Treachery, Torture, Murder and Massacre - France 1944
Nearing D-Day Allied intelligence used RAf airdrops to send Allied liaison officers down with supplies to the thousands of young men hiding in France's forests and hill country. Here the officers defied the two principles of guerilla warfare: never concentrate your forces, or risk a pitched battle.
They assembled small armies of untrained civilians in wild country where it was believed Allied airborne forces would land and help them drive the hated occupiers out of their country. In reality they were being used as bait- to draw German forces away from the invasion beaches.
They were hunted down by the collaborationist French paramilitaries, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops, dying in the snows of winter through to mid-summer. Those taken prisoner were raped, tortured and shot or deported to death camps in Germany. Many of their killers were themselves murdered after the liberation, when thousands of Frenchwomen were also publicly humiliated as sexual traitors.
