campagnac 1940-45- Bernard Charles.
31
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ SOEstarr.htm
13
importance and value. Panel 29 illustrates foreign involvement within the area. At no
point does it refer to the involvement of the SOE.32
Methodology
In researching this essay I have visited museums, website and libraries in
order to achieve a well-balanced range of information. The Imperial War Museum
was the main source of my information; their archives supplied eight of the books
present in my bibliography. I secondly visited le Musée de la Résistance in Toulouse
in order to obtain the information based on the indigenous resistance and sources to
back up the information provided to me from the archives of The Imperial War
museum. The national Archives also helped distinguish my data collection from just
these two museums.
Among memoirs of resisters it’s difficult to find a text, which focuses on the
serious reflection on the nature of resistance, without the stories being of personal
memoirs and that rise above the tendency to ‘anecdote, elaborate or recriminate’33.
Among the books available to the public, on the resistance, there fail to be any written
through the German perspective. This is a major hindrance to historians seeking to
find an objective argument. After the war many documents were published of the
resisters wanting to tell their stories34. Another vast majority of the literary is based on
oral evidence. To truly scrutinise the resistance, one must suggest the reliability of
each source. For example, the writing of the history of the Occupation began even
while the German soldiers were still present in France.35 It was the resistance itself
who wrote its own history, not the observers, or the people in favour of the
Occupation. This means a historian must always bare in mind the reason and the
purpose of each book. Were the books written to glorify the acts of local, poverty
struck resisters. For a book to be successful after the war and to be distinguished from
the others was it necessary to be action packed and full of outrageously dangerous
feats of bravery against the tyrannical regime of the Germans? Which after all is the
32
Consult Appendix for photos of the panel of Foreign Involvement.
33
Julian Jackson, France 1940-45 The Dark Years. Page 16.
34
www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/worldwartwo.html
35
E.H Cookridge, Inside S.O.E, The Story Of Special Operations In Western Europe 1940-45,
Published 1966, Arther Barker LTD Page 3.
14
main theme of the majority of books. For this essay it was essential to go to museums
such as le Musée de la Résistance, and The Imperial War Museum, and to have
studied documents the general public would not normally see, from the National
Archives.
Throughout the past fifty years historians have been taking different views on
analysing Vichy France. Directly after the war two major interpretations began to
immerge, the Gaullist and the communist. It was October 1944 when de Gaulle
created the Comité d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale36; this served the
purpose of publishing the first scholarly articles on the period. It was done by vast
numbers of secondary school teachers conducting interviews with resisters in their
local communities. The work was subsumed into the Institut d’histoire du temps
présent, a institute totally devoted to the study contemporary history. With this
document comes many problems, firstly we know that there was more than one group
of resisters, however the document mainly focuses on the Gaullists sector.
Immediately we can now see a weakness in the document failing to study and
recognise the acts of the other resisters and secondly it was done orally, making it
prone to impurities, the reason for this can be explained that oral history is personal
which means it could be more biased and subjective, rather than representative and
the power of retrospection cannot be forgotten. However there is a benefit in oral
History, a vast majority of it was done to study the resistance, and it opened up
chances for historians to hear first hand eyewitness evidence.
The vexed question on the communist participation in the resistance is

resolved in many different manners. The Gaullist consensus was rejected by the
communists, who of course declared that it was they who had the predominant role in
the resistance.(Note Institute Maurice Thorez, Le parti français communiste dans la
résistance, (1967)) The start of the Cold War again was another imposing factor
against the role of the communists in the war. The Cold War created intense levels of
anti-communism, which meant that those of the non-communists drowned the
communist voices out.
36
Julian Jackson, France 1940-45 The Dark Years, Page 24.
15
Another aspect of resistance memoirs was that a large majority were written in
London, by de Gaulle’s Free French, from this a very different picture began to
emerge whether the writer was based in France or London. However The Resistance
in Vichy France, written in 1978 by Roderick Kedward, an Englishman, we see a new
form of analysing the resistance, it studied the individual and their motivations rather
than the study of the individual in the structure of an organisation. This was vital, it
separated the entity from an organisation, E.H Carr the historian states that history
used to be ‘the biography of great men’ and it is vital to study the individual in history
and not just society. This can be related to the resistance, in order to truly understand
the men and women who confronted the Germans during the occupation we must
study each and every one of them, in order to gain true knowledge.
16
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are plentiful arguments for the contribution of the Special
Operations Executive in collaborating France. Their input of organisational tactics,
equipment and radio skills, were all of inestimable value. There can be no definite
answer depicting their involvement because the evidence we are given hinders us as
shown in my methodology. One factor we know that contributed to the distribution of
the SOE was the Anglo- French relations of which I noticed from my research in the
National Archives, the placement of the SOE was not only to gather groups of
resistance but to maintain a close eye on the communist party and ensure that de
Gaulle did not become a power quenching leader.
The role of the indigenous resistance was the key to the successes and failures
of the SOE. Without the local paysans the organisation would not have worked, this
has become evident through my research in the Imperial War museum, where it was
obvious the SOE members were completely reliant on the knowledge and skills of the
native resistance.
17
Bibliography
Bruneau. F. ‘Essai d’historique du mouvement né autour du journal clandestine
Résistance’ Published 1951, RHDGM
Buckmaster. M. They Fought Alone, Published 1958, Odhams Press
Cookridge. E.H. Inside S.O.E, The Story Of Special Operations In Western Europe
1940-45, Published 1966, Arther Barker LTD.
Foot. M.R.D. Resistance, European Resistance to Nazism 1940-5, Published 1976

By Eyre Methevn 1976
Foot. M.R.D. S.O.E, 1940-46, Published 1984,University Of Publications USA inc.
Kedward. R. The Resistance in Vichy France, Published 1978, Military Paperbacks
Nicholas. E. Death Be Not Proud, Published 1958, Cresset Press
Ousby. I. Occupation- The Ordeal Of France. 1940-44, Published 1997, Cambridge

Press
Michel. H. ‘le comité d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale’, Published 1981,

RHDGM, 2-7
Millar. G. ‘Maquis’ ,Published 1945, 2003 Cassel Military Paperbacks.
Norwick. P. The Resistance Versus Vichy, Published 1968, Chatto And Windos Press
Schoenbrun. D. Soldiers Of The Night, Story Of The French Resistance, Published

1980, Ribert Hole LTD.
Squadron Leader Escott., B . Mission Improbable, A Salute to the RAF, Women of

the SOE in Wartime France, Published 1991, Patrick Stephens
Websites
WWW.SPARTACUS-SCHOOLNET.CO.UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/starr_george.shtml
www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/worldwartwo/SOE_01.html
www.polandinexile.com/exile8.htm
www.edenbridgetowen.com/in_the_past/SOE_story/heroesoffrance.html
www.64_baker_street.org/main/index.html
18
www.imperialwarmusuem.co.uk
19
Appendix
National Archives, -Catalogue reference HS/8/899, Image
reference:158
20
21
22
National Archives- Catalogue Reference:HS/8/897 Image Reference:152
23
Photo’s from the trips to the ‘Musée Departemental de la Résistance et de la Déportation’
24
25
26
27
28
These are photos taken by the author from the Museum Of Resistance and Deportation.
29
30

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Edward Ritchie Extended Essay

Candidate Number -1203016 International School Of Toulouse

Special Operations Executive

The Contribution To The French Resistance By The Special

THE CONTENTS PAGE ........................................................................................... 3

THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE........................................................ 7

This essay seeks to evaluate the significance of the involvement of The

The Special Operations Executive

The Role of the Indigenous resistance

The vexed question on the communist participation in the resistance is

Buckmaster. M. They Fought Alone, Published 1958, Odhams Press

Foot. M.R.D. Resistance, European Resistance to Nazism 1940-5, Published 1976

Foot. M.R.D. S.O.E, 1940-46, Published 1984,University Of Publications USA inc.

Kedward. R. The Resistance in Vichy France, Published 1978, Military Paperbacks

Nicholas. E. Death Be Not Proud, Published 1958, Cresset Press

Ousby. I. Occupation- The Ordeal Of France. 1940-44, Published 1997, Cambridge

Michel. H. ‘le comité d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale’, Published 1981,

Millar. G. ‘Maquis’ ,Published 1945, 2003 Cassel Military Paperbacks.

Schoenbrun. D. Soldiers Of The Night, Story Of The French Resistance, Published

Squadron Leader Escott., B . Mission Improbable, A Salute to the RAF, Women of

National Archives- Catalogue Reference:HS/8/897 Image Reference:152

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