Behind Enemy Lines with the SAS by Paul Mccue

Author:Paul Mccue
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781594643
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Out of the Shadows

The continuing arrests throughout May and into June maintained the constant presence of danger, but Dédé and his team could not afford to become demoralized or diverted from their frantic preparations to arm the Resistance in time for the invasion. In May, even the record achievements of April were bettered, with 19 drops of supplies and arms, a total of 296 containers and 85 packages. But in June, another huge step forward was taken when 50 drops were arranged, bringing 1,137 containers and 376 packages.

In respect of sabotage operations, of the Priority A targets which had originally been designated for attack on the eve of D-Day, it had already been accepted that both the dam at Eguzon and the airfield at La Martinerie, near Châteauroux, were better attacked from the air. Both were isolated from residential housing and there was therefore little risk of collateral damage or civilian casualties from bombing. Railway targets remained, especially at Vierzon, and up to May it had been estimated that in addition to cut lines, over a hundred locomotives had been put out of action. Together with the sabotage of telephone and electricity supplies, and the destruction of key road and river bridges, all action had the one concerted aim of delaying any German reinforcements which would be moving northwards once the invasion commenced.

At the same time as receiving arms drops, Dédé was still welcoming, temporarily housing and then sending on their way the numerous agents landed or dropped, and he could not afford to miss the nightly BBC messages in case the invasion alert was broadcast.1 From the increase in the length of these broadcasts, something was obviously in the offing and the evening of 5 June 1944 was clearly special as the longest-ever stream of coded messages was transmitted by the BBC. But nothing was heard of the pre-arranged call to arms for Dédé’s ‘Shipwright’ circuit, only a message confirming the drop, previously postponed, of a two-man reconnaissance team from the Special Air Service Regiment, consisting of Captain Tonkin and Lieutenant Crisp, and a three-man SOE Jedburgh team, code-named ‘Hugh’.

Normally consisting of one British or American officer, an officer of the country of destination, and a radio operator of any nationality, Jedburghs were inter-Allied teams that were to carry out ninety-three operations in France between the invasion and liberation. The majority had two British members, and there were many teams with two Americans, but ‘Hugh’ was a French-dominated Jedburgh, in that while it had a British senior officer, Captain Crawshay (‘Crown’), it had two representatives from the Free French Secret Service, the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA), Capitaine Legrand (‘Franck’) and Lieutenant Mersiol (‘Yonne’). To welcome these newcomers, Lieutenant Schwatschko organized the reception party, while Dédé arranged to join them the following morning, knowing that they would be bringing two additional radio sets for him.

Expecting nothing out of the ordinary on the historic morning of 6 June 1944, Dédé had driven alone to Moncousinat Farm to greet the Jedburgh and SAS parties and to take delivery of the radio sets.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.