Though Peulevé had only just completed his training, the planning for his first mission to France had already started some weeks earlier. Claude de Baissac, who had trained alongside Francis Suttill on the organizers’ course, had been chosen to start a new circuit in the Bordeaux area named SCIENTIST (the names of professions were commonly used for christening F Section's networks). Bordeaux was strategically important for two main reasons: it was an accessible port for blockade-runners, supplying Germany's economy with oil, rubber and other vital raw materials from the Far East, and was also used as a base for German U-boats, patrolling the Atlantic for Allied convoys. SCIENTIST's job would be to make an assessment of Resistance groups in the area, and to recruit and train teams capable of carrying out sabotage on enemy naval installations and other key targets.
At the age of thirty-five, de Baissac was Peulevé's senior by some years. Born to aristocratic landowning parents in Mauritius, he was educated in Paris and joined a mining company in Madagascar in 1931, but later returned to France to work in advertising. After the armistice in 1940 he left to make his way over the Pyrenees, being imprisoned in a Spanish jail for seven months before reaching Gibraltar and eventually boarding a ship bound for Glasgow. Strong-willed and single-minded, Buckmaster described him as ‘the most difficult of my officers without any exception… occasionally brilliant, brutally lazy and always charming’,1 though he never questioned his ability to produce results; de Wesselow's report from Wanborough also noted his ‘Excessive, though not obnoxious self-confidence, leading to an impetuous approach… Extremely French and volatile. Plenty of courage and guts.’2 As Roger Landes was expected to become the W/T operator for the new PROSPER circuit in Paris, de Baissac chose Peulevé for his mission, having been impressed by him during their training at Wanborough and Meoble. They were to leave at the end of July, weather permitting.
France had changed considerably since Peulevé's evacuation in May 1940. Germany's swift victory, delivered just six weeks after the start of the offensive, offered Hitler revenge for the humiliation of 1918 and a shining example of Nazi superiority. Under the terms of the armistice the country was split into two main areas: the northern ‘occupied zone’, which included the bulk of France's industry and food production was administered by the Germans, while the poorer, more agricultural ‘free’ or ‘unoccupied zone’ remained under the French Government now seated at Vichy, led by the elderly Maréchal Henri Philippe Pétain, a widely respected veteran of the First World War. After a meeting with Hitler at Montoire in October, commemorated by a photograph of the two men shaking hands, Pétain declared in a radio broadcast that ‘It is in a spirit of honour and to preserve the unity of France… that I today embark on the path of collaboration.’ This collaboration was intended by Pétain to strengthen the idea of French autonomy and equality under occupation; yet it was a façade, and Vichy's policies would be increasingly forced to comply with Germany's wishes.
Defined by the slogan of Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Fatherland), a National Revolution was planned to sweep away the liberal, secular values that had led to the country's collapse. Combining nostalgic fantasies of peasant rural life, customs and folklore, the importance of family and Catholic moral values, Vichy offered a vision of the future founded upon a mythical past. Pétain became a figurehead for this new era of innocence and enjoyed considerable support as ‘the shield’ of France, upholding its dignity in the face of defeat. However, as Germany began to transport its resources back home the consequences of shortages and soaring prices soon made a mockery of the government's propaganda. The detention of one-and-a-half million French prisoners of war meant that many households were missing the wages of fathers and husbands, and soon making do became a way of life, coining the term ‘Système de Débrouillage’ or ‘Système D’. Increased demand for goods also drew in black marketeers and speculators, who sprang up ‘like mushrooms after rain’3 and became commonplace across France.
To deflect some of these ills Pétain looked to familiar scapegoats. The privations of honest citizens could be attributed to the Jews, Freemasons, communists, foreigners, gypsies and other minority groups who were branded as enemies of France, and soon policies were implemented to target them. By September 1940, forty-five internment camps had been set up, and before the end of the year Jews were banned from holding senior positions in public offices, the media and education. Following Germany's declaration of war on Russia in June 1941, Vichy also placed particular accent on the threat of Bolshevism. Courts, known as ‘sections spéciales’ were set up to deal specifically with communist-related crimes, and the Légion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchévisme appealed for volunteers to fight with Hitler's troops against Russia, though it only drew a few thousand recruits.
A year after its inception, Pétain recognized that belief in his rénovation française was slipping away. In a speech during August 1941 he warned that ‘Disquiet is taking hold of peoples’ minds, doubt is seizing their spirits. The authority of my government is questioned; its orders often poorly executed.’ Despite introducing more repressive measures acts of terrorism continued to spread, including a number of communist-led assassinations of German officers in the autumn, which resulted in the first French civilian hostages being shot in reprisals. By March 1942 the deportation of six thousand Jewish men to concentration camps had gone ahead with no intervention from Vichy, and the appointment of Pierre Laval as head of government the following month only served to underline Hitler's increasing influence on Pétain's leadership: Laval, advocating a policy of close collaboration, publicly declared that he wished to see a Nazi victory in Russia to defeat the threat of Bolshevism. He also announced the relève (relief), a plan to send French workers to aid the German economy in return for the release of French POWs, at a ratio of three workers for every soldier released. Although the return of prisoners was welcomed, Germany's increasing demands for French labour over the following months would become a key factor in increasing public hostility towards his administration.
Britain had accepted Pétain's former minister Charles de Gaulle as the voice of ‘Free France’ since his arrival in London in June 1940, and though his popularity at home was initially weak it was clear that growing disaffection for Vichy was strengthening the Resistance. By 1942three main groups had emerged in the occupied zone: the right-wing OCM (Organisation Civile et Militaire, largely composed of military men and civil servants); the Front National (communist); and Libération-Nord, which attracted socialists and trade-union members. In the unoccupied zone there was also Combat, which appealed to a conservative audience; Libération-Sud (separate from Libération-Nord, but with similar views); and Franc-Tireur, which was more independent, being composed of ex-Radicals, lapsed communists and Catholics. The Front National was also significant in the south, and its paramilitary wing, the Francs-Tireur et Partisans (or FTP, not to be confused with Franc-Tireur) was formed in February 1942, drawing many of its leaders from the International Brigades who had fought in the Spanish Civil War.
At the beginning of the year de Gaulle had sent an emissary, Jean Moulin, to attempt to integrate and unify this confusing array of groups under his flag. Moulin's travels across the zone sud were for the most part successful, and the prospect of a united secret army, bolstered by increasing public sympathy for the Resistance, was gaining momentum by the summer. However, support for Pétain as the legitimate leader of France was far from extinguished, and F Section agents operating in the unoccupied zone remained very much in enemy territory.
Peulevé and de Baissac were to parachute into southern France near the city of Nîmes, but their journey to Bordeaux would be a circuitous one. After landing they were to make their way to a safe house in Cannes, where Peulevé was to stay while de Baissac travelled on to Tarbes, near the Spanish frontier. Delivering a package containing 50,000 francs to a local Resistance leader named Hêches, he would then be guided over the demarcation line and into the occupied zone to meet his organizer, Robert Leroy (Louis), an SOE agent who had been in Bordeaux since June. Louis would brief de Baissac on the local situation before Peulevé was fetched to transmit de Baissac's first report to London.
Whilst other agents could find themselves waiting around for months before leaving for a mission, Peulevé had only a matter of days to prepare. Much of this time was spent at Orchard Court studying and memorizing details of the false identity he was to use. Although his spoken French did not carry an English accent, his cover story would be that he came from mixed parentage and had lived in England for a time, but that he had returned to do his military service in 1938, serving with the 110th Infantry Regiment at Calais; elements of his own real-life background were also incorporated to increase the plausibility of his story, such as his knowledge of Dinard and the Côte d'Azur. Every detail had to be known intimately, and F Section's operations staff would relentlessly examine him on the details of his occupation, family and personal history until he knew them inside out. Even then, this cover might have to be revised to adapt to a sudden change of circumstance in the field. An agent never had the luxury of taking any aspect of his security for granted.
An identity card along with other relevant forged documents was supplied to back up his story, though the continual changing of the formats of these papers by the authorities caused many headaches for the counterfeiting section and it was impossible to be sure that those he was issued with would pass inspection once in France. Authentic clothing was also an important aspect of disguise and SOE employed tailors to provide garments with a French cut, using French fabrics where possible, and had to attend to the smallest details such as buttons, zips and labels to ensure that nothing was of British origin. Likewise suitcases, money and all personal articles would have to be artificially aged or worn in beforehand to appear genuine. Every component of cover had to support the whole appearance of an agent: mannerisms, accent, hairstyle, even the kind of fillings in an agent's teeth were all potential giveaways, and had to be checked thoroughly before he could be considered ready for departure.
Peulevé and de Baissac pored over maps of the areas they were to parachute into and later operate in, and studied relevant reports compiled from agents’ debriefings, which detailed all manner of aspects of living in a particular area such as local regulations, the political tendencies of the population, the number of police controls, the activities of existing local resistance and so on. The final revised instructions for their mission were given the day before departure, confirming their objectives, relevant addresses and passwords to be used when meeting contacts, instructions on letter boxes, the amount of money they were to take and the codes to be employed for sending messages to London. Though he was to use ‘Henri Michel Chevalier’ as his cover name, Peulevé also had several field names that would be used by fellow agents or by London when referring to him, including Hilaire, Paul, Edmond and Jean. For the purposes of wireless communication a separate call sign, Mackintosh, was to be used as an additional security measure. De Baissac would be known by the code name David.
Infiltration by air was only undertaken during the ‘moon period’, the few days either side of a full moon when pilots and reception committees could take advantage of the increased visibility. Having nearly come to the end of July's window for parachute operations there was now very little time to make their departure and on 30 July both men left Orchard Court, being driven out of London and up the A1 to Gaynes Hall, a secluded country house near St Neots used as a holding station for agents waiting to leave. The FANY staff who ran it did their best to make their stay as comfortable as possible, though apprehension was unavoidable when the daily roster of agents scheduled to leave was chalked up on the blackboard – several days of bad weather, or other agents being considered a higher priority could mean returning to London and having to wait another month before trying again.
Thankfully de Baissac and Peulevé had no such hold-ups to endure, and the following morning they saw their flight confirmed on the board. Having done all they reasonably could to prepare, they could now only wait for dusk. In the sleepy surroundings of the estate Peulevé took advantage of the facilities:
That afternoon I had taken a siesta in one of the rooms of the Station and heard the plonk-plonk of a tennis ball – a sound which personified the quiet, country-house atmosphere of peace-time Britain in summertime: I dozed off thinking that this would be the last sound I should hear of the country which I loved so much and which, so far, I had served so badly. At last I had been trained to perfection and was prepared to meet the enemy on his own terms.4
After two years of humiliation and self-reproach over what had happened in France, he knew that he was now only hours away from returning to make a real contribution to the war.
As was customary both men were given a good dinner by the Commanding Officer before taking a car to RAF Tempsford, a few miles south. Accompanied by Buckmaster and conducting officer Jacques de Guélis, de Baissac and Peulevé were driven through the nearby village, over the railway crossing and the short distance up to the airfield's entrance. Since March 1942, Tempsford had been home to 138 and 161 Squadrons, both of which were dedicated to carrying out ‘Special Duty’ missions, transporting agents, arms and supplies all over occupied Europe. SOE was considered an unnecessary and extravagant drain on the RAF's limited resources and had only a dozen Halifaxes, two Wellingtons and ten virtually obsolete Whitley bombers at its disposal for parachute operations, though 161 Squadron would also ferry agents to and from secret French landing fields using half a dozen smaller Lysander and Hudson aircraft.
The passengers were purposely kept away from the hangars and Nissen huts of the main airfield for security reasons, being taken instead to a cluster of buildings on the far side of the perimeter known as Gibraltar Farm. Here a thorough last-minute search of the agents was made for any signs of any British markings, currency, ticket stubs or anything else that could give them away. Once the inspection was over, Peulevé was issued with his forged identity card and other documents, ankle bandages, a Luger pistol and a flask of rum, along with his suitcases, one containing his heavy W/T set and the other clothes and personal items. One last article had to be considered, though not all agents felt the need to take them: in case of capture, ‘L’ (for lethal) tablets offered a quick alternative to torture and the risk of giving away the details of their circuit. Peulevé opted to pocket his before donning his overalls and parachute, finally making his way out towards the waiting Halifax.
Briefly shaking hands with their young but experienced Czech pilot, Captain Leo Anderle, and his crew, they were stowed along with their luggage into the dark, uncomfortable fuselage. Some minutes after the lumbering aircraft began rolling down the runway and Peulevé caught his ‘last glimpse of the neat and tranquil countryside slipping away’5 through the observation window as they climbed into the fading light. Turning south, it was dark by the time they reached the Channel and crossed it without incident, but on approaching the French coast they were greeted by a few barrages of anti-aircraft fire, which immediately stirred Peulevé from the effects of the Station dinner. He suddenly thought once more of how they were to ‘drop like sacks of potatoes’6 into occupied territory, and the unreality of his situation began to unsettle him. However, the flak soon died down, and he and de Baissac managed to doze as the Halifax continued its way unhampered towards Nîmes.
Successfully identifying a landing field at night posed considerable problems even for the highly-skilled crews of the Special Duty squadrons, who had to rely on a combination of dead reckoning and the use of landmarks, rivers and the lights from towns and cities to lead them to their target. The reception committee was expected to receive them in an area near the small town of Caissargues, just west of Nîmes airport, yet as the aircraft circled the pilots could see nothing on the ground.7 Having no doubt that they were over the right location, they were left with the choice of either dropping ‘blind’ (without a reception) or turning back. As the Halifax had limited fuel a decision had to be made quickly, and both men agreed to take their chances and jump. Removing a circular section in the fuselage floor, the despatcher clipped the strap from Peulevé's parachute to the static line before he moved into position, sitting facing the tail of the aircraft with his legs dangling below. The drill learnt at Ringway flooded his mind briefly before he was given the green light and jumped, closely followed by de Baissac.
Engulfed by the aircraft's slipstream, Peulevé saw his parachute begin to open but immediately felt something hit him in the eye. As blood began to stream down his face, he looked up to check his canopy but could already feel that something was wrong. He was obviously dropping far too quickly, but as the ground rushed to meet him there was little he could do: ‘In a flash I thought “This is it … this is the end of everything.” In that split second I thought that I would now never have the opportunity to prove myself in the face of the enemy.’8
De Baissac's exit had been almost as disastrous. After leaving the aircraft his harness had become twisted and though he managed to readjust it after a few seconds his parachute still hadn't fully opened. He hit the ground hard, but was fortunate in suffering nothing more than what seemed to be a sprained ankle. After removing his harness, he spotted Peulevé's body some distance away, being dragged across the field by his parachute.
Peulevé had survived the drop, but only just. He had deduced that the spade, routinely issued for burying parachutes, must have fallen out of his overalls and had been responsible for striking him in the eye. More seriously, the ‘resounding crack’9 that he'd heard on landing had been his right leg shattering on impact, which now appeared to have ‘bits of bone sticking out all over the place’.10 Just as he began to wonder where his partner was, Peulevé was suddenly hauled backwards as his parachute caught the wind and lifted him out of the dirt, but managed to reach his knife and cut away his harness before he reached the edge of the field. Unable to see any trace of de Baissac, he assumed that he'd probably been killed by the drop; hastily binding his leg as best he could using his knife as a splint, Peulevé began inching his body along the ground until he fainted.
Safely parachuting agents into enemy territory at an altitude of 500 feet was a difficult task even for an accomplished bomber crew. With relatively little instrumentation and in the presence of cloud and strong winds mistakes were inevitable, and it seems that on this night both men probably jumped at less than half that height. De Baissac later heard that five days prior to their drop another agent had been killed near Clermont-Ferrand in the same circumstances, and in a message to Buckmaster, SOE's Air Liaison Section noted that this was just one of ‘several deplorable incidents’11 that had occurred during the month.
After tracking down his fellow agent it didn't take long for de Baissac to assess the situation. Without the help of a reception committee he was left with few options, especially as he expected his ankle to start swelling soon. All he could do was throw the W/T set into an overgrown ditch and leave Peulevé where he was with his share of the money and all of their provisions. He also asked him to wait until the next morning before trying to summon help from one of the nearby farms, giving de Baissac several hours to put some distance between them. Leaving his wireless operator to fend for himself, David started to limp off in the direction of Nîmes.
It may seem somewhat callous to leave a seriously injured man alone in this predicament, yet such scenarios had been covered in their training. There was no point in both of them being found and very possibly arrested, so it was simply a matter of expediency. However, Peulevé was not left totally alone for the night, as a large bird had perched on a branch a few feet above his head, though he didn't consider this a welcome guardian angel and spent the night throwing stones to dissuade it from attacking his leg.
When morning finally came he was able to spot a farmhouse a few hundred metres away showing some signs of activity. He began the slow and agonizing process of dragging himself towards it and eventually got near enough to attract the attention of a middle-aged woman working outside. Her first words were, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’12 Peulevé, not wanting to disclose that he was British, declared himself to be a Gaullist agent who had parachuted the previous night. Evidently unimpressed, she replied, ‘You are bloody lucky, because most of the neighbours round here are collaborators.’13 Valentine Benoit called for her elderly mother and together they clumsily attempted to lift Peulevé into a wheel-barrow, but he was in excruciating pain whenever they moved him. Realizing this was an impossible task, they called on a sympathetic neighbour named Camille who provided a stretcher to carry him into the house. The chances of finding a taxi willing to take him to a hospital in Cannes were negligible, but Camille offered to drive him to the Clinique des Franciscaines in Nîmes, a nursing home run by Franciscan nuns on rue Jean Bouin.
Peulevé was immediately admitted, using the cover story that he was on holiday and had been sitting in a tree picking figs when he fell. It wasn't the most likely of scenarios, especially considering that figs were out of season, but it appeared that no one was particularly suspicious. Three days later the surgeon was ready to set his leg, which posed another problem as there was a risk of his speaking English when coming round from the anaesthetic. As they wheeled him back out of the theatre after the operation he did his best to keep silent, though he couldn't be sure if the nurses might now know something of his real identity.
Installed on a ward in the clinic, Peulevé had to try and maintain his story for long enough to allow his leg to heal, but he knew this was a tall order – it would be several weeks before he could even stand, and might be months before he could walk. A nurse asked for his ration card, which all French people were expected to carry, but London had only issued him with a feuille semestrielle, a card that entitled him to apply for one. For someone to be travelling without a food ration card would seem highly suspect, so Peulevé simply said that he had forgotten it. His only hope of getting hold of one was to write to an address that de Baissac had been issued with, that of a man named Georges Audouard who belonged to a circuit of croupiers working at the Municipal Casino in Cannes. Fortunately Audouard responded a few days later, employing his son to courier over enough food tickets to see him through August.14
He was grateful for visits from the Benoits and their friends, who brought what they could in the way of presents and provisions, though it soon became clear that they would have to be more discreet as they were constantly under threat of denunciation from their pro-Vichy neighbours. To add to their concerns an RAF supply drop accidentally fell right into the centre of Nîmes later that month; although the police were alerted and found two men awaiting the drop nearby no arrest was made, despite their bizarre excuse that they had been unable to sleep and decided to play boules instead (fortunately many of the local gendarmerie were Corsicans, who were ready to turn a blind eye to the work of the Resistance). Soon afterwards a neighbour declared to the Benoits that he had seen a parachutist come down with this second drop and that he would shoot him if he saw him again. Although these events made Peulevé feel uneasy, he could nothing about his situation until his leg healed. At least the doctors and nuns of the clinic were not asking too many questions, even if they were beginning to suspect that he might be a fugitive.
August drifted into September. Peulevé had more trouble obtaining ration cards from the Audouards, and even when they finally appeared they were either out of date or incomplete. All of this continued to cause problems with the clinic, but he managed to convince them that the poor postal service was to blame. Aside from having to offer excuses regularly to cover himself, passing time on the ward was also beginning to try Peulevé's patience sorely – having spent so long preparing for the chance to fight back, he was now more useless than ever.
However, in the middle of the month more news arrived via Audouard's son, who told Peulevé that it had been arranged for him to assist the CARTE organization, run in conjunction with an Englishman named Raoul, and that he was to stay at their house in Cannes. Despite his condition, there was no doubt in Peulevé's mind that he had to go; not only was he tired of being pent up with nothing to do, but the longer he stayed at the clinic the more risky his situation would become. Against the advice of his surgeon, Dr Simonet, who stressed that his leg would need at least another month to heal before trying to walk, he agreed to take the train to Cannes, pointing out that he would at least be accompanied on his journey.
On arrival they took a taxi to the Audouards’ villa in Avenue Windsor, a secluded street situated on the eastern side of town off the rue d'Antibes. As they passed the boutiques and beauty salons that Peulevé remembered from his youth on the Côte d'Azur, it seemed that little had changed, though it was evident that the local population had grown considerably. Since the summer of 1940 many Jews, communists and other threatened minorities had fled from Paris and the occupied north for the relative safety of Vichy territory, with a sizeable proportion of this exodus heading for the Riviera. While the constant flow of people in and out of the towns of south-eastern France boosted the local economy, it also encouraged a thriving black market to accommodate the needs of affluent newcomers, with a corresponding increase in the numbers of local informers and profiteers. This, along with the significant support for the Vichy Government in the region, the vigilance of the police and security services, the anti-semitism (600 Jews had been just been rounded up in Nice and sent to a transit camp at Drancy near Paris) and the volatile nature of the local Resistance groups made it an especially perilous location for someone in Peulevé's predicament.
Though he had previously sheltered other British agents and Allied airmen on the run, Audouard was surprised when Peulevé mentioned that de Baissac had given him his address, as he had no idea that London had been recommending him as a port of call. The family was extremely hospitable, but Peulevé soon found that the situation there posed almost as many security problems as he had faced in Nîmes: one radio operator was already transmitting from the villa, while two other résistants were staying in another room, sleeping on the floor (a member of a separate group in Cannes could not believe that the police hadn't yet raided the house, likening it to a beehive).15 He was soon to learn that this casual lack of precaution was endemic, and that CARTE, the region's main resistance network, was even more vulnerable than he could have imagined.