The Loire rises in the south of France, flows vaguely north and west to Orleans, about a hundred kilometers south of Paris, then turns west and flows into the Atlantic. The major artery passing through Correze, Route Nationale 89, connected Bordeaux on the coast with Lyon on the Rhone (which is east of the Loire and flows south into the Mediterranean). Route 89 was the main German logistics — and escape — route from southwestern France. For that reason, German forces along the highway remained potent: Better than 2,000 veteran artillery and armor-equipped troops were divided among four heavily fortified garrisons along the highway (at Tulle, Brive, Egletons, and Ussel), while specially trained mobile anti-Maquis troops, equipped with light armor, trucks, and spotter planes, continued at the ready to sweep up Free French units. The Germans intended to keep Route 89 open.
On the other hand, the terrain gave a big advantage to the Maquis. The Massif Central was rugged, offering plentiful choke points. Both road and rail lines through Correze ran along narrow valleys. There was God's own plenty of bridges, viaducts, culverts — lots of targets. And to make matters more interesting, an Allied breakout from Normandy would cut off the Germans in southwest France, while an Allied sweep up the Rhone would close the box and trap them. The time was growing ripe for a major Maquis uprising in the Massif.
Airdrops had equipped the Maquis with modern weapons. They wanted — and needed — more, but it was a good start. Team James's job was to train the Maquis units in the use of those weapons and to be the liaison between the Maquis and Allied headquarters for further weapons drops. They would also be involved in sabotage and ambush operations as needed. And, not least, they'd be expected to lead the Maquis troops against the Germans, in whose eyes the Jedburghs were spies and not soldiers. If captured, they could expect torture and execution. (Poison pills had been issued to those who wanted them. Singlaub did not.)
As they marched to the farmhouse that would become their first command post, or PC—
It was an interesting situation for guerrillas. The enemy was reeling, nervous, vulnerable, yet far from defeated, and still very deadly. The time was ripe for forceful actions, yet overconfidence could ruin everything.
Soon after dawn, there was a war council. Present were Jack Singlaub, Dominique, Simon, Captain Wauthier (he and his SAS troops had arrived earlier after a long hike through the woods, somewhat more lightly equipped than they'd hoped, having lost through various mishaps four of their cargo pods), and the local Maquis commander, a tough, smart, and very professional former French regular army officer whose
Once the SAS guys and several squads of Hubert's Maquis set up perimeter defense around the PC, the council began. Hubert in particular had important matters to discuss, chiefly:
His troops were poorly armed. Only about a third of his men carried weapons — captured German Mauser rifles, Schmeisser submachine guns, and a handful of British Sten guns and pistols. The best-armed Maquis in the Correze were the troops of the region's AS commander (whose
Nevertheless, Patrick had put these forces to excellent use. His unit had set up permanent ambushes at three points along Route 89, had completely surrounded the German garrison at Brive, and blocked the southwest approach to the Correze valley, while a smaller but equally well-armed AS unit had blocked the valley's northeast entrance.
Not only did Hubert's troops crave a piece of this action, but many of them, he added pointedly, had been waiting for weapons for three years, ever since they'd escaped the Nazi Blitzkrieg. 'My men are ready to fight the Boches,' he said. 'But we cannot do it with naked hands.'
When Dominique asked him for detailed requirements, after which contact would be made with London, Hubert (ever the professional) instantly produced a typed list, which he had already long ago prepared. And then he continued, turning even more serious: 'There is another matter,' he said carefully. 'The FTP has recently come into this neighborhood in force, especially south of the highway, in the hills around Egletons — the area which has been my own operational area. They are commanded by a onetime schoolteacher and army corporal who calls himself Colonel Antoine. Antoine commands 3,000 well-armed troops,' having received their weapons during the massive American Bastille Day airdrop. 'Previously, they operated in the Department of Lot-et-Garonne to our south. But now they are here.
'Antoine is not at all interested in cooperation with us,' Hubert continued, not hiding his scorn. 'He is very
Hubert's implication was simple and ominous. If Hubert's troops weren't brought up to the armed strength of Antoine's, the Communists had a good chance of gaining the credit for liberating central Correze, in that way setting the stage for their postwar political agenda. Many FTP soldiers were good, brave, and dedicated, and had fought hard and taken many casualties, but they were poorly trained — more an armed rabble than a well-disciplined fighting force. Even if they wished to coordinate operations with the AS, which they showed little inclination to do, coordination with them would not come casy. Needless to say, relations between the Communist FTP and the Gaullist AS were tense.
Meanwhile, Hubert went on, word had come from higher up that General George Patton's Third Army had at last broken out from Normandy and was driving cast at full throttle between the Loire and the Seine. That meant his southern flank was exposed — a situation that typically left Patton unconcerned: 'Let the other son-of-a-bitch worry about flanks,' he told an aide. Be that as it may, his right flank
Meaning: The political strain between the FTP and AS had instantly turned dangerous. The blockade would require carefully coordinated actions. But if groups like Antoine's maintained an independent, politically motivated strategy, and continued to resist cooperation, the Germans could crush each center of resistance in turn, like beads on a string. This would also inevitably mean bad news for civilians because of savage Nazi reprisals.
Just after D Day, a pair of over enthusiastic Maquis botch-ups had brought on Nazi massacres in the towns of Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle. In Tulle, the Nazis hanged nearly a hundred men from lampposts. In Oradour-sur- Glane, the SS jammed hundreds of men into barns and garages and hundreds more women and children into the town church, then machine-gunned the men and set fire to the barns, garages, and church. No one inside — men, women, or children — survived the flames. After that, they looted the town and killed the few people who'd tried to hide in cellars. They left behind a ghost town.
No doubt about it, Hubert had made a powerful case — military, political, and humanitarian — for getting weapons for his troops. Dominique and Singlaub promised to do what they could.
Later that morning, word came that an OSS operational group had blown up a rail bridge on a northern spur to the east-west line connecting Bordeaux with Lyon, while another band of saboteurs had taken a hydroelectric plant out of action. This cut off power both to an arms factory in Tulle and to the electrified rail line between Correze and Bordeaux. Other Maquis commanders had their eye on Route 89 bridges and were asking for explosives.
This presented Lieutenant Singlaub with a problem. Though the bridges were legitimate targets, closing the highway was not a good idea. The Route 89 corridor through Correze was terrific ambush country, while a closed Route 89 would simply drive the German traffic north toward the more open country near the Loire — and expose Patton's flank. Conclusion: It was best to keep pressure on the German garrisons along Route 89 but to leave the
