81 Comments

1. RWE:

Leo Marks’ book “Between Silk and Cyanide” is a remarkable work that tells of his code work with the SOE. Among the more outlandish adventures he had was accidentally dropping his pants in front of the main hotel in Cairo to keep from dropping either his new hat or his classified briefcase. And standing on the balcony above, delighted with the presentation and calling for an encore was none other than Jack Benny. THE Jack Benny. This event did result in him enjoying an extended conversation with Jack in the hotel bar later.

One of the more interesting tactics used by the French authorities in occupied France was to arrest Resistance members that had been IDed by the Germans, using some trumped up charge – stealing chickens or bicycles or some such – and toss them in jail. The Germans never thought of looking for suspected resistance people in jail. I suppose this was a win-win for the French authorities. If the Germans ever did figure out how the resistance members has disappeared then they could always say they had already caught them. On the other hand, they could claim they kept them out of German hands.

This did lead to the need for an RAF raid on the Amins prison prior to Overlord in order to free the resistance members and Allied agents held there. And of course, they also let a bunch of common criminals loose, some of which were not adverse to using their talents in support of the war effort. One American agent who escaped from the prison even teamed up with a French thief to go downtown, kill the guard at the Gestapo HQ and burn the place down – along with the records on who they were looking for. These two later stole a German motorcycle and uniforms to make their escape.

Jun 6, 2009 - 5:05 pm 2. wretchard:

I found “Between Silk and Cyanide” in a local library some five years ago. Marks writes in a breezy style except when he gets to Yeo-Thomas, the White Rabbit. I don’t have the book to hand now, but have a distinct memory of how Marks was shocked at Yeo-Thomas’ appearance. It’s hard to imagine what the White Rabbit endured.

In February 1944, Yeo-Thomas was parachuted into France after flying from RAF Tempsford. However, he was betrayed and captured at the Passy metro station in Paris. He was then taken by the Gestapo to their headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch and subjected to brutal torture, including repeated submersion in ice-cold water (each time to the point that artificial respiration was required to bring him back to consciousness), water-boarding, innumerable physical beatings, and electric shocks applied to the genitals. Held in Fresnes prison, he made two failed attempts to escape and was transferred first to Compiègne prison and then to Buchenwald concentration camp. Within the camp, he began to organize resistance, and again made a brief escape. On his recapture, he passed himself off as a French national and was sent to a camp near Marienburg (see citation below for more details).

While at Buchenwald, Yeo-Thomas met Squadron leader Phil Lamason, the officer in charge of 168 Allied airmen being held there. At great risk, Yeo-Thomas assisted Lamason in getting word out of camp to the German Luftwaffe of the airmen’s captivity, knowing that the Luftwaffe would be sympathetic to their situation.

The George Crosses (which are the equivalent of the Victoria Cross awarded to non-uniformed personnel) awarded to Szabo and Khan are a testimony to how hard it is not to break under torture. It is breezily claimed that “torture never works”. That’s not true. It never works if you are Violette Szabo, Noor Inayat Khan or Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas, GC, MC & Bar, Croix de Guerre (with palms), Commandeur of the Légion d’Honneur.

Jun 6, 2009 - 5:16 pm 3. Tony:

Thanks for this post, Wretchard. It’s a perfect day to remember heroes, and uplifting to show us what “real men” are capable of, be they male or female.

Jun 6, 2009 - 5:23 pm 4. PA Cat:

Good to know that Joan of Arc has so many worthy successors.

Jun 6, 2009 - 5:29 pm 5. buddy larsen:

Wonderful post, wretchard. The earlier version had kept me awake nights for some time, and this later version is even stronger. Such people, such people.

Jun 6, 2009 - 6:41 pm 6. Marie Claude:

François Marcot, Dictionnaire historique de la Résistance

“Ce que nous tenions avant tout à montrer c’est la complexité de la situation. On n’a pas d’un côté les résistants, de l’autre les collaborateurs et enfin une masse d’attentistes. Le passage de l’état de non résistant à l’état de résistant est quelque chose de très compliqué. Des liens de solidarité, nombreux, essentiels se nouent avec la population, sans lesquels les résistants ne peuvent pas survivre.”

http://www.fndirp.asso.fr/francois%20marcot.htm

35 000 french men and women resistants killed

Jun 6, 2009 - 6:59 pm 7. Marie Claude:

“le nombre de déportés pour faits de Résistance est estimé à environ
57.000 ; parmi ces déportés, le nombre des morts s’établirait entre 18.000 et 20.000″

http://stanford.edu/dept/france-stanford/Conferences/Terror/Piketty.pdf

Jun 6, 2009 - 7:04 pm 8. Marie Claude:

Otherwise there was a concurrence between the resistance channels, the french ones had a lower support from the US/UK governments than those set by the Brits. Often they were poor armed. At this time, there wasn’t any other source of finances and of arms than the US/UK’s.
That becuz de Gaulle wasn’t Roosvelt/Churchill choice, they would have preferred the vychist Giraud

Jun 6, 2009 - 7:10 pm 9. RWE:

One of the more shocking aspects of Leo Marks book was that he discovered that the Allied agent network in the Netherlands, I believe, had been totally penetrated and compromised by the Germans. But being only a codemaker, no one would pay attention to him (That’s the way it is in the military, if you are not in the job you can’t possibly know anything about it).

Aside from some other clues he uncovered, there was the fact that one night one of the agents closed his transmission by sending the letters “HH” – for Heil Hitler – a German Morse code practice. Marks figured that the agent had tried to indicate that he was under German control with that ending, one that the Germans would not notice, since it seemed so common to them. So on one transmission he had the operator in Great Britain send HH at the end, and sure enough, the agent replied the same way. That settled it for Marks, but he was not supposed to be doing that kind of thing, and no one believed him.

I found it interesting that there was so much competition between the various “secret” agencies and resistance groups for resources. The White Rabbit constantly begged for more supplies for “his” people. One would have thought there were mountains of Stens and explosives available by that time. But of course, transport of the supplies to the groups on the continent was not trivial.

Jun 6, 2009 - 7:27 pm 10. Lifeofthemind:

There must be a short story or a poem by Cavafy in which the protagonist goes to visit a country house or a nations capital, some seat of ancient power. He runs in his mind over the giants that have walked the corridors, their dignity and courage and learning and sacrifice. He hopes that he will be found worthy to join their company in any capacity, no matter how small. Upon arrival he enters and admires the gleaming columns, the echoing chambers and the carved quotations of wisdom but all seems empty. Eventually he pushes open a huge bronze door and finds, the likes of Olberman and Franks and Obama.

Jun 6, 2009 - 7:44 pm 11. wretchard:

There must be a short story or a poem by Cavafy in which the protagonist goes to visit a country house or a nations capital, some seat of ancient power. He runs in his mind over the giants that have walked the corridors, their dignity and courage and learning and sacrifice. He hopes that he will be found worthy to join their company in any capacity, no matter how small. Upon arrival he enters and admires the gleaming columns, the echoing chambers and the carved quotations of wisdom but all seems empty. Eventually he pushes open a huge bronze door and finds, the likes of Olberman and Franks and Obama.

There is such a story, but the protagonist doesn’t run into Olbermann, but Gaznak. Wonderful from a stylistic point of view.

Jun 6, 2009 - 8:14 pm 12. dymphna:

Wretchard, do you know if there is a collection of code poems? The Baron’s dad was in the code part of the war effort, and during the Cold War later. Doing what, we have no idea…

However, I’d love to know if anyone collected these poems. I notice from your link that the one you quoted is listed as #89 (favorite) out of the 500 poems.

Meanwhile, for my D-Day remembrance post I closed with the lyrics to a song by HammerFall, titled “Glory to the Brave”

“Down on bended knee I pray, bring courage to these souls
Make them live forever in the heart of the bold
So I say farewell, my friends,
I hope we’ll meet again
When time has come to fall from grace

So this is goodbye, I take leave of you
Spread your wings and you will fly away now

Nothing on earth stays forever
But none of your deeds were in vain
Deep in our hearts you will live again
You’re gone to the home of the brave.”
____

Of the 500,000 or so of those who participated in Operation Overlord, Stars and Stripes says there are about 62,000 or so left. Given that the youngest are in their mid-eighties, June 6th will soon pass from living memory.

Considering the jostling for position and the petty frictions at this year’s ceremonies, one realizes that politicians do not belong behind the lectern on Ohama Beach — not unless they were there at the first one.

How much more fitting it would have been to hear General Petraeus there. And how much more welcome he would have been to the remaining old soldiers. I doubt many of them have much use for Obama Beach & Co.

It is beyond disgusting that the Queen of England was not invited to attend. What a petty group of poseurs we have chosen as our leaders.

Jun 6, 2009 - 8:24 pm 13. buddy larsen:

Re finding Olbermann, Franks, et al, it’s usually good to stop the examination of the giants at the close of the tale of their deeds. Even the story of the martyred women agents, digging around the net one finds that several may have been deliberately set up by their London handlers, in order to get a British radio into Gestapo hands, from whence disinformation re the upcoming invasion of Sicily could be released. Feh. I choose to disbelieve this.

Jun 6, 2009 - 8:27 pm 14. wretchard:

Dymphna,

Leo Marks is said to have written 500 code poems, all lost. “Leo Marks wrote some 500 poems to be used as code cyphers, and kept them in a ‘ditty box’ – which he regrets disappeared.” But the Life that I have” is apparently special. It was written for Leo Marks’ fiancée, who died in a plane crash. After he became involved in the SOE, he gave it to Violette Szabo to use as a code poem because she found the one she had been given too hard to remember. The other poems may have simply been aids to encyphermen. But Violette carried the most precious thing that Leo Marks had into battle.

Jun 6, 2009 - 8:33 pm 15. buddy larsen:

Dymphna, yes, to me too, there was something “off” about today’s dignitary’s performances –tho the words of the speeches, for the record as they were, were good, and far better than nothing at all. I just couldn’t shake the feeling the our president in truth could’ve hardly cared less. Maybe that’s just me, tho, in my gnarled dessicated state of being.

Jun 6, 2009 - 8:35 pm 16. dymphna:

Well, just don’t let that desert wind blow your dessicated self away, Buddy.

I concur with you intuition that our president wasn’t thrilled to be there. However, he does seem to enjoy poking Sarkozy, Brown, Market, et al while in Europe. To what end, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s just the “I won” syndrome at work again.

I’m hoping that the very competitive David Petraeus will decide to run against him in 2012…P gave a good leasdership speech at Harvard, where he commissioned the 6 or 7 ROTC graduates of this year’s class. Those guys had to go across the river to MIT for all their training since Harvard still doesn’t permit ROTC on the campus.

Buncha over-educated maroons.

Back when the current incarnation of Harvard’s president took office, the Harvard Crimson hoped she’d remove this stumbling block:

“Students wishing to serve their country by becoming military officers can join the unit at MIT. There are actually more Harvard cadets than MIT cadets there. But ROTC may not meet officially at Harvard, and the costs MIT incurs on Harvard’s behalf are paid not by Harvard but by alumni volunteers.

Harvard denies these modest forms of support in the name of the important principle of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. No Harvard money may support any organization that excludes homosexuals—even the US armed forces, which protect the freedoms we have to debate this dilemma. And so MIT gives our students the opportunity to defend us, while giving Harvard the opportunity to feel morally pure.

But can we achieve moral purity for ourselves in one area by shifting a separate moral burden to other shoulders?”

Harvard morally pure?? My word.
____________

BTW,the son of the editor of the Weekly Standard (Bill Kristol) was among the ROTC grads. I’ll bet he’s a proud papa.

Jun 6, 2009 - 9:45 pm 17. whiskey:

The problem with SOE and the OSS is that they consistently underestimated the vast degree of collaboration and popular support the Nazis had.

Pretty much most of the attractive women of France at the time were the official or unofficial mistresses of German soldiers, Gestapo officers, or other Occupation officials. The situation was no different in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Poland, and so on.

One of the reasons the female operatives of the SOE stood out, is that they were not like the other women: mistresses of the Germans. Nearly all economic activity depended on the Germans, Germans and German officials decided who won or lost in life, and so everyone without exception collaborated. Resitance was a pretty lie that people told themselves, it did not exist except for the D-Day invasion and the Soviet Soldiers on the Eastern Front and Anzio, Sicily, and El Alamein.

The whole operation was stupid and doomed from the start, mostly out of outdated ideas about people.

Jun 6, 2009 - 9:59 pm 18. Robohobo:

Ken Follett wrote a great book on the women of the resistance and the female spies that moved into and out of the continent during that time called “Jackdaws”. It is a great read.

I did not catch the D-Day ceremonies but I am sure we can trust D’s and Buddy’s sense of the events. My sense of The 0bamanation is that of a five year old, if it ain’t about him, he is not interested. It is truly sad that we have come to this pass in this nation.

Jun 6, 2009 - 10:23 pm 19. wretchard:

I think what happened in the underground is lost to history. We don’t really know for sure, for example, where some of the individual agents died. This is an account of some of Vera Atkin’s investigations in the chaos of postwar Europe. Undergrounds are labyrinths of secrets. They are endless corridors of betrayals. Even the stories of concentration camp survivors are tinged by uncertainty about what the survivors had to to in order to remain alive. Some readers are doubtless familiar with the story of the plane crash in the Andes where certain of the passengers subsisted by eating the dead and made a pact to keep the secret. Imagine if you will, being a child of a family in a camp and each of you is given a piece of bread. Your father gives you his piece, and you as a child take it because you are hungry, even though you half understand that your father is dying in your place. Even survival became a means of torture for the Nazis. That was the “Sophie’s Choice” you were offered.

I seriously doubt that the weaknesses of the French underground can be explained by the monopolization of pretty girls by the Nazis. It’s more complex than that I believe. The Nazis had collaborators. They could use the police network of criminal informers. They had index-card databases, signals intelligence and torturers. Moreover the underground was divided. Political groups which hated each other before the war were thrown together, none too happily, to make common cause against Le Boche. Often they may have seen the Nazis as a way of settling scores and betrayal as an expedient means.

Many, perhaps most undergrounds, are largely exercises in futility. By themselves they are rarely enough to bring down something so fierce as a Nazi occupation. Their function is to keep resistance alive. You fight because you can’t surrender. Any honest underground veteran will probably say that without D-Day it would have been a lost cause. And that’s what makes the life of people like Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan so moving. They made a tremendous leap of faith in the promises of their civilization. Wherever the SOE agents may have died is really unimportant. The victory they won and the peace they bequeathed is yours, and yours, and yours.

Jun 6, 2009 - 10:28 pm 20. Tcobb:

Such people were heroes. Such people exist today–but they will go unrecorded into history. What passes for heroes today are the shallow ones who put forth the outward image when nothing of substance lies within. The politician or actor with their private jets who insist that everyone else ride bicycles to save the planet, this is what passes for the heroes of the day.
And is it any wonder? The politicians of the day are themselves mostly actors, and what is an actor other than somebody who puts on the outward appearance of somebody who he pretends to be, but is not?

Jun 6, 2009 - 10:52 pm 21. Wadeusaf:

Twenty two and twenty three year old men and women, putting their all on the line. It was true then on Omaha Beach and countless other places where freemen fought to retain their freedom and it is true today in Iraq and Afghanistan and even in Lebanon. What passion, what commitment, what sacrifice for them was not so great that we have the chance to live in peace.

They earned yours and yours and mine. But every generation must earn it anew.

Jun 7, 2009 - 5:02 am 22. wretchard:

I should of course have mentioned Nancy Wake, The White Mouse, who is still alive today in Australia. Her career, was if anything more illustrious than either Szabo’s or Noor Inayat Khan’s.

By 1943, she was the Gestapo’s most-wanted person, with a 5 million-franc price on her head. When the network was betrayed in December 1943, she had to flee Marseille. Her husband Henri stayed behind where later, unknown to Nancy, he would be captured, tortured and executed by the Germans.[1] Nancy had been arrested in Toulouse, but was released four days later. Her sixth attempt to cross the Pyrenees to Spain succeeded. She went to Britain and joined the Special Operations Executive.

On the night of 29–30 April 1944, Wake parachuted into the Auvergne and became a liaison between London and the local maquis group headed by Captain Henri Tardivat. She coordinated resistance activity prior to the Normandy Invasion and recruited more members. She also led attacks on German installations and local Gestapo HQ in Montluçon.

From April 1944 to the complete liberation of France, her 7000 maquisards fought 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1400 casualties. Her French companions, especially Henri Tardivat, praised her fighting spirit; amply demonstrated when she killed an SS sentry with her bare hands to prevent him raising the alarm during a raid. During a 1990s television interview, when asked what had happened to the sentry who spotted her, Wake simply drew her finger across her throat. On another occasion, in order to replace codes her wireless operator had been forced to destroy in a German raid, Nancy Wake rode a bicycle for more than 100 miles through several German checkpoints.

A picture of her taken at 91 shows what she looked like as an elderly lady and as a young woman in 1932. She lived large and finally ran out of money in her old age. When PM John Howard heard she was broke, the government announced it would pay her living expenses to the end of her days.

Ms. Wake holds the Companion of the Order of Australia, the George Medal, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Croix de guerre (France), Medal of Freedom (United States) and the RSA Badge in Gold (New Zealand).

Jun 7, 2009 - 5:11 am 23. RWE:

The most remarkable book I have read on WWII covert ops is an old one, Of Spies and Stratagems, by the head of the OSS technical division. It describes some fascinating weapons development efforts but the most incredible part was a brief description of a double agent.

In 1942 a German spy in Britain came to the British and offered to work as a double agent if they would reward him with a knightship after the war. The British agreed and came up with what they thought was a clever way to feed data to the Germans. They would provide accurate data but do so just a little too late to do the Germans any real good. This backfired early.

In 1942 the British planned a large commando raid on Dieppe. They had the double agent send warning of the raid, saying it would happen in three days, when in reality it would happen the next morning. But bad weather delayed the commando forces and they ended up arriving on the day the agent had told them, and since the forces were already at sea and shrouded in dense fog, under radio silence, there was no way to warn them. The commandos were badly beaten; the Germans had so much time to prepare they even set up movie cameras to film the defeat of the landing forces.

Some in Britain pushed to have the double agent operation aborted, but instead the effort persisted, using the same approach. Then, in June of 1944 they sprung the trap. The highly trusted agent, who had never led the Germans astray and had been responsible for the warning at Dieppe, insisted that the landings in Normandy were but a feint; the real invasion was to be at the obvious target, Calais. By the time the Germans realized the truth it was too late. The disaster at Dieppe had helped to ensure the success at Normandy. And by the way, they never caught on to the fact the agent had been turned; he continued to send info and receive awards from the Germans right up to the end of the war.

Pres Obama called the invasion at Normandy “Improbable.” A pretty turn of phrase, but he is a complete fool if he thinks that. Years of effort, both massive and subtle, led to that triumph. Perhaps what is improbable is that modern day politicians could have anything like the vision and staying power required.

Jun 7, 2009 - 5:50 am 24. buddy larsen:

That was the word that bothered me, too, RWE. It so conforms to “things just happen” as the shrug-off of the work of assembling real knowledge. As if one bright June morning in 1944, some generals and stuff just popped up and said “Hey, let’s invade France, why don’t we?”

Jun 7, 2009 - 6:50 am 25. RWE:

Buddy: That’s good way to put it.

For some time now I have observed that so many people today seem to subscribe to the “era” theory: Stuff happens because it’s the right time, rather than human-driven events creating an era.

I guess this tromps down alternative ideas by means of a teenage-style “Oh’ that’s so yesterday!” substitute for reasoning. And is that not what we are doing now? In the Obama Era everything will change just because of the Era, not because nuclear weapons become obsolete or failed socialist schemes suddenly start to work.

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:00 am 26. 2ipa:

#23 RWE: “Pres Obama called the invasion at Normandy “Improbable.” A pretty turn of phrase, but he is a complete fool if he thinks that. Years of effort, both massive and subtle, led to that triumph. Perhaps what is improbable is that modern day politicians could have anything like the vision and staying power required.”

Exactly. More likely “inevitable”. This complete fool frequently demonstrates that he was no student of history.

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:04 am 27. Sgt. Mom:

Oh, to read this … after reading the entry farther down about the socially-prominent State Department officer and his wife, who were long-time Cuban spies … it is to weep, thinking of the courage of men and women like Marks, Szabo, Wake and Khan, sixty years ago.

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:10 am 28. buddy larsen:

Nice remarks on RR’s “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” D-Day speech.

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:12 am 29. Barry 0351:

They gave their future so we could have our today.
OOhraaaa Violette Szabo
They do not make women like her anymore.

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:46 am 30. Marie Claude:

“Pretty much most of the attractive women of France at the time were the official or unofficial mistresses of German soldiers, Gestapo officers, or other Occupation officials.”

it’s obsessional by yours’, I wonder that, if you attended a psychology test, it wouldn’t help you

Whiskey, that is the most stupid and ignorant thing I ever read from you, you rely only on pré-jugés, that a certain shrew anglo-saxon press like to spread on us

ok then, let’s go into your fantasy, how comes that there are no blond bastards from these times ? you know that abortion and pills were not available !

Plus, that doesn’t take in account that the “boche” was the anathemed enemi in french consciousness since a century.

The only girls that had an affair with germans were whores, “interested girls” for easy life.

French women weren’t emancipated, their fathers or husbands had authority on them, still now, to a lesser point though, but french women don’t like to hold the spotslights place, second and egery, or fairy servants are generally preferred, the pillow diplomacy is quite effective LMAO

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:25 am 31. Marie Claude:

“Resitance was a pretty lie that people told themselves”

encore une autre connerie

read the “historical dictionnary of resistance” !

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:29 am 32. buddy larsen:

You’ve got to hand it to MC, she is a tireless defender of her people.

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:44 am 33. Marie Claude:

“They are endless corridors of betrayals.”

the betrayors were “eliminated” by their comrades (ie historical dictionnary of resistance…), even if it was hard for some resistants to kill a friend with whom they went on operations in the lately days.
This was the rule when resistance was organised as a military organisation, after 1943

Betrayals happened, when Gestapo made a pression on a resistant, ie the trhreat of eliminating his family… and this wasn’t a joke !

“Any honest underground veteran will probably say that without D-Day it would have been a lost cause. ”

Resistance was a mind state, the war would have last longer (ie Algeria war, it took decennies for the FLN to become an objective force)

Resistance isn’t an anglo-saxon creation ! you only read their history through english adventures, but many french women were resistant , De Gaulle sister was sent in concentration camps too…

If the ground wasn’t fertile, the hate of the boche so alive, resistance wouldn’t have occured, but like Italy the French would have helped Hitler !

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:47 am 34. Marie Claude:

OK, the French were collaborators, the Brits were the Resistants, The Americans the warriors… this is Hollywood !!!!

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:56 am 35. RWE:

No doubt that a portion of the French women – and men – who were whooping it up with the Germans were doing it under the covers in more than one sense of the term.

For example, here is a story from the same OSS book.

A USMC officer was parachuted into France to work with the resistance. The Germans knew about him, although they had no idea what he looked like and were so impressed by his effectiveness that they named him “The Fox.” One night he was in a bar or tavern or whatever they call such places in France, drinking with various German officers in his disguise as a French collaborator. He left, changed clothes, and came back, wearing an overcoat. He had been parachuted into France wearing his USMC uniform, since if captured then, at the most hazardous point, he would have been considered a POW and not a spy. Under his overcoat he had on that uniform.

All night the Germans had been drinking toasts to Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, etc. And then the Marine stood up, took off his overcoat, pulled out his handgun, and said “And now gentlemen, we will all drink a toast to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States.” They drank the toast as the Marine stood over them with his gun, and then he left. Needless to say, the legend of The Fox increased still further.

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:21 am 36. Marie Claude:

I understand that you only relate anecdotes that confort your rightfulness, how great you were how weak we were LMAO

You don’t make history books only with anecdotes, but with all the facts !

the facts were that our resistance was more of left sympathetisans and of communists made that you don’t want to recognise them.

Our conservatives were Vichy courtisans

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:32 am 37. Jamie Irons:

Marie Claude,

I like your spirit…j’admire votre esprit!

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:37 am 38. Lifeofthemind:

Barry 0351,
Violette Szabo
They do not make women like her anymore.

I hope that you are wrong. I am still looking for one.

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:48 am 39. Marie Claude:

Life, umm, it’s becuz you don’t look for her in the right places !

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:51 am 40. buddy larsen:

MC, the enemy killed French resistance fighters at a rate of nearly 25 per day (35,000 killed in 1500 days of occupation), that is a record that requires no great leap to defend.

(and MC/39, right –she’s not in the bars, she’s in the libraries!)

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:55 am 41. NahnCee:

It’s not unknown for French history books to have different “facts” than everyone else’s histories, just as it is not unknown for French media to publish different “facts” than what everyone else in the world knows. I give you, for example, the canard that deGaulle liberated Paris all by himself, as shown by him entering the city before the Americans.

Similarly, Japan’s history books carry a totally different story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than American histories, do.

Coco Chanel was a German collaborator as was Maurice Chevalier. One left France and came to America after the war, and one was forced to “retire” for decades before she could show her face in polite society again. For me, those two instances tell me that being a “collaborator” might have been an instance of Flastaffian “discretion being the better part of valor”, that not every collaborator was a resistance spy, and probably most of the population in one way or another collaborated simply to make it through the day … just like they’re doing today with their fractious “African (Muslim) youth” that no one is willing to go up against.

Jun 7, 2009 - 10:12 am 42. Marie Claude:

ah, manquait plus que Nan’s fair contribution LMAO

what did Coco Channel that you didn’t like ? N° 5 was her collaboration in american’s dream ?

Also, that i’s why Maurice Chevalier was so welcomed in the US !
Normal that we don’t buy your self glorification of the war facts !

Roosvelt was the firt german collaborator until Churchil conviced him that a communist Europe won’t help his businesses !

Jun 7, 2009 - 10:54 am 43. RWE:

36: Marie Claude:

And the “resistance” in France to fighting the Germans in the first place when they invaded was also socialist and communist. Recall that at that point the NonAggression Pact between Germany and Hitler was still in effect.

I recall reading of one curious incident in late 1944. A flight of four RAF Tempest fighters got lost in a storm when moving up to a new base and had to land at an airbase recently abandoned by the Germans. They were met by the local Resistance, who proved to be communists and did not greet the pilots too friendly. The Resistance group wanted the pilots to execute an accused collaborator – as if the RAF had to prove its worthiness and whose side they were on! Just one of those Tempest pilots probably killed more Germans on one typical mission than that whole communist cell did in the whole war. I thought it a very strange reaction to “liberators.” In contrast, the reaction of the mayor of the local town was on the order of “Mon Dieu! It is over!” but the RAF pilots had to explain that they were in no position to accept the surrender of any local German forces, if there were any.

A little known fact is that even after the Allies proceeded into Germany there were isolated holdouts of German troops in France. In one case the French collected some Ju-88 bombers abandoned by the Luftwaffe, painted French insignia on them, and started bombing the Germans still entrenched in France.

Jun 7, 2009 - 11:08 am 44. Marie Claude:

yes for the communists, the facts also were that the anglo-saxons didn’t like them, and didn’t help them, though they were a determining organisation for guerillas fightings

Now, even though, Germany was taking all our richnesses and the population was “starving”, this was/is the first natural raison to start “resistance”

Jun 7, 2009 - 11:26 am 45. buddy larsen:

MC, The Hitler/Stalin Pact –a de facto alliance –was signed in 1939; France fell in the Spring of 1940; the Hitler/Stalin Pact was in effect until Germany invaded Russia in 1941.

So how on earth were the Allies supposed to trust the Communist resistance in France?

Jun 7, 2009 - 11:32 am 46. Marie Claude:

Buddy, in war you need fighters, they become ones of the bests. If you want to win the war they were a raison to make alliance with them. Their resistance facts, that de Gaulle understood better and endorsed them, were a proof.

Jun 7, 2009 - 12:03 pm 47. Marie Claude:

Also outside of that they were communists, they also were french patriots and humans.

Jun 7, 2009 - 12:05 pm 48. buddy larsen:

I understand, MC. We had plenty of “good” communists over here, too. Tha Abraham Lincoln Brigade had a good share –many of our 30s artist/literary luminaries. “Men (and women) of the Left” –real champions of the ‘little guy’ and the downtrodden, the forgotten, the needy.

Not at all, nowhere near, Red Fascists like Stalin & crew.

However, there was this continuum thingie, this blurry fog that accrued (and still does) anticapitalism to pro slavery-ism.

Jun 7, 2009 - 12:56 pm 49. RWE:

It would be interesting to see if the communist resistance movements in France started in earnest after the fall of France or after the invasion of the USSR a year later.

In Denmark, for example, the resistance did not really get started until the Germans ordered all the Jewish people to be rounded up and sent to the camps. Then they staged a very effective rescue of their Jews and never stopped resisting the Germans until the end of the war.

I really suspect that the communists in France welcomed the German invasion as a means of breaking down French society so that they could take over. After all, the Nazis were friends with the communists in May of 1940 and National Socialism was just another version of communism when you came down to it. And of course the French communists already had an effective cell structure and thus were already organized for resistance.

In May of 1944 the man who would become the editor of Le Monde said that the Americans were a bigger threat to French culture than the Germans. So today the McDonalds in those French villages are more despised than the Panzers that used to sit there?

Jun 7, 2009 - 2:31 pm 50. Marie Claude:

RWE you like to simplify, it’s not that simple, I doubt that a French, be it a communist, would have like to bow under a foreign government, even under a soviet one ; yes, they expected the green light from Stalin to fight, and that their agendas were to get the power, but they would rather have become some autonomus Tito’s ; Hitler was no friend in stalin eyes, just a calculated alliance aimed to give him time to his army ready. I remember that, in Germany, the communists were sent to camps, already in 1938, or they had to accept the vacation in the army, who cared of your political obedience in front of guns !

Now I don’t mean that a communist regime would have been the solution for us, only that they weren’t a insignificant force, and in the context of urgency, one had to use them, De Gaulle made it, but one need to be as a clever and political chief like him to not be overwhelmed by them.

The only persons that welcomed the Germans were the conservatives, that were scared by the lefty unions and the moral disorder of the intellectuals.

It’s funny that some Petain regime mottos on morals are exactly the sames that I have noticed that the american conservatives claim on american conservative sites

” So today the McDonalds in those French villages are more despised than the Panzers that used to sit there?”

Come on, you can’t be serious, it’s not because José Bové broke one MacDo, that that it’s the rule, umm I don’t blame him for that though ! (the poor, he’s got a blank jacket for the european elections)

Now, stop whinning with this threat, the german tanks weren’t welcome too, and you have to learn french language to read the real facts, and not their interpretations on english biased papers, that never perdonned us to have them kicked out ! still till mid 19th century, they claimed for french territories ! and the actual queen of England has quite a big deal with them, since she is the land owner in France that perceives the biggest part of the euro agricultural subventions !

Jun 7, 2009 - 3:09 pm 51. Marie Claude:

Buddy, don’t you know, our communists are metro-sexuals, therefore not scaring ! theyare down the hole of the elections too !

Jun 7, 2009 - 3:14 pm 52. exhelodrvr:

A number of nations had strong pro-Nazi and/or anti-Communist elements – the Ukraine for example, where they saw the Nazi invasion as a chance to get rid of the Communists (can’t say I blame them, the Communists were arguably worse than the Nazis).

There was a lot of support for the Nazi movement in Great Britain in the 30s, and don’t forget that Hitler was the Time Man of the Year in 1939. And that was AFTER the Anschluss and the fall of Czechoslovakia. So a lot of people didn’t see things clearly.

Jun 7, 2009 - 4:10 pm 53. buddy larsen:

Pre-war nazis had some pretty good PR –major greenies –all that Maypole and frolicing maidens stuff. Ein volk –nature –no zigaretten der schmokenen –clean & orderly –autobahns –cured (seemingly) inflation & unemployment (tho yields on Germany’s Keynesian debt had hockey-sticked in the months before Poland invasion –s’why they had to advance the war plan a few years –and go ahead and bust up the system before it smeared Der Miracle).

Jun 7, 2009 - 7:54 pm 54. Marie Claude:

“Le 6 juin 1944, une seule unité noire participe au Débarquement : le 320 ème Barrage Balloon Battalion. Ce sont eux qui vont installer, sur Omaha Beach, un barrage de ballon destiné à empêcher les attaques de l’aviation ennemie à basse altitude”…

Il faudra attendre que la situation se dégrade sérieusement, durant “l’offensive allemande des Ardennes fin 1944, pour que des Noirs soient autorisés à s’illustrer au combat. Il s’agit en particulier de bataillons d’artillerie et de chasseurs de chars (Tank destroyers). Plus tard, lors de l’entrée des Américains en Autriche, c’est un bataillon de chars (761ème Tank Bataillon) qui est à l’avant-garde. Pour éviter qu’ils n’entrent en contact avec l’armée soviétique avant les Blancs, le commandement ordonne l’arrêt des livraisons de carburant. Las ! Les tankistes en dérobent et arrivent les premiers au contact de l’armée rouge… ce qui sera soigneusement passé sous silence.”

http://secretdefense.blogs.liberation.fr/defense/

bizarre, we never heard of that !

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:24 pm 55. Marie Claude:

Obama à Omaha : en 44, l’armée américaine était raciste

“L’armée américaine qui débarque en France est une armée raciste et ségrégationniste. Les Noirs y occupent, légalement, une position inférieure à celles des Blancs. Ils servent au sein d’unités spécifiques, affectées essentiellement à des tâches de soutien. S’ils représentent 8,7% des effectifs militaires, ils sont à peine 3% des troupes combattantes. Sans remonter à la guerre de Sécession, « la situation des Noirs était pire dans l’armée américaine en 1941-45 que pendant la Grande Guerre, durant laquelle deux divisions purement noires ont servi en première ligne », assure l’historien Yves Buffetaut, dans un dossier du magazine « Batailles » (1). Cette ségrégation durera, sur la plan juridique, jusqu’en 1948 et ne disparaitra dans les faits qu’à l’époque de la guerre du Vietnam (1965-72).
Le 6 juin 1944, une seule unité noire participe au Débarquement : le 320 ème Barrage Balloon Battalion. Ce sont eux qui vont installer, sur Omaha Beach, un barrage de ballon destiné à empêcher les attaques de l’aviation ennemie à basse altitude. Dans les jours et les semaines qui suivent, d’autres Noirs débarquent en Normandie : ils sont essentiellement chauffeurs de poids lourds, conducteurs d’engins amphibies ou dockers. Aucune unité noire n’est alors engagée dans les combats.
Il faudra attendre que la situation se dégrade sérieusement, durant l’offensive allemande des Ardennes fin 1944, pour que des Noirs soient autorisés à s’illustrer au combat. Il s’agit en particulier de bataillons d’artillerie et de chasseurs de chars (Tank destroyers). Plus tard, lors de l’entrée des Américains en Autriche, c’est un bataillon de chars (761ème Tank Bataillon) qui est à l’avant-garde. Pour éviter qu’ils n’entrent en contact avec l’armée soviétique avant les Blancs, le commandement ordonne l’arrêt des livraisons de carburant. Las ! Les tankistes en dérobent et arrivent les premiers au contact de l’armée rouge… ce qui sera soigneusement passé sous silence. L’aviation américaine comptera également quelques unités noires, surnommées « Tuskegee Airman ». Le 332ème Fighter Group, là encore uniquement noir, sera engagé sur le théâtre méditerranéen, notamment en Italie, où il obtiendra des résultats impressionnants.
La médaille a son revers: de nombreux Noirs seront impliqués dans des affaires criminelles contre les populations civiles. En France, il y eut ainsi 86 condamnations pour viols et plus de 80% des condamnés étaient des Noirs. Cette « Face cachée des GI’s » a été étudiée par l’universitaire américain Robert J. Lilly, qui décrit la partialité de la justice militaire en défaveur des Noirs. Une historienne, Alice Kaplan, s’est penché sur le cas du soldat Hendricks, condamné à mort pour le meurtre d’un paysan breton durant l’été 44. Elle démonte (2) à son tour les mécanismes mentaux d’une armée raciste, venue en Europe pour combattre les nazis.

J.-D. Merchet.

(1) Batailles n°34. Mai-juin 2009 « La tragédie des GI’s noirs ».
(2) Alice Kaplan « L’interprète » (Gallimard 2007)

umm, bizarre that isn’t in your papers !

Jun 7, 2009 - 8:28 pm 56. buddy larsen:

umm, bizarre that isn’t in your papers!

Um, sorry, MC –hate to narfle that narrative, but that sort of rant is not only in our papers, in many of our papers it’s a permanent, regular feature. Do a search –

BTW, the US military was integrated in the 19th century, and was then segregated by the Father of Progressivism, President Woodrow Wilson.

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:17 pm 57. buddy larsen:

A Frenchman in the summer of 1944 picking on the US Army on account of its segregated units, is akin to a starving person complaining to whoever finally gives him bread that he’d prefer a croissant.

Jun 7, 2009 - 9:55 pm 58. Marie Claude:

better they had chewing-gums !

Jun 7, 2009 - 10:39 pm 59. buddy larsen:

…and Lucky Strikes!

Jun 8, 2009 - 6:14 am 60. RWE:

Marie Claude:

I have monopolized this discussion far too much, largely because of the interesting and controversial things you have had to say. But there is something you have to realize.

It’s a big, nasty world. France is not big and seems to have forgotten what nasty is. This is true for all of Western Europe. There are no big countries in Western Europe; the whole place would fit into what some call Flyover Country in the USA. Most of it would fit inside of Texas.

As a great writer who died during the invasion of Iraq, Michael Kelly, put it, the choice is between a jackboot stamping on the face of the human race forever and a great clumsy oaf who blunders about, infuriating everyone with his apparent arrogance and seemingly unsophisticated ways. Think The Incredible Hulk rather than Superman in terms of the USA. But sometimes, indeed, usually, the great clumsy oaf is the only game in town.

The choice France must make is between the Panzers and the McDonalds. You tried the Panzer franchises and it was not popular. Replacing McDonalds with an imaginary local French bistro option means in reality that you have selected the Panzer option.

Jun 8, 2009 - 6:24 am 61. no mo uro:

RWE #59

Enlightenment ideals inform you. You are correct that most choices in life ARE black and white, not myriad shades of gray.

It is a myth of the left that the opposite is the case.

Sometimes there just isn’t a third way. But for some folks, merely admitting that is world-shattering.

Jun 8, 2009 - 7:44 am 62. buddy larsen:

RWE/59; word !

Jun 8, 2009 - 9:56 am 63. Roderick Reilly:

So hey, gang, with all your posts here, how come not one of you stopped to remark that Violette Szabo bears a striking resemblance to Ingrid Bergman?

Stop and smell the roses once in a while why dontcha?

Jun 8, 2009 - 12:05 pm 64. Roderick Reilly:

And Princess Noor was stunning, too.

Jun 8, 2009 - 12:19 pm 65. froggy:

Replacing McDonalds with an imaginary local French bistro option means in reality that you have selected the Panzer option.

no, but our identity, that is no german nor american, nor soviet, nor islam…

and Eurote voted “right” yesterday, so the weakest king isn’t on our side anymore ! I hope so !

Jun 8, 2009 - 1:10 pm 66. Marie Claude:

Violette Szabo bears a striking resemblance to Ingrid Bergman?

yes she does, spy-girls must have a nice looking

Jun 8, 2009 - 1:12 pm 67. Marie Claude:

“and Eurote voted “right” yesterday, so the weakest king isn’t on our side anymore ! I hope so !”

typo, Europe … the weakest link…

Jun 8, 2009 - 1:14 pm 68. buddy larsen:

Touche, Froggy !

Jun 8, 2009 - 2:53 pm 69. buddy larsen:

Okay, Bergman, but catch this.

Jun 8, 2009 - 2:56 pm 70. Jamie Irons:

Buddy,

That’s Hedley…Hedley Lamar!

(Apologies to the late, great Harvey Korman…)

Jamie Irons

Jun 8, 2009 - 3:54 pm 71. buddy larsen:

Jamie, i tried to find a way to work in a ref to Hedly Lamar (”…that’s Hedly !”), but couldn’t do it.

“They said it couldn’t be done
but with a smile he went right to it!

He tackled that job
that couldn’t be done!

He couldn’t do it.”

Jun 8, 2009 - 5:18 pm 72. Jamie Irons:

Buddy,

Well, don’t feel bad. I’m no Mel Brooks myself! (As is all too obvious!)

Jamie Irons

Jun 8, 2009 - 6:14 pm 73. buddy larsen:

Mel should’ve had his comic license stamped “danger” for all those guts he busted laughing at tuxedo’d Frankenstein onstage with Dr. Frankenstein Gene Wilder doing that “Puttin’ on the Ritz” duet.

Jun 8, 2009 - 6:44 pm 74. Jamie Irons:

Buddy,

I’m a rather brilliant surgeon. I could fix that hump…

Jamie Irons

Jun 8, 2009 - 8:12 pm 75. buddy larsen:

LOL –iirc, the hump was on the inimitable Marty Feldman –what he needed –in real life –was a brilliant opthalmic surgeon (or in pidgin Feldmanese, ’sturgeon’).

(remember Korman and Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett Show? Jeez –where is all that stuff now? I guess ya can’t make fun of people anymore. Too bad for people.)

Jun 8, 2009 - 8:58 pm 76. NahnCee:

“no, but our identity, that is no german nor american, nor soviet, nor islam…”

* * *

Yes. We know. It’s cheese-eating surrender monkey.

Jun 8, 2009 - 9:54 pm 77. Jamie Irons:

Korman and Conway were very funny. Tim Conway grew up in the same town I did in Ohio (Chagrin Falls) though he is about a decade and a half older. Conway most recently appeared on the hilarious 30 Rock.

Jamie Irons

Jun 8, 2009 - 9:56 pm 78. Marie Claude:

Nan chie, povre con !

Jun 8, 2009 - 9:58 pm 79. Wadeusaf:

MC,

Je comprends, the resistance of the French was not an easy matter for all Frenchmen.

As in France, the Vichy created a curious meeting of patriotism, policy and philosophy tempered by political will and later by hunger.

Not unlike Lebanon today ne c’est pas?

I am thankful for those who fought on the side of freedom, on the side of France and on the side of humanity against the Nazi, no matter their political persuasion. Each action whether or not successful, each little victory, every bloodily bought inch, adds to total value of what was accomplished.

Vive le France.

Jun 8, 2009 - 10:08 pm 80. buddy larsen:

France imho has the most musically stirring national anthem of any country. If La Marseillaise doesn’t stand you up straight for the ideals of humanity –as much as an anthem can –then you have no heart. Also, a high point in “Casablanca”!

Jun 9, 2009 - 12:23 am 81. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn:

Then there’s this:

A couple of SOE boys tortured and their bodies thrown in the ovens at Buchenwald.

A little light reading for contrast.

http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/

Buddy, you being in west Texas there must be horses close at hand. Wander outside one evening and whisper to someone you trust, “Frau Pelosi” and see if the horses scream.

“But of coarzzze,” click

Jun 10, 2009 - 6:52 pm

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.