The Test of Courage: (A Biography of) Michel Thomas

by Christopher Robbins

  Recquet came up with another of his bold ruses. The trucks and armoured car would make their way up the mountain and draw up in front of the Vichy roadblock. Men in the armoured car would man the machine guns, while fully armed commandos would lie in wait in the trucks out of sight. Two other groups of commandos would go further up the mountain on foot and take up positions dominating the roadblock. Meanwhile, Recquet, accompanied by Michel and another commando named Henri, moved towards the roadblock.[113]

  ‘Just let us pass,’ Recquet said. ‘Nothing more. And there will be no trouble and everybody will be happy.’

  The commander stepped forward. ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Let’s talk!’ Recquet said. ‘It’s your duty as a Frenchman.’

  ‘No. I am an officer and I have to obey my orders.’

  ‘I am a military man as well,’ Recquet said, ‘and I obey General de Gaulle. Let the convoy pass - you can shoot at us afterwards.’

  A junior officer began to speak in a low voice to his commander. ‘Sir, perhaps we could...’

  ‘No!’ the commander exploded, cutting him off abruptly. ‘The Germans are going to arrive from Grenoble any moment and I do not wish to be interned.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure the Germans are on their way,’ Recquet said, adopting the tone of one reasonable man appealing to another. ‘So we only have a few minutes. Let us pass.’ He moved towards the commander as he spoke. ‘This is nonsense. Are we going to have Frenchmen fighting against Frenchmen? Surely you could tell the Germans we had already gone through when you arrived?’

  ‘No,’ the commander repeated, unmoved. ‘Absolutely not!’

  During his plea, Recquet had carefully noted the position of his men out of the corner of his eye. The convoy looked harmless enough, although the armoured car had pulled to the front, and he knew the commandos would be in place higher up the mountainside. He had now moved to within inches of the officer in charge, and the men glared at each other.

  Suddenly, Recquet whipped the revolver from his belt and shoved it into the man’s belly. ‘Put your hands up and tell your men to do the same, or we shoot!’

  Four sub-machine guns appeared from the gun slots in the armoured car, and the résistants in the trucks stood and trained their weapons on the troops. Snipers appeared among the rocks and trees on the hill.

  ‘You are cowards,’ the commander screamed, outraged. ‘You came here to negotiate. You have taken me in treachery. This is against the rules of war.’

  Henri raised his hand to hit the commander, but Recquet stopped him.

  ‘You are the cowards,’ Recquet said. ‘You have hidden in a ditch to make an attack on your fellow countrymen and hold us up. Even for a coward your duty was obvious.’

  The sixty surrounded GMR troops were disarmed and their weapons collected. Six chose to join the Résistance, a number that disgusted Recquet. He remarked bitterly, ‘The commander isn’t the only coward. Out of sixty lives we respected and who were our prisoners, only six chose to follow us!’ But time was pressing, and the gazos were spluttering.

  The convoy flew the tricolour all the way back to their mountain hideout and were cheered in the villages. They did not encounter a single enemy soldier throughout the journey. The very next day Michel and his men blew up a bridge, using part of the stolen explosives. He took the time to paint and erect a sign that he left propped beside it: SOUVENIR OF MURIER.[114]

  It had been a magnificent and successful operation, but there were casualties. One of the résistants, who acted as an observer in the rear guard, was spotted and chased by a Milice patrol. He took refuge in the home of a certain Madame Fleury, in the village of Versoud, and when the patrol hammered on her door he fled through the garden. He was later captured and handed over to the Gestapo. Madame Fleury, accused of being a Résistance sympathiser, was threatened and abused in her own home, and then badly beaten. She too was handed over to the Gestapo and deported. Recquet records: ‘Nobody could make her talk. It took great physical and moral strength. Happily, she survived deportation and returned in 1945, sad and ill. She can be proud to have us say of her, “They dented their helmets with the force of the blows to her head but never loosened her teeth.” A résistant dies but does not talk.’

  On Bastille Day, three days after the raid on Murier, the Résistance held a traditional military review, including a memorial mass for those killed at St Nizier, deep in the Lente forest. On the same day Vercors received a large supply of weaponry from forty-eight United States Air Force Flying Fortresses, filling the sky with red, white and blue parachutes. A thousand containers were retrieved full of Sten guns, ammunition and badly needed clothes - but none of the requested heavy weapons. The Germans responded within minutes of the drop with an air attack on local villages, blowing up houses and causing casualties among both résistants and civilians. As one member of the Maquis returned to his village from the review in the forest, he found everything in flames. The local hotel was burning furiously, but in the dining room at the rear a man was seated alone at a table, a lighted candle stuck in the neck of a bottle, defiantly consuming a baked ham.

  The Germans now launched a massive attack on Vercors committing twenty thousand men. Spearheaded by the elite regiment of the 157th Alpine Division, it included two batteries of mountain guns, tank units from the 9th Panzer Division and full air support. The plan was to encircle the redoubt and seal off all escape routes, then smash through to the plateau from all points of the compass and eliminate the defenders.

  At the same time, a concerted search was launched for known members of the Résistance. Michel was woken up in Biviers on the same morning by the sound of the village dogs barking furiously. He climbed out of bed and looked out of the window. German trucks full of troops were grinding their way up the mountain road. He threw on his clothes and left the house to protect Thérèse Mathieu, for the Germans killed anyone found harbouring a résistant. He intended to make for the mountains, but once outside he saw that a second convoy had already taken up position higher up in the village and cut the road off. ‘German troops had cordoned off the entire area and there was no way out. I was surrounded, completely trapped.’

  Michel began to search for a hiding place, and saw an empty house with its shutters closed. It was at this moment that Diane chose to run to his side. He ordered her to go away, but she clung to him. He began to plead. Reluctantly, the Irish setter slunk away, head hung low and feelings hurt. Michel climbed over a wall into the large fenced garden and moved quickly to a well with a wooden cover. He pulled the cover aside and saw that a metal rod ran all the way down the stone interior. He climbed into the well, pulled the cover back into place, and used the rail to lower himself until he was hanging just above the water level. He planned to submerge the moment he heard German troops approach the well.

  ‘I hung there a long time,’ Michel recalled. The Germans searched the village thoroughly. They had learned many of the Résistance’s tricks during the occupation and became increasingly difficult to evade. Each patrol was assigned a certain number of houses and took their time going through cellars, checking for false floors and hidden doors. As Michel clung to the iron rod in the echoing dark, his body braced uncomfortably against the cold stone shaft, he suddenly heard scratching sounds on the cover above him. He prepared to sink into the icy well water. Then he heard the unmistakable, heartbroken whimpering of Diane.

  The noise threatened to attract the attention of the Germans, so there was nothing to be done but to go back to the top and silence the dog. He had to move quickly. He hauled himself up the iron rod, slid open the cover and climbed out. Diane jumped up and began to bark with pleasure. ‘Not today, please! Go away!’ Michel hissed. ‘Go!’ Diane stood her ground. ‘Go! Leave me!’ Diane cocked her head. Once again he was forced to plead. ‘Please go away... please! At last, Diane seemed to understand, and she turned and walked off.

  Michel heard the crunch of soldiers’ boots as a search party moved up from the lower vi
llage. It was too late to climb back down the well, because of the risk of being spotted, so he crawled on his belly towards the empty house and around to the back. A large, windowless brick tool shed with a sloping roof was attached to it, padlocked on the outside. He scaled the wall, using the house to conceal him from the search party, but once on the roof saw that he was exposed to a second patrol above him working its way down through the village.

  The roof was constructed of large square tiles and he slid one aside to squeeze into the tool shed below. Holding on to the wooden frame of the roof, he pulled the tile back into position and dropped to the ground. At first he could see nothing in the dim light except for rays that filtered from under the locked door. Above, thick wire was stretched across the shed supporting a wooden plank to form a suspended storage space for hay. It offered a precarious hiding place at best, but he climbed on to a wheelbarrow, pulled himself up and buried himself under the hay.

  Suspended in mid-air under hay, he felt reasonably secure. The shed was clearly locked on the outside and the wire and plank construct was more solid than it looked. And then he heard Diane barking at the side of the shed where he had climbed on to the roof.

  The dog moved to the shed door and began to scratch at it and moan. ‘My heart stopped beating. This was the end. I was powerless. I could do nothing but wait for the inevitable.’ He pulled out his revolver and held it against his chest. He would empty it into the enemy, saving the last bullet for himself. ‘To be captured in combat meant to be tortured to death. We were branded as terrorists, and I was not going to allow myself to fall into the hands of the Germans.’

  He heard one of the search parties enter the house, and the occasional shout in German as the soldiers moved from room to room. Diane suddenly stopped scratching at the door. The search party came out of the house and into the garden. There was momentary silence, and then the sound of aggressive barking as if the dog suddenly understood the source of danger and had switched her attention to the patrol. There was a shout and the noise of a soldier heaving a rock. The barking stopped. Michel lay under the hay, dreading the possibility of the dog’s return, hoping the Germans might give the tool shed a miss because of the padlock.

  A group of soldiers paused outside the door. One rattled the padlock. There was a pause, followed by the sound of splintering wood as the timber of the half-rotten door was kicked in. The soldier stepped inside and light flooded the shed. Michel lay still, scarcely breathing. The hay became heavy and hot and he was unbearably uncomfortable. The wait seemed endless. The soldiers looked around and walked out, apparently satisfied the shed was empty. Michel heard the patrol form up and the sound of their boots as they marched away - and Diane’s barking in the distance.

  He lay beneath the hay until nightfall and then dropped from his hiding place to the floor of the shed. A dark object outlined against the open door made him start. It was Diane, tail wagging happily. He slipped back to the house where the dog settled under the kitchen table, exuding the newly acquired air of a conspirator. Thérèse Mathieu told Michel that all hell had broken loose: the enemy had launched a major offensive employing thousands of troops. All Résistance groups had been put on alert. It was now too dangerous for any résistant to stay put, and she was going to leave the house with her rifle and climb into the mountains to join headquarters in Beldonne.[115]

  The encirclement of Vercors by the Germans was completed by nightfall. The assault on the mountain fortress was launched at six the following morning in drenching rain. A heavily armed column once again climbed the road to St Nizier, while seven others scaled the escarpments and attacked defenders holding the passes. The maquisards fought ferociously, but were forced to fall back after twenty-four hours. The Germans sent out large reconnaissance forces probing for weak spots in Maquis positions while the résistants retreated. Once the enemy had identified sensitive positions they moved in to destroy them.

  Despite effective ambushes inflicting heavy casualties - in one the Germans lost more than eighty men - the enemy gained a foothold on one mountain top after another. Night brought no relief as a multitude of German patrols moved through the woods. In the morning, at first light, the Germans opened up with mortars. As German Alpine commandos moved on to one position, the defenders were killed one after another, and the youngest - just turned seventeen - called out, ‘Tell mama that I died for France!’ His commander, pipe clamped firmly between his teeth, fired his bazooka twenty-seven times. He was wounded, but continued to fight until he was encircled. Before he died he sent a radio message to his commander that his men had decided to fight to the end, signing off: ‘Long live France!’

  The Germans succeeded in installing mortars and cannons in mountain-top positions and were now able to fire on the Maquis below them. The military situation had been reversed. The résistants were fish in a barrel and the free citadel of Vercors seemed doomed. A desperate report on the enemy action was sent to Algiers: ‘Demand immediate bombardment. Had promised to hold out for three weeks. Now six weeks since establishment of our organisation. Request additional men, fuel and materiel.

  Morale of the population excellent, but they will quickly turn against you if you do not take immediate steps, and we would have to agree with them that the leaders in Algiers and London do not understand the situation we find ourselves in and can be considered cowards and criminals. We mean what we say: cowards and criminals.’

  An immediate request for commandos was made by the Free French to the Allies, but all forces were being concentrated on the projected landing in Provence. The head of the SOE for the region tried to persuade Allied command to put nearby German airstrips - where transport planes earmarked for carrying troops offered a particularly inviting target - out of action. But nothing happened. The fate of the men of Vercors was sealed. One commander remarked to a comrade: I have always believed that nine out of ten would never return. And yet we didn’t have the right to say no.’

  The only hope seemed to be the airborne troops promised by de Gaulle, and the Vercors Résistance still dared to hope that a force would be flown in, complete with heavy artillery. The construction crew had virtually completed the airstrip at Vassieux, in the centre of the plateau, which was now three thousand, three hundred feet long and four hundred and fifty feet wide, and serviceable. Three days after the Germans opened their attack there was elation as the crew spotted aircraft approaching from the south under low cloud. Word went around the strip that the Allied airborne force was here at last - and it was impressive. Altogether there were twenty planes with troop gliders in tow.

  But as the gliders drew closer the awful truth struck home: they were not the long-expected Allied reinforcements at all, but German troop transports. The enemy had closely monitored the progress of the strip through aerial reconnaissance and saw a magnificent opportunity to place troops in the heart of the ‘impregnable’ Vercors. The gliders disgorged four hundred crack SS troops who quickly overwhelmed the Maquis defenders. The attack was a well-planned operation faultlessly executed without quarter. The Germans secured their position in the village and then fanned out on the offensive.

  Résistance units were now massively outnumbered and outgunned, and hopelessly overstretched along a one-hundred-and-twenty-mile front. German reinforcements continued to be flown into Vassieux, while other troops poured through the open gate of St Nizier. Medium- and long-range artillery pounded inadequately defended set positions. By nightfall Résistance leaders understood that they would have to revert to guerrilla tactics. A decision was made to keep fighting using all possible means, and then fall back in small units. It was also decided to move the OSS commandos out of the area to the HQ of the Secret Army in the Beldonne mountains.

  They reached Chartreuse, a strong Résistance area, and Michel was placed in charge of moving the OSS men across the Isere Valley and up into the Alps. The commandos were loaded into a truck and Michel led the way on a motor bike. ‘I had already been able to organise lookouts all along
the route within visual distance of one another. Their job was to warn us of the presence or approach of German troops. If I saw that a man was missing, or a signal was given, we would have been warned. We went like hell, and although we thought it wise to go off the road a couple of times, we had a straight run with no trouble. They were delivered to Beldonne safely.’

  Back in Vercors, the SS now staged a number of brutal reprisals. They shot hostages and prisoners and massacred the inhabitants of Vassieux, mostly old men, women and children. One woman was raped by seventeen men in succession, while a German doctor held her pulse, ready to stop the soldiers when she fainted. Another was eviscerated and left to die with her intestines draped around her neck. When three children tried to save themselves by hiding behind a rock, soldiers threw hand grenades at them. All three were wounded, while one - a four-year-old boy - had his left hand torn off at the wrist. When an old lady came out of hiding to plead for him she was shot dead. Another of the children, an eight-year-old girl who had been wounded in the chest, was later carried away and hidden by her parents. They were given away by a barking dog. As the father reached into his pocket to retrieve his ID, the soldiers shot him with the cry, ‘Terrorist!’ They turned on the little girl and her mother. ‘If you cry you’ll get the same.’ Sixty-four civilians died at Vassieux, and more than two hundred villagers and farmers from the region were murdered in reprisal killings.

  The Résistance military hospital close to Vassieux, caring for one hundred and twenty wounded, had been evacuated during the assault. The walking wounded were left to fend for themselves. Doctors and nurses took the seats out of a number of buses, loaded the stretcher cases and headed south. News of a German column moving up from Die, a village at the southern tip of the plateau, led to them leaving the main road and heading into the mountains. They followed a rough dirt track to the grotto of La Luire, a limestone cavern sixty feet wide and twice as deep in the side of the Montagne de Beurre - Butter Mountain. The mouth of the cave was hidden by trees, and for a week the three doctors, nine nurses and chaplain cared for the twenty-six wounded, among whom were two women from Vassieux who had been wounded in the bombing, four German prisoners of war, and an American OSS lieutenant, Chester Myers, recovering from an appendix operation.