AUTHOR's first supply drop was delivered on the night of 6/7 January to a landing ground between the villages of Vayrac, Carrenac and Floirac, situated on the Causse de Gramat, a vast, arid, limestone plateau south of the Dordogne valley. Cylindrical metal containers measuring nearly 6 feet long and weighing up to 70 kilos were parachuted from the bomb bays of aircraft filled with arms, ammunition, medical supplies and other equipment, while other more bulky items such as wireless sets would be pushed out through a hole in the fuselage in separate packages, covered in a protective material called Hairlok (a mixture of hair and latex rubber).
This reception committee received a total of fifteen containers and five packages, the contents of which had already been specified by Peulevé according to pre-defined loads prepared by SOE's packing stations. For example, an agent ordering twelve containers from ‘Load A’ could expect to receive: 6 Bren light-machine guns; 36 LeeEnfield rifles; 27 Sten guns; 5 pistols; 52 assorted grenades; 150 field dressings; and approximately 10,000 extra rounds of ammunition. Other standard loads could also include explosives or anti-tank weapons, while bespoke orders could be made up depending on the requirements at the time, with any available space being crammed with cigarettes, clothing, foodstuffs or other creature comforts.
The local maquis who collected this first consignment were eager to celebrate their successful operation, but had barely begun to unpack it before they were alerted by another announcement on the BBC's messages personnels service,1 which broadcast the phrase ‘le petit poisson rouge sera blanchi à la chaux’ (the little goldfish will be scalded), indicating that another drop would follow the next night. However, this flight would not just bring weapons and ammunition – following Peulevé’s discussions with Vény in November, organizer George Hiller (Maxime) and his wireless operator, Cyril Watney (Eustache), were to arrive to begin work on creating a new circuit in the Lot named FOOTMAN.
During their briefing in London, Buckmaster had told them that their contact would be called Henri Chevalier, but did not reveal that he was actually a British agent, or that he was already known to Watney. Notified of their imminent arrival, Peulevé made arrangements for them to stay with Vény's lieutenant in the Lot, Jean Verlhac, whose house stood on the edge of Quatre-Routes, a small village a few miles north-west of their drop zone. That evening the reception committee made their way to the area in two cars, Peulevé accompanied by Jean Verlhac in Arnouil's Chevrolet, with Verlhac's wife Marie and three other helpers following behind them, though as they approached the area the driver of the second car became so nervous that he careered into a signpost. Making the last part of their journey up the winding road on foot, they armed themselves with Stens and also took the precaution of carrying a stretcher and medical supplies, in case the parachutists injured themselves on landing.
Wounded agents were just one of a number of hazards that could hamper the work of a reception committee. Although the RAF might have given the go-ahead for a drop, the difficulties involved in locating a field in the middle of rural France at night meant that aircraft could easily become lost or fail to identify those on the ground (although drop zones were sometimes marked out by bonfires, receptions often used nothing more than hand-held torches). Bad weather could force an aircraft to turn back before reaching its objective, or mechanical trouble with the dropping mechanisms could result in failure at the last moment; depending on the weather conditions and type of aircraft making the drops, containers were also at risk of falling some distance from the landing ground, and the extra time spent looking for them increased the chances of being spotted by German patrols. Even then the containers and packages might be destroyed on impact if their parachutes did not open. In a report on dropping operations over France during the first three months of 1944, only 45 per cent of all operations were counted as successful, a figure that was considered a great improvement on previous months.
By the time Peulevé's group arrived at the rendezvous about twenty men from the Vayrac maquis were already in place with a lorry and cart to transport the cargo, and having positioned their torches across the field there was little to do but stand and wait in the freezing cold, although Delsanti caused some alarm when he accidentally let off a round from his Sten. After two hours standing around in this rocky wilderness the thick patches of fog drifting across the fields caused some to wonder if their delivery might be called off, but just before eleven-thirty they at last began to make out the distant drone of aircraft engines.
Fortunately the previous night's drop had included an S-Phone, a portable UHF radio-telephone invented by SOE to enable an agent to communicate with pilots overhead. Using a small directional transceiver worn by the user on a webbed harness, this apparatus could relay instructions to aircraft at low altitudes from a distance of several miles, and with a cloudless sky and the light of a nearly full moon it was a relatively simple business for Peulevé to guide the two bombers towards their target. Passing over the field they circled for a few minutes before making their run, Hiller and Watney safely jumping from their Halifax to join the trail of parachutes left in its wake. After landing amongst some rocks and removing his harness and overalls, Hiller was the first to be greeted by the reception party:
Henri was waiting for us on the ground itself, a dashing figure in his golf suit with his sports overcoat and hat low over his face … I had parted with all my paraphernalia and, with my dark grey overcoat and my briefcase in my hand, I looked a rather curious person from England, a bedraggled and hatless city gent. The maquisards, a fierce looking band of all sizes, dressed in every variety of leather and shooting jackets, pressed around to see the two Englishmen [Watney had joined him by this point]… and to compare them with Henri, until then the only specimen in the district.2
Watney had been especially surprised by the reception, recognizing that the mysterious Henri Chevalier was in fact Peulevé, whom he had previously requested to work with. The seven containers and five packages that had also been dropped were hastily being dragged over dry stone walls and through hedges to the waiting lorry nearby; amidst the shouts of people giving orders, Peulevé explained that this was not one of his primary landing grounds and Hiller could see that he was anxious to get away:
Henri was getting impatient, and having given orders for the disposal of the containers, decided to get the most compromising items off the field. We crowded into a large blue car; the Stens were put in the back so as not to be in anyone's way. We were packed so tight that no one could have got at their pistols, so Michel [Watney] and I thought.3
Hiller and Watney had both been startled by the nature of their reception – apart from Peulevé's flamboyant appearance, he had greeted them in English (contrary to security training), and they were now sitting on parachutes that they had expected to be buried. When asked about this, Peulevé explained that the silk was far too valuable, being a useful bribe when dealing with Resistance leaders, although some of it was also donated to the women for underwear.
As the maquisards transported the collected arms to a barn in the nearby village of St-Michel-de-Bannières the others drove back to the Verlhacs’ house, though as they approached Quatre-Routes they were waved down by three Vichy policemen who had been informed about the earlier goings-on near Carennac. Eager to see the newly-arrived Englishmen they'd heard about, they peered inside the car but were soon disappointed, convinced that Watney was the only foreign parachutist and that the cool-headed Hiller was really French (probably because of his excellent grasp of the language). Although this surreal situation appeared to be disastrous for all of them, Verlhac was responsible for organizing the local dairies in the area and threatened to stop making his regular cheese deliveries if they weren't allowed to continue on. It seemed an unlikely way to intimidate the law, but to Watney's astonishment the policemen let them pass. This wasn't the only occasion where such influence was helpful and Watney later learnt that the local gendarmerie ‘were generally under the thumb of Madame Verlhac, who being… a woman of considerable character, simply saw that they got no milk if they caused any unpleasantness.’4
Hiller and Watney were expected to stay for several days at the house, while Peulevé and Arnouil returned to Brive. The following morning Peulevé reported to Watney that his wireless set had probably been dropped on a different landing ground (another eight containers and five packages had been collected on the same night by another reception committee near Quatre-Routes) and a replacement would have to be sent as the maquisards had commandeered whatever had fallen into their hands. Vény also made an appearance later that morning, accompanied by Colonel Henri Collignon, who planned to incorporate his Toulouse networks with Vény's in the Lot. Greeting the two new agents, Vény seemed genuinely surprised to see that they had been sent, having expected ‘perfidious Albion’ to have fallen back on its promises of help. Following their introductions, Peulevé proceeded to give Hiller some background on the region and advise him on the first steps for FOOTMAN; Hiller's briefing in London had stressed that his main objective must be to consolidate Vény's groups into the Armée Secrète as far as possible, and within a few days he and Watney were moved out to separate safe houses where they could begin an assessment of the situation.
By the end of the first week of January, Peulevé's reception committees had gathered more than seventy containers and twenty packages, with only two of the seven aircraft sent being unable to drop their cargo. These first batches of arms were of inestimable worth in proving that SOE and AUTHOR were serious about aiding the maquis, and on a personal level demonstrated that Peulevé's word could be trusted. The arrival of explosives also gave much greater scope for sabotage work, and within just a few days an opportunity arose to strike at one of the main factories at Figeac in the Lot.
A sympathetic foreman at the Le Ratier plant, which produced 300 propellers a week for Heinkel and Focke-Wulf aircraft, had already passed detailed plans of the works to the local MUR leaders at the beginning of the year. Verlhac discussed the possibility of launching an attack on it with Peulevé, Hiller and others from the Vény group on the afternoon of 17 January, and all agreed to give it their support, with Peulevé supplying the explosives. Two days later Hiller prepared seven 3-lb plastic charges on the Verlhacs’ kitchen table before handing them to a team of five of Vény's men led by André Saint-Chamant, who entered the Le Ratier premises later that night using the foreman's keys. Their raid was a complete success: the comprehensive destruction of three precision machines and two furnaces was enough to shut the factory down for the rest of the war, and it would later be considered as one of F Section's most effective sabotage actions.
A few days afterwards Peulevé received word from London that Poirier had completed his training and would be dropped with a young, promising recruit of de Baissac's, Jean Renaud-Dandicolle (Verger), on the night of 28/29 January. Though returning to his home country, Poirier was to continue to present himself as British officer Lieutenant Jack Peters, and would be code-named Nestor. Parachuting safely, they soon realized that they were a long way from their intended drop zone – due to pilot error they had in fact been dropped deep in the neighbouring Cantal department, more than a hundred kilometres south-east of their designated landing ground near Marcillac-la-Croisille. Taking a train to Brive early the next morning, Poirier planned to contact Peulevé at the Bloc-Gazo premises, the address of which he had been given in London, though he hadn't taken into account the fact that it was Saturday and the office was closed. Not wishing to take a chance by checking into a hotel, the two men found shelter in Saint-Sernin Church further down the avenue, taking in one Mass after another to avoid the cold. However, as evening approached they were eventually forced to leave, having no choice but to sleep rough on the outskirts of town.
Following a second very uncomfortable night exposed to the elements they made their way back to Bloc-Gazo on Monday morning. Peulevé was astonished to see the half-frozen Poirier walk through the door. Having attended their planned reception at Marcillac-la-Croisille, he had heard the aircraft pass overhead but had only received packages containing their personal effects, and assumed that the drop must have been aborted for some reason (Peulevé diplomatically refrained from telling Poirier that he had also taken the liberty of picking out a couple of his shirts, as he was waiting for his own to come back from the laundry). After introducing Poirier to Arnouil and the rest of the Bloc-Gazo crew, Peulevé suggested that he take a room at the Hotel Champanatier on rue Dumyrat where he was staying (the Champanatier was one of the few hotels in the area not requisitioned by the Germans, and was just around the corner from Arnouil's premises). He also gave Renaud-Dandicolle instructions for his onward journey to Paris, where he was to prepare the way for his organizer Claude de Baissac and a new SCIENTIST circuit in Normandy, the original having folded. Unable to achieve any more in the aftermath of the Grandclément affair, Landes had left for Spain with his assistant Corbin at the end of November (Défence also returned to London, taking a boat across the Channel two months later, though he would be caught and executed on a later mission).
After Arnouil had prepared his papers in the name of Jacques Perrier, a fruit machine salesman (a useful job title that enabled him to travel and carry large amounts of money without suspicion), Poirier was invited to lunch at a quiet inn near Tulle, where a meeting was planned with André Malraux and George Hiller. Poirier and Hiller were already old friends – having first met during their teens whilst Hiller was attending the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris, they had been unexpectedly reunited just a few weeks before when both of them were hunting for the same Michelin map at Orchard Court.
During the afternoon Malraux's monologues, which ranged from the siege of Stalingrad to Lawrence of Arabia (a particular interest of his) left them exhausted, though after their meal the conversation moved on to his half-brother, Roland Malraux, who had been involved with the Resistance for some time. Having previously been private secretary to writer André Gide and Russian correspondent for Ce Soir, the 31-year-old Roland was a ‘more relaxed, more elegant, somewhat worldly’5 figure compared with André, and had already been responsible for introducing his younger brother Claude to an F Section agent named Philippe Liewer (Clement).
A journalist by trade, Liewer was a serious, methodical character who had been recruited by F Section agent George Langelaan in Nice during September 1941, though Langelaan's arrest just a few weeks after their meeting led the police to raid Liewer's house in Antibes; he spent ten uncomfortable months in Mauzac prison camp in the Dordogne before escaping over the Pyrenees, eventually making it to London in September 1942. After being trained as an organizer, Liewer (now renamed ‘Geoffrey Staunton’) returned to France in April 1943 to begin the SALESMAN circuit, covering Rouen and the port of Le Havre. Amongst his helpers was Claude Malraux, who soon became Liewer's second-in-command and assisted in SALESMAN's successful sabotage attacks on naval targets, factories and railway lines later that year.
In February 1944 Liewer returned to London, leaving Claude, code-named Cicero, in charge. Although not directly involved with Claude's work, Roland had been willing to support the circuit's operations, offering his small ninth-floor apartment on rue Lord Byron near the Arc de Triomphe as a safe house, and André felt that he could also act as a useful lieutenant for Peulevé. On a brief trip to Brive Roland agreed to the idea and promised to return as soon as he had attended to his affairs in Paris.
The arrival of Poirier as his assistant was a great relief to Peulevé, but he was aware that the quickening growth of his network was beginning to compromise its security. Even though the arrival of Hiller and Watney had shifted some of his responsibilities to a separate circuit, the increasing need to provide training and additional landing grounds for the maquis meant that he was forced to take bigger risks. The safety of Bertheau and Melon at Meymac had also become a concern, as a spotter plane had several times circled their radio post at the Moulin du Breuil.6 During a wireless transmission to London on 20 February the aircraft became even more inquisitive and flew just a few feet above the house, prompting them to quickly move their two wireless sets (a second set had arrived in January) to the house of Madame Hohenauer, who ran the youth hostel in Meymac and was already well known to Bertheau.
Although they continued to transmit from their new location, a jealous local FTP group soon began to cause trouble, hanging a sign outside the hostel declaring it to be residence of the local milice chief, and in desperation Hohenauer's young daughter Suzanne was sent to consult Peulevé. He told her to return with a message that a new safe house would be found for Bertheau in Brive, and Arnouil approached the commercial director of Bloc-Gazo, Armand Lamory, for help. Lamory agreed to offer the use of his house at 171 Route du Tulle in the suburb of Lascamps on the outskirts of Brive, and Bertheau arrived there on 5 March, leaving his assistant Melon in Meymac.
Poirier moved out of his hotel room to join Bertheau, though it wasn't long before they both became uneasy with this location, as members of the network began to pay them frequent visits in full view of the neighbours. Moreover, the first-floor rooms they were occupying gave them no chance of escape if they were called on by the local Gestapo or milice, as the only exit was down the staircase to the front door. Poirier voiced his fears, but Peulevé felt that such risks were now essential if they were to succeed; however, it was agreed that Poirier should move back to the Hotel Champanatier while they worked on finding an alternative location for Bertheau.
Aside from the threat of denunciation, German detection of agents’ wireless transmissions in occupied countries had become a sophisticated business by 1944, and local direction-finding teams were so efficient at pinpointing a signal's source that SOE advised its operators to stay on the air for no longer than five minutes. Whilst other SOE circuits greatly increased their security by transmitting from several W/T sets hidden at different safe houses, Bertheau was afforded no similar freedom of movement, despite D/F vans regularly driving past his window along the Route du Tulle. Yet to his great credit he patiently stuck to his job and was now often working through the night to maintain AUTHOR's vital communications with London.
Although Poirier's concerns about security had been acknowledged, another reported incident suggests that Peulevé may have taken even greater chances with his own safety. With his circuit's HQ at Bloc-Gazo, Peulevé spent a lot of time with Arnouil and would often lunch with him at the restaurant of the Hotel Champanatier. Unfortunately it also became a favourite haunt of local SD officer, Walter Schmald, the SS headquarters being at the nearby Hotel Terminus. Having noticed that Peulevé and his friend were regulars, Schmald introduced himself and, being bilingual, was keen to chat with them. Although on his guard, Peulevé guessed that he was more than just another thug – originally trained as a pharmacist, Schmald had become a translator for the Abwehr (German military intelligence) in Paris in 1941 before transferring to the SD at Limoges and later at Tulle. They apparently met on several more occasions, during which Peulevé attempted to extract whatever useful information he could about Schmald's department, though the German was altogether more interested in advice on where best to acquaint himself with the local women. London was told of this ploy to gather intelligence, but considered it far too dangerous to pursue and expressly ordered Peulevé to cease having any further contact with Schmald.
Although the situation of those living in the forests and hills of the Corrèze was still desperate, the increasing drops of supplies and money from the RAF were able to offer hope to many maquis on the verge of starvation. With the arrival of significant quantities of arms and explosives there was also much greater scope for carrying out raids on German lines of communications, and while the AS largely followed a policy of building up their strength in anticipation of D-Day, the FTP set about seriously harassing the enemy, carrying out numerous ambushes and assassinations. For Peulevé their successes during January and February signalled the turning point that he had been waiting for, and he was keen to take part in many of their actions:
At last I could feel that I need no longer run away: on the contrary, the German troops in our area had an extremely bad time from us. They kept to the roads and we kept to the hills. Every time we spotted a German convoy we pounced on it and never let up until it was annihilated. Factories, arms dumps and railways soared skywards after our visits. It was expensive and destructive warfare. Our losses were high. The Germans came into the woods with flame-throwers and tanks, but we were experts in making retreat when our stand against them had taken its toll… For every one German we killed, they would kill twenty or thirty hostages, taken at random from the villages through which they passed, but we never let up on them. They were haunted night and day by us, the ghosts in the wood who swooped down on them at every opportunity. This was my revenge for the years when unequal odds and circumstances had put me in the humiliating position of a fleeing coward.
My victory was not entire: the dangers were great. These I was prepared to face. The secret satisfaction of walking through their garrisoned towns in the guise of a French black marketeer … gave me such a sense of exultation that I knew my vindication was practically complete.
Our methods of slaughter were unorthodox and strictly disapproved of by all the conventional rules of warfare. We sabotaged their war effort; we stopped their circulation on the roads of the country they were supposedly dominating. We cut short their simple off-duty pleasures by raining lead on them when they walked out of the brothels and bars; we burnt out their vehicles and killed their drivers when they switched on the ignition to start their cars; we poisoned their wines and we threw the trains off the lines when they went back to Germany for leave.
Their reply to this treatment was the coward's way out. They took revenge on the women, children and old men… But they could not get us out of the woods.7
Having formed Peulevé's small elite squad for special operations, Raymond Maréchal was eager to join in, though his exploits were described by his commander as being ‘brave to the point of being extremely rash’.8 One of these involved the use of a French Army scout car, which had been discarded in 1940 and was later re-conditioned by Arnouil and hidden in some woods. Peulevé had intended to retrieve it closer to D-Day when the fighting was likely to become more open, but Maréchal soon came up with a more immediate use for it. Placing Bren guns at its front and rear and three flagpoles on the bonnet flying British, French and American flags, he would take to the moonlit streets with two of his maquisards, opening fire on any German he could find. Soon word began spreading about ‘The Phantom American’ and his raids, instilling such fear in the local garrison that some soldiers preferred to face a court martial rather than go on curfew patrols.
Terrorizing the occupying forces in the area also relied on less openly confrontational, but equally ruthless measures. One ploy involved using pocket torches – replacing one of the batteries with a small amount of high explosive, the switch could be used to fire a detonator, producing a device capable of removing the hand of an unsuspecting and inquisitive soldier. When they hung their great-coats up in the cafés and bars of the local towns and villages, these torches would be surreptitiously dropped into their pockets by boys who were too young to join the maquis. They were deliberately dropped into the right-hand pockets, assuming that once the soldier had donned his coat and walked off down the street, he would find the torch and curiosity would inevitably lead him to try to switch it on to see if it worked; the result would prevent him being able to fire a rifle again. Peulevé reported that these devices were very successful in lowering morale and increasing the numbers of local troops sent back to Germany, though the expected reprisals against the locals did not materialize, possibly due to the Germans’ belief that the torches were dropped by Allied aircraft and had been picked up in the streets.
According to his own memoirs, Peulevé's most successful strike against the local forces came on 10 March, when the maquis he was visiting near Montignac was alerted to the presence of a German convoy by plumes of smoke a few miles away (the local farmers regularly lit pre-prepared bonfires as a signal to warn them of any imminent threat).9 The area's steep valleys with their winding narrow roads were ideally suited to ambushes, and Peulevé had already shown the maquisards how to mine roads by digging up a strip of asphalt, laying charges in the trench and detonating them from a hiding position from behind the trees. Yet despite having used this method successfully to eliminate a patrol some days before, they had carelessly failed to reset the trap. With little time left before the convoy reached them, it was decided that thirty men should lay an ambush either side of the road – when the first armoured vehicle appeared it was likely that its crew would inspect the uncovered trench before moving forward, which offered the opportunity to take the convoy by surprise.
Sure enough the first truck stopped as expected and moments later several soldiers appeared with mine detectors to check on the disturbed area. A few seconds later the maquisards opened fire, forcing them to run for cover in the ditches; as they could not return to their vehicle, the trucks behind them were also unable to move forwards, making them easy prey for the other fighters scattered behind the pine trees on the slopes above them. A number of German and Vichy troops were cut down as they threw themselves out of their vehicles, but the remainder of the force, which Peulevé estimated at several hundred men, soon began to return fire, leading to a stalemate with neither side making any ground. With no obvious way out of the deadlock, the initiative was taken by two Russian recruits who suddenly appeared brandishing the group's new Bren guns, still covered in packing grease. Directing their fire at two of the trucks further back, they caused panic amongst those on board and gave Peulevé enough time to direct his men on the slopes to hurl down grenades on the remaining vehicles.
Within half an hour the entire convoy was reduced to a trail of burning wrecks and the resulting confusion made it easy to pick off those soldiers who had not managed to escape; any wounded were dealt with as savagely as maquisards captured by the Germans, being despatched with a shot to the back of the neck. As they sat around the fire in the evening the Russian duo were fêted as heroes for their actions and Peulevé shared in their elation, though for him the victory was another personal act of exoneration, offering more ‘sweet vengeance for those miserable early days of running away’.10
A few days before the return of Roland Malraux, Peulevé received news from Arnouil that yet another résistant had arrived in Brive, whose cover had been blown in the Savoie. Having a meeting to attend in the Dordogne, he asked Poirier to interrogate this man and ascertain whether he might be of use to the circuit. Meeting in the cellar of Bloc-Gazo's premises, Poirier was shocked to find that the man in question was his father, Robert. Though willing to bring him into the organization, Poirier had to fill him in on what had happened since his departure from Cannes, and make it clear that he was now known as ‘Captain Jack’, using the cover of a British officer for security purposes. In addition to keeping their family connection secret, there was also the more delicate issue of whether he would have a problem receiving orders from his son. He needn't have worried and the following morning ‘Commandant Robert’ returned to Bloc-Gazo to agree to his terms.
Meanwhile Peulevé had been investigating a young, fiery maquis leader based in the Dordogne: René Coustellier (known as ‘Soleil’) was a 23-year-old réfractaire who had fled Avignon for the area around Belvès, one of the medieval fortified towns known as bastides dotted across the southern Dordogne, and had requested a rendezvous at St Laurent-la-Vallée, a few miles away from the Lachauds’ mill at Daglan. Meeting in front of the village's thirteenth-century church, Paul Lachaud introduced the piratical-looking Soleil and his bodyguards to Peulevé and Arnouil before travelling to a house at nearby Grives, where they discussed Soleil's requirements. Despite having communist connections, Coustellier obviously commanded his maquis with great individuality, possessing an uncanny ability both to inspire his followers and instil terror in the hearts of local collaborators, who he pursued relentlessly. In need of arms and especially ammunition, Peulevé was willing to offer Soleil his help and they agreed to meet in two days to work out the details, this time at the house of Abbé Merchadou, a former pilot and résistant who often hid arms in his little church at Sagelat. Soleil's contacts in the area could provide Peulevé with an opportunity not only to expand AUTHOR's territory, but also a means of diverting the Germans’ attention on his network by setting up a secondary headquarters in the Dordogne. In return for delivery of parachuted supplies, Soleil promised to acquaint Poirier with the region and help him select a suitable safe house in the area.
Peulevé was equally astonished to see Poirier's father when he arrived back at Bloc-Gazo, having got to know him during his time at Beaulieu-sur-Mer whilst his leg was in plaster. Seeing how exhausted he looked, Robert suggested that Peulevé go to Savoie to stay with Madame Poirier for a few days. He gratefully accepted the offer, but before he could leave sudden news arrived of a crisis developing in Rouen.
Upon returning to Paris, Roland Malraux had been warned that his brother Claude, the acting organizer of SALESMAN, had just been arrested by the Gestapo, and that his network was now rapidly unravelling – unfortunately Claude had been the victim of a set-up involving an informer posing as a potential recruit, and was caught with two suitcases full of documents on the evening of 8 March, including details of sabotage carried out by the circuit. Though only on the periphery of SALESMAN, Roland and his wife Madeleine knew they were in danger if they stayed, and immediately took another train south. Reaching Brive station, Roland got off and told Madeleine to stay at her parents’ house in Toulouse until she heard more news from him, now intending to dedicate himself entirely to Peulevé's network.
Although the collapse of SALESMAN had just begun, Peulevé had no idea that this catastrophe was about to put Violette in great danger, having now become a fully-trained SOE agent herself. Having already guessed that she might be waiting to drop into France, he had requested that London send him a female courier to deal with his ever-increasing workload on the chance that she might be assigned to him, but as he suspected that Vera Atkins already knew of his connection with Szabó he was not surprised when she didn't arrive. His pragmatic outlook did little to reduce his anxiety, however, and in his own words ‘my imagination played all sorts of tricks and my heart was very often in my boots at the thought that she would be sent to some unsafe circuit and rapidly captured.’11
In fact some of SOE's trainers had recommended that Violette should be returned to civilian life months earlier, long before her training was complete. Her initial selection report at Winterfold in August had highlighted some promising qualities (‘Plucky and persistent in her endeavours. Not easily rattled… could probably do a useful job, possibly as a courier’),12 but her performance on the Group A course in Scotland during September had raised some serious concerns. Although she undertook the assault courses with characteristic enthusiasm and was considered a crack shot by her Highlands instructors, there were growing doubts about her psychological stability, and it seems that her single-minded determination to avenge her husband's death was perhaps overshadowing her other qualities. The Commandant reluctantly reported:
After a certain amount of doubt, especially at the beginning of the course, I have come to the conclusion that this student is temperamentally unsuitable for this work. I consider that owing to her too fatalistic outlook in life and particularly in her work, the fact that she lacks the ruse, stability and the finesse which is required and that she is too easily influenced; when operating in the field she might endanger the lives of others working with her. It is very regrettable to have to come to such a decision when dealing with a student of this type, who during the whole course has set an example to the whole party by her cheerfulness and eagerness to please.13
Yet with preparations mounting for D-Day demand for female couriers was high, and Buckmaster chose to ignore these recommendations, passing her on to the finishing school at Beaulieu. Unfortunately she suffered another setback when she injured her ankle on her first parachute jump at Ringway, but following a period of convalescence Violette steeled herself to retake the course, and successfully gained her wings at the end of February.
It took just a week for F Section to assign Violette as assistant to Roland's contact Philippe Liewer, the original organizer of SALESMAN, who was planning to return to Rouen later in March. Orchard Court had no idea of the disaster that had just overtaken the circuit, though fortunately the arrests of Claude Malraux, W/T operator Isidore Newman (Peulevé's companion during the CARTE fiasco) and a dozens others had just been reported to Peulevé through Roland, who had been informed by Claude's wife. A message was sent immediately via Bertheau to warn London of the situation:
FROM MACKINTOSH RED
12TH MARCH 1944
BLUFF CHECK OMITTED TRUE CHECK OMITTED
FOLLOWING NEWS FROM ROUEN STOP XLAUDEMALRAUX DISAPPEARED BELGIVED ARRESTED BY GESTAPO STOP RADIO OPERATOR PIERRE ARRESTES STOP IF CLETENT STILL WITH YOU DO NOT SEND HEM STOP DOFTOR ARRESTES STOP EIGHTEEN TONS ARMS REMOVED BS POLIFE STOP BELEIVE THIS DUE ARRESTATION OF A SEFTION FHEIF WHO GAVE ASRESSES ADIEU14
[FOLLOWING NEWS FROM ROUEN STOP CLAUDE MALRAUX DISAPPEARED BELIEVED ARRESTED BY GESTAPO STOP RADIO OPERATOR PIERRE ARRESTED STOP IF CLEMENT [Liewer's codename] STILL WITH YOU DO NOT SEND HIM STOP DOCTOR ARRESTED STOP EIGHTEEN TONS ARMS REMOVED BY POLICE STOP BELIEVE THIS DUE ARRESTATION OF A SECTION CHIEF WHO GAVE ADDRESSES ADIEU]
This garbled message gives some idea of the problems faced by Buckmaster and Atkins who received such badly mutilated telegrams on a daily basis. However, it was clear enough for F Section to realize that sending Liewer and Szabó would be far too dangerous and probably saved both of them from walking straight into the midst of a blown circuit.
By the middle of March, the results of Peulevé's work were clearly evident. The Prefect for the department recorded that seventeen cantons of the Corrèze were now in the hands of the maquis, while just nine belonged of the Germans, and the police had reported no fewer than ninety Resistance operations since the end of February. He now had approximately 2,500 men under his command across the Corrèze and Dordogne, of which two-thirds were based in AS maquis camps, and his dealings with Bonnetot had also produced at least another 1,500 in the FTP. Though records are incomplete, Peulevé and Bertheau are known to have sent eighty-three messages to London and received 118, and conducted twenty-four dropping operations between January and March 1944, probably netting in the region of 400 containers, enough matériel to fully equip several thousand men. The rise of the maquis was of course not down to one man's efforts, but the role Peulevé played was fundamental in their ability to train, arm and mobilize their forces. It is no exaggeration to suggest that without his determination to make AUTHOR a success, resistance in the Corrèze would have remained largely an unarmed struggle.
Yet these achievements had come at a considerable cost. Despite delegating more of his responsibilities, Peulevé was being drained by the demands of his role and arranged for Poirier to share a more equal load when he returned from the Savoie – having established a safe house at Siorac-en-Périgord through Soleil, Poirier would now work on establishing himself in the eastern Dordogne, while Peulevé concentrated his efforts on the Corrèze. Yet thinking of Jacques’ long separation from his family he had a sudden change of heart about his imminent trip. Despite being desperately in need of some time away, he knew that his friend had not seen his mother since leaving the Riviera in 1942and consequently made the selfless decision to stay, insisting that Poirier go instead. Though neither of them could have known it, Peulevé's judgement was about to alter the courses of both their lives irrevocably.