Young, Brave and Beautiful

by Tania Szabô

  ‘Because I do know Colonel Niederholen; met him twice now. I do believe he would much enjoy my company if the occasion arose. If he were here, I would be happy to spend a little time with him. He’s a decent bloke for a bloody German and would not take undue advantage. But I damn well would!’

  ‘Well, I’ll be …’ gasped Madeleine. ‘You’ve got a cheek, that’s for sure.’

  They rode some distance further and decided to push their bikes into the undergrowth and take a closer look. Violette was amazed at what she saw. Great caverns had been dug deep into the quarries. She observed that the Germans could assemble and stock a huge amount of weaponry there. And peeping out of one corner, ready for transportation, was a long weapon that looked very much like a torpedo but with small wings towards its rear. Violette had struck gold. Her intelligence would be invaluable back home.

  After about twenty minutes, with Violette moving from one position to another, Madeleine was getting decidedly jumpy.

  Violette whispered to her to stay hidden where she was and not to move. She would be back in about fifteen minutes. She moved quietly from bush to bush, tree to tree to get a closer look. She heard a whistle blow and almost fainted. It was the lunch break for the German labourers. Violette decided she had seen about as much as she safely could, returned and gestured to Madeleine that they recover their bikes to head back to the Café de la République.

  As they rode back, they laughed over Violette’s shock over the whistle. ‘What about me,’ exclaimed Madeleine. ‘I almost wet my pants. Didn’t know where you’d got to, either.’

  Madeleine explained that Joseph had seen some similar objects around the area of Saint-Maximin, just a few miles north-east on the other side of the river Oise, again near the woods. More for London.

  Once back at the café-bar, Madeleine introduced Violette as Corinne to Joseph, who promised to take her about three-quarters of the way to Rouen the next morning. The three of them chatted away while Madeleine’s aunt brought in a hearty meal of bread, beans, chicken and salad. A carafe of light rosé wine accompanied the meal. Joseph told Violette everything he knew about the Saint-Maximin weapon sites and much else besides. He described the site in the Bois de Clairefeuille, only four kilometres west of Buchy. Just then, Henri Bonaventure arrived. He ate his meal hungrily, while telling Violette that secret arms were ordered by Hitler to be stocked in the underground bunkers on both sites. He went on to give her details of stocks, site dimensions and more. They went over the details again for clarification and then spent a brief time chatting.

  Finally, they bid one another good night and Violette had retired to her tiny room at the back of the building. She pulled out some rice paper and quickly noted down in code all that she had seen, surmised and been told. She was so pleased that she had come here.

  ‡

  From late 1942, London had started to hear rumours about German long-range ‘secret weapons’. Then the details had trickled in. In April 1943, Duncan Sandys in the British War Cabinet undertook a full study of the reports, resulting in the advice that a threat from German ‘secret weapons’ should be taken seriously. Philippe reported in his February 1944 debriefing that he had seen the sites that he thought were launch pads not far from Rouen along the Normandy coastline, and this was where his and later Violette’s intelligence gathering proved so useful on their return from their respective missions in 1943 and 1944.

  British intelligence estimated that the damage inflicted by the bombing raid on the installation at Watten in August 1943 would require as much as three months to repair, but continued reconnaissance of the French coast revealed new constructions of a similar type, all in the Pas-de-Calais region. These sites were huge and the larger sites, like Mimoyecques, with their connecting tunnels and underground chambers, had been estimated to have housed at least 200,000 rockets in just one site.

  Millions of aerial pictures had been taken, guided by intelligence reports as they came in from agents on the ground like Violette, along with ground photographs of sites taken at great risk to the photographers. These were all studied by hundreds of aerial photographic interpreters like Paul Emile and interpreters of accompanying data to provide more technical information and targeting for bombers.

  From continental areas all along the Atlantic Coast, including the English Channel, sites had been constructed to bombard England and especially London with German pilotless aircraft. The first such bombing did not take place until 13 June 1944, seven days after the Allied invasion of Normandy. The V1 flying bombs80 flamed across the dark skies from Pas-de-Calais and one exploded on a railway bridge in the centre of London. By the spring of 1945, when Germany finally collapsed, more than 30,000 V rockets (approximately 16,000 V1s and 14,000 V2s) had targeted England and advancing Allied armies on the continent.

  The Saint-Leu-d’Esserent site near Creil, not far from Chantilly, had been designed to house batteries of long-range guns and rockets. The quarries had been turned into a factory for assembling and stockpiling V1 flying bombs. From these underground installations, they were transported by train to various launch sites along the Atlantic coastline of France, particularly Normandy. Through Violette’s information, confirmed and built upon by other sources from late spring 1944, the Allies intensified their strikes on the Saint-Leu-d’Esserent quarries, destroying everything by the end of September.

  ‡

  * * *

  78 Mother of Raoul and Henri, leader of the Diables Noirs now that her sons had been taken.

  79 This Marianne is an alias of a leader of another group of which Georges Philippon’s friend Chevallier had been a member.

  80 ‘V’ designation originally meant Versuchmuster (experimental type); interpretation of the ‘V’ as representing Vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapons) was a later addition by German propaganda agencies.

  18

  To Dieppedalle, Arrest

  and Déterville

  Saturday 22 April 1944

  Waking early, Violette hurriedly dressed in her own clothes, folding the farm clothes borrowed from Hirondelle in Ry and putting them neatly on the bed. She went down to breakfast with Madeleine’s family in the large kitchen. Joseph was already there, a thin, reedy cigarette stuck between his lips and a smile of welcome for a game lass who wasn’t half pretty.

  Before Violette had appeared, Madeleine had done nothing but talk about Corinne, about this extraordinary girl and what she had done on their trip to the quarries yesterday. When Violette came in, Madeleine smiled at her warmly, ‘You slept well I hope, Corinne. I was scared yesterday but you were so calm. You smiled so sweetly at the Chleu. I could have taken you for a very willing collabo horizontale.’

  ‘That was the general idea,’ affirmed Violette, ‘And I think it worked. I hope the Allies bomb the salauds into the ground.’

  Everyone looked up with surprise at the sweet-looking girl swearing so ferociously. They all laughed, understanding the depth of her pure hatred for this destructive, tyrannical force. After a hurried breakfast they went over the route Violette would follow. She thanked them all for their kindness and courage in fighting the enemy. Most of them were communists and she had to admit she admired their commitment if not their claims and aims.

  Madeleine took Violette in a great hug, wishing her luck and saying she would miss her.

  By the time they were ready to leave, it was pelting down. Violette was relieved she would be sheltered in the cab of Joseph’s truck. Her bike was shoved under torn tarpaulin next to two crates of pigs being taken to the Kommandatur in Gournay-en-Bray. Joseph suggested that they might have time for a snack in Gournay-en-Bray before parting company.

  The journey was uneventful except for the constant squealing of the pigs. The storm passed, but it drizzled for an hour. Joseph chatted about all he had seen within the very wide area of his travels from Belgium to Paris and Senlis to Rouen. He acted as a liaison officer between many different Résistance groups and only met those he knew he could trust and wer
e leaders of their respective réseaux. He never used a telephone, never travelled any other way but in his truck, which was well known to the military authorities and the Milice as well as the French police. He held all the necessary German papers as well as his normal identity papers, as he worked legitimately on their behalf, delivering produce for their hungry soldiers and administrative staff. He gave a few perks to a few useful sentries so they would turn a blind eye when he was caught out in some suspicious activity.

  Joseph needed no encouragement to talk about everything he knew, as he was adamant that she report all the crucial intelligence he had gathered over the last few weeks to London as soon as possible, by pigeon if no other secure method was open to her, before she returned herself. He knew someone in Rouen who had some English pigeons that would fly to the Isle of Wight if that would prove useful. She assured him she would report to her superiors everything that he told her.

  Joseph supplied the locations of the German army’s headquarters and barracks over the entire area, describing all that he knew of the strange bunkers and launch sites. He told her what kind of sabotage was possible by those working on each military installation and on the uneven development, as he saw it, of a central agency to bring all the Résistance groups under one central military and civil organisation directly linked to de Gaulle in London. His information was invaluable and urgent and Violette did her best to remember it all, making mental pictures of each place and situation to help recall it all later.

  As they rattled and squealed into the heart of the Pays de Bray, and on into the large market town of Gournay-en-Bray on the edge of the Forêt de Lyons, well south of the ancient villages of Ry and Saint-Denis-le-Thibault, the rain finally stopped and the sun poked through the thinning clouds.

  Gournay-en-Bray is about a hundred miles north of Paris, thirty miles east of Rouen and sixty miles south of Dieppe, an important commercial, agricultural and market garden centre. It had been a pretty country town whose heart had been almost destroyed on 7 June 1940 by the armies of the Third Reich. They sacked the town and stayed over four years. The Kommandatur had garrisoned in the lovely old town hall, hanging a huge red and black swastika flag over its main entrance. Once again, destruction and desolation were everywhere.

  The mood of the town was decidedly unfriendly. It swarmed with enemy soldiers, grey-green Wehrmacht, black Gestapo and the ever-present Milice. Weary people looked around furtively as they scurried on their way. There remained, however, many whose fighting spirit received a boost from the rumours of the Allied invasion to come. The strong communist element, carefully hidden, quietly – and sometimes not so quietly – continued their Résistance work in the town and in the small surrounding villages.

  Joseph parked the truck, checked the pigs were settled and safe in their crates and led Violette to a brasserie for lunch. The windows had been blown out and covered with blackout paper making the light dim and a fug of cigarette smoke hung in the air. They were left undisturbed as they ate in a corner; the waiter, a passive Résister and friend who occasionally acted as a cutout, came and chatted a while, quietly remarking on the increasing activity of the Germany military and passing on other useful intelligence to Violette to take back to London. After an hour or so they parted company.

  ‡

  Violette rode off into the early Saturday afternoon sunshine, glad to be on her own so she could ponder all she had learned. She stopped a while on route to make further coded notes and considered trying to find the pigeon fancier Joseph had told her about, to fly her intelligence to the Isle of Wight, but it might be better to use the radio, as she had already done. She remained ever vigilant for odd sounds, patrolling sentries and, as before, whenever she heard motorised transport she moved off the road and hid in thickets or lay low in the fields. She saw more military traffic with long lorries, carrying what must have been heavy weapons towards Rouen or further afield. To be stopped, searched and questioned would be disastrous at this stage.

  Towards late afternoon, Violette arrived back in Rouen. Joseph had told her to find and talk to a young man called Pierre Legros in the Vieux Marché. He gave her the introductory coded message to use to him, or others who might help her to find him, and the reply to expect from Pierre or other comrade whom she could then trust.

  In April 1944, le Vieux Marché truly was the Old Market of Rouen, although business was slack. Violette felt an uncomfortable presentiment but dismissed it and wandered nonchalantly through the market. She approached a knick-knack stall and asked the female stallholder if she knew Pierre Legros. She said that Joseph Le Cauvin had said that he might help her find some long-lost friends. The woman looked at her with great suspicion and angrily shouted at her to ‘fichez le camp!’81 as she was a busy woman and knew no one of that name. Under lowered eyebrows the woman watched Violette walk away, turned angrily to her neighbour, and gesticulated in the direction of Violette. A French policeman noticed the exchange and made a note on his pad.

  Wandering around the market as if she were looking for something to buy, picking up one thing after another, occasionally asking the price of some article or about Pierre then moving on when the price was too high or the answer negative, she came to a vegetable stall where a young man of about twenty was yelling to anyone who would listen that his produce was the best. Violette repeated that Joseph had said Pierre could help her find some friends she once knew. This time the young chap grinned widely and said he sure did know him.

  ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘there he is just over there. Hey, Pierre, come on over here. Joseph wants me to introduce this young lady.’

  The young man came over. ‘Salut, how can I help you?’ he asked Violette politely.

  ‘Joseph asked me to tell you that he’s taken the pigs to Gournay-en-Bray at long last,’ replied Violette with her part of the code.

  ‘Ah yes, about time. By now, they should be well and truly fattened and ready for the slaughterhouse.’ And they both laughed. Two-sided code established.

  ‘I’m Corinne Leroy and I’m hoping to gain some information,’ she continued.

  Pierre was a young man about Violette’s age and belonged to the Serquigny group from the little town of the same name, although he did not tell Violette this. Philippe had already had some contact with this group and, although they had lost some of their people, they were trustworthy and competent. She explained she wanted to see two places: the quarries at Canteleu-Dieppedalle and the launch sites on the heights of Bois-Guillaume on Mont-Saint-Aignan. He said he would be happy to help, having already heard about her.

  Pierre suggested they should pretend to be a young couple getting to know one another and acting a bit silly so they could ride their bikes around the area, racing one another from time to time and generally looking like a couple of youngsters full of the joys of spring.

  Violette agreed and so they cycled slowly, and sometime furiously, along Route D93 towards Canteleu-Dieppedalle, while Pierre told her what he knew. The Germans had imported Todt and Russian slave-labour to build two factories in the quarries and also deep within the caves to produce liquid oxygen. He felt sure this had something to do with the huge concrete caverns with launch sites rising from under the ground near Calais, here in Rouen, Tôtes and Auffray, and a number of other sites along the entire coast as far west as the Cherbourg peninsula. It seemed to him that the Germans had invented some kind of rocket contraption that they could sling out across the Channel like a catapult.

  As he was talking, he smiled happily and from time to time they gazed into one another’s eyes while riding abreast – forbidden by the German authorities, but they judged that they would probably get away with a severe ticking-off if they were stopped. They laughed as they discussed serious matters to disguise further their real intentions. Once they dismounted, seemingly to study the daffodils that had sprung up along the road, but in fact they were looking directly up at, and carefully examining, the quarries with their terraces. They cycled in the direction of La
Bouille until they came to the railway line that disappeared into the far end of the quarry. Violette had a general idea of the size of the site, leading away to the north from the right bank of the Seine.

  She noted much of the area was disguised by small thickets and copses dotted all along the river front, but the railway was just visible and had a branch entering the quarry, as Joseph had described to her. They could not get close enough to see it properly but there was also an embarkation area for boats plying up and down from Paris to Le Havre.

  Violette considered Pierre was probably correct that the Saint-Leu stockpile of rockets could be transported to this area, not only by road along the D93 hugging the riverbank, but by rail and also by barge along the Oise then the Seine to Canteleu-Dieppedalle, or onto Le Havre. Rail or road would be necessary to take such weapons on to Tôtes, Auffray or Watton. However they travelled, the weapons could collect their fuel of liquid oxygen here.

  The Germans used the deep caves of these quarries to build installations that would function within a network of solid vaulted galleries. The rock extended to anything between 150 and 240 metres above the caverns’ floors. These ancient caves were now heavily fortified and guarded day and night to produce and store oxygen. This oxygen was then transported to launch sites to fire the V1 and V2 rockets.

  They walked down to the water’s edge as budding lovers do, parked their bikes and looked across the Seine. They had deliberately turned their backs on what most interested them to deter suspicion from nosey passers-by. After a few minutes, they turned back. There was nothing further to discover in Canteleu-Dieppedalle from the outside and it was dangerous to hang around any longer. As the afternoon was advancing, they also needed to reach the north of town soon.