Corrupt Lyon policeman who led his own ‘Raoul Maquis’.
SALLIER, Ferdinand (CHRISTOPHE)
Maquis leader in the west of the Vercors.
SAMUEL, Dr Eugène (JACQUES and RAVALEC)
Early founder of the Resistance movement in Villard-de-Lans.
SCHÄFER, Friedrich
Commander Kampfgruppe Schäfer.
SCHWEHR, Franz
Commander Kampfgruppe Schwehr.
SEEGER, Alfred
Commander Kampfgruppe Seeger.
SOUSTELLE, Jacques
Confidant of de Gaulle and head of the French Directorate for Intelligence and Special Forces.
STÜLPNAGEL, Carl-Heinrich
German military commander for all France.
TANANT, Pierre (LAROCHE)
Huet’s Chief of Staff.
THACKTHWAITE, Henry (PROCUREUR)
British member of the Union Mission.
TOURNISSA, Jean (PAQUEBOT)
Landing-ground expert sent in to build an airstrip at Vassieux.
ULLMAN, Henri (PHILIPPE)
Commander of Compagnie Philippe.
ULLMANN, Dr Marcel
Doctor in Saint-Martin and Grotte de la Luire.
VILLEMAREST, Pierre FAILLANT de (FRANTZ)
Maquis intelligence expert and later commander of the Groupe Vallier.
VINCENT, Gaston (AZUR and PIERRE)
OSS agent in Saint-Agnan.
VINCENT-BEAUME, André (Capt. VINCENT and SAMBO)
Head of Huet’s 2nd Bureau (intelligence).
WINTER, Anne
Nurse at the Grotte de la Luire.
ZABEL
Commander Kampfgruppe Zabel.
ZELLER, Henri (FAISCEAU and JOSEPH)
Chief of Resistance in south-east France.
* Aliases in brackets.
* There are several versions of this name, including Calke and Calk. I have used the one given in the journal of the 11th Cuirassiers and Robert Bennes’ memoirs.
Map 2: Occupied Territories 1942
Map 3: Camps of the Vercors 1943
Map 6: Options for the Southern Invasion
Map 7: The Battle of Saint-Nizier
Map 8: Huet’s Dispositions and Early German Probes
Map 10: The Battle for Vassieux
Map 12: The Battle of Valchevrière
Above the city of Grenoble, at Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, the sun rose into a perfect sky at 04.48 on the morning of 13 June 1944. For the 700 young men who had spent the previous night under the summer stars, strung out along a 3-kilometre defensive line on the Charvet ridge, it bought a welcome warmth against the damp early-morning chill. Bees hummed among the flowers and grasses and everywhere little birds darted from clump to bush, seeking out insects. High above the early lark let down her string of liquid notes. Below them, the Grésivaudan valley, bounded by the Chartreuse massif on one side and the Bauges and Oisans ranges on the other, glowed with the colours of high summer. And in the distance, like a great white whale, the snow-covered hump-back of Mont Blanc sparkled in the sunlight. In normal times this would have been good day for lovers – and country walks – and family picnics. But this was not a normal time – and this would not be a normal day.
Modern-day soldiers almost always fight and die miles from home. But these young men – many little more than boys – looked down that morning to see their home city laid out as plain as a street map. They knew its every nook and cranny. There was the park where they had played football with friends. There the school they had attended. There the square in which they had hung around, watching the girls go by. There the café where they had met a lover. And there the rented flat where wives and children still slept this summer morning, as they lay out in the dew-soaked grass, waiting for the enemy to come.
Whatever politicians say, soldiers do not die for their country. They die, mostly, for the man next to them – the comrade they know will lay down his life for them. And for whom they, too, will lay down theirs in their turn – if required to do so. But most of these young Maquisards lying out this warm summer’s morning on the Charvet hill, in the same clothes – even the same white shirts – in which they had left home only days previously, were different. Young, naive, unpractised in the use of arms, inexperienced in the terrors of war, they had come to the plateau out of a genuine sense of patriotism mixed with romance and adventure. Their youthful enthusiasm remained undimmed by the dull, mind-numbing routines of the professional soldier. How were they to know that their proudly acquired Sten guns would be little more
