77 “carried with him”: Churchill, Second World War, II:192.
78 André distinguishes himself: Biography of Jean-Pierre Berger, www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/82.html. André gave different dates in different places for this departure date. In 1943, he told British intelligence officers that the ship had left France on June 22 and reached Algeria on the day of the Armistice. Seven years later, he thought he had left on June 24 and arrived two days later.
79 He thinks “that we [will] win”: Letter from André Boulloche to C. Hettier de Boislambert, Grand Chancelier de L’Ordre de la Liberation, June 13, 1969, French National Archives, box 72AJ2056.
80 On June 21: Churchill says 21 deputies; Ousby says 19. In a speech before the National Assembly, its president, Raymond Fourni, said there had been 26 deputies and 1 senator aboard.
81 “I embarked on the Massilia”: Ophuls, The Sorrow and the Pity, pp. 59–60.
82 Churchill noted with disgust: Churchill, Second World War, II:193–94.
83 One and a half million French prisoners: Jackson, France, p. 127.
84 At the end of the opera tour: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 171–72.
85 “My Dear Father”: Letter from André Boulloche, collection of Agnès Boulloche.
86 “And they sang well”: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
87 She sees it as: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
88 “It was a succession of shocks”: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 10, 1997.
89 “You should have been here”: Eparvier, À Paris sous la botte des Nazis.
90 This is when Christiane: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 3, 1997.
91 Three months later: Ousby, Occupation, p. 99.
92 By the start of 1941: Jackson, France, p. 356.
93 Adding insult to the humiliation: Ousby, Occupation, p. 182.
94 As the British historian: Jackson, France, p. 243.
95 Like his father: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
96 But he has a terrific sense of humor: Author’s interview with Agnès Boulloche, December 8, 2001.
97 At the end of 1940: “Hommage à André Boulloche,” p. 13.
98 He is appalled by the savage sight: Author’s interview with André Postel-Vinay, Paris, February 2, 2004.
99 “war is the only way”: Author’s interview with Claire Andrieu (Postel-Vinay’s daughter), January 31, 2004.
100 In December 1940: Jackson, France, p. 403; Ordre de la liberation website, biography of André Postel-Vinay, www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/801.html.
101 “I know someone”: Author’s interview with André Postel-Vinay, February 2, 2004.
102 “Andre was very passionate”: Ibid.
103 “For the two of us”: Ibid.
104 “Then whose bombers are those”: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 150.
105 visit it for the first time: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1039.
106 he believes that they are reaching London: When Pierre Pène is arrested, he sees in the Gestapo’s dossier the plan for the works at Margival, which was supposed to have arrived in London.
107 never discusses his clandestine: Author’s interview with Dr. René Cler, March 17, 1999.
108 Churchill hopes that he will attract: Jackson, France, p. 389.
109 “Their idea was to get out”: Ophuls, The Sorrow and the Pity, pp. 56, 58.
110 Only one deputy: Paxton, Vichy France, p. 42.
111 de Gaulle notices: Jackson, France, p. 398.
112 felt like a man who had been skinned alive: Ibid., pp. 392–93.
113 There was one other thing: Ibid., p. 396.
114 But the general sees: Ibid., p. 397.
115 Not until November: Ibid., pp. 397–98.
116 At the same time, French-language: Ibid., p. 398.
117 Almost anyone who volunteers: Ibid., p. 399.
118 “The island of Sein stands watch”: Ousby, Occupation, p. 44.
119 Nearly all of what Dewavrin knows: Jackson, France, p. 399.
120 an almost inevitable invasion: New York Times, June 1 and 6, 1940.
121 “Everywhere a feeling”: Orwell, Diaries, p. 299.
122 Three years later: Nicholas Lemann, “The Murrow Doctrine,” New Yorker, January 23 and 30, 2006.
123 “could not agree to forcing De Gaulle”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 248.
124 “The familiar slur”: Ousby, Occupation, p. 236.
125 “a very, very explicit act”: Author’s telephone interview with Robert Paxton, January 29, 2004. In 2014, Paxton told me he had recently seen an interview on the Internet with Pétain’s chauffeur saying the Cadillac had been left on the dock in Bordeaux by someone fleeing in June 1940, and Pétain had purchased it then, so Paxton was no longer certain that the automobile was a gift of the American ambassador. However, most other sources agree that it came from Admiral Leahy.
126 American public opinion begins to rally: Ibid.
127 “vitally interested statement”: New York Times, June 22, 1941.
128 “This was our obsessive fear”: Boulloche Audibert, Souvenirs.
129 Thanks to their complicity: Postel-Vinay, Un fou s’évade, p. 8, used by permission of the author’s estate.
130 At that moment: Ibid., pp. 8–9.
131 And yet he still doesn’t want: Ibid., p. 9. Most of the rest of this chapter is taken from Un fou s’évade.
132 Probably to avoid: www.rafinfo.org.uk/rafescape/guerisse.htm.
133 Postel-Vinay considers: Remarks of Postel-Vinay honoring André Boulloche, January 26, 1986.
134 His ultimate nightmare: This and most of chapter 9 is from Postel-Vinay, Un fou s’évade.
135 And when a downed British or American: Author’s interview with Claire Andrieu, January 31, 2004.
136 Patriotic School has been created: Andrew, Defend the Realm, p. 250.
137 Those identified as “goats”: Ibid., p. 251.
138 The big question is: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 224.
139 As Operation Torch begins: www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1942/421107b.html.
140 De Gaulle observed that by not firing: de Gaulle, Complete War Memoirs, p. 358.
141 It would be a huge prize: Ibid., p. 359.
142 Just one destroyer: Ibid.
143 There is an immediate uproar: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, pp. 228–29.
144 “There was a tremendous outcry”: Author’s telephone interview with Robert Paxton, January 29, 2004.
145 “If the tragic character”: De Gaulle, Complete War Memoirs, p. 379. This is the other key paragraph about Darlan’s assassination in de Gaulle’s book: The man who had killed him, Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle, had made himself the instrument of the aggravated passions that had fired the souls around him to the boiling point but behind which, perhaps, moved a policy determined to liquidate a “temporary expedient” after having made use of him. This young man, this child overwhelmed by the spectacle of odious events, thought his action would be a service to his lacerated country, would remove from the road to French reconciliation an obstacle shameful in his eyes. He believed, moreover, as he repeatedly said until the moment of his execution, that an intervention would be made in his behalf by some outside source so high and powerful that the North African authorities could not refuse to obey it. Of course no individual has the right to kill save on the field of battle. Moreover, Darlan’s behavior as a governor and as a leader was answerable to national justice, not, certainly, to that of a group or an individual. Yet how could we fail to recognize the nature of the intentions that inspired his juvenile fury? That is why the strange, brutal and summary way the investigation was conducted in Algier
s, the hasty and abbreviated trial before a military tribunal convened at night and in private session, the immediate and secret execution of Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle, the orders given to the censors that not even his name should be known — all these led to the suspicion that someone wanted to conceal at any price the origin of his decision and constituted a kind of defiance of those circumstances which, without justifying the drama, explained and, to a certain degree, excused it.
146 Darlan’s disappearance from the scene: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 229.
147 “Everything is ruined anyway”: Perrault, La Longue Traque, p. 120.
148 At seven o’clock in the evening: Témoignage de M. André Boulloche.
149 impeccable identity card: André never actually uses this fake identity card, and by the time he reaches England he can no longer remember the name in which it was issued.
150 “deep satisfaction”: British Public Record Office HS 9/190/6 114106.
151 the intelligence section of BCRA: Rossiter, Women in the Resistance, pp. 13–14.
152 a “capable type”: Public Record Office HS 9/190/6 114106. SECRET. Y box 3558.
153 For a long time afterward: Témoignage de M. André Boulloche.
154 “I was recruited”: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs. Raymond Jovignot, a member of the Resistance who knew André Boulloche after his arrest in 1944, told an interviewer in 1946 that Jacques (code name: Crassus) was in fact tortured by the Germans. Jovignot described him as “a very good boy, deeply religious, who loved his boss,” André.
155 “Perhaps I was wrong”: Postel-Vinay, Un fou s’évade, p. 172n.
156 By dawn, Farges: Remarks of Gilbert Farges honoring André Boulloche, January 26, 1986.
157 As Gimpel’s British handlers have noted: British Intelligence file on Charles Gimpel.
158 “Because it meant”: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
159 Seventeen hundred through Porte will survive deportation: All details about the prisoners on the train are from the catalog for an exhibit at the Musée Jean Moulin mounted in 2002, www.french-art.com/musees/jean_moulin/auschwitz.htm.
160 “The crazy people”: Remarks of Gilbert Farges honoring André Boulloche.
161 Just once, the Germans offer: Farges quoted in André Boulloche, p. 27.
162 As he climbs out of the train: Remarks of Gilbert Farges honoring André Boulloche.
163 given their first drink: Montbéliard, p. 24.
164 “precarious survivors”: Remarks of Gilbert Farges honoring André Boulloche.
165 The personal intervention of Marshal Pétain: Author’s interview with Odile Boulloche, March 20, 1999.
166 Ninety-five percent of the deportees: Gilbert Farges, “Hommage à André Boulloche,” p. 25.
167 As James L. Stokesbury: Short History of World War II, pp. 225–26.
168 “as the state came under challenge”: Paxton, Vichy France, p. 286.
169 His fake identity continues: www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/855.html.
170 To boost Christiane’s spirits: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
171 The others are Lemniscate: www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/855.html.
172 “I was twenty”: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
173 Seeing them at the front door: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
174 At least I am courageous: Ibid.
175 That is the hardest part: Mathilde Damoisel’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, February 10, 1997.
176 “been incredibly lucky”: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 25, 1999; Souvenirs.
177 The historian Ian Ousby: Occupation, p. 245.
178 In July 1943: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 293.
179 His successor, Pietro Badoglio: Ibid., p. 296.
180 Then they spent eighteen months: Author’s interview with Eric Katlama, Hotel Des Deux Continents, March 23, 1999 (for the fact they were waiting for the revolution to fail). Most of this account of Katlama’s early years comes from Alex Katlama’s interviews with the British during the war, which were declassified at my request: Public Record Office HS 9/823/1.
181 He is brought up: Author’s interview with Michel Katlama, March 14, 1999.
182 the mean height for Frenchmen: Timothy J. Hatton and Bernice E. Bray, “Long Run Trends in the Heights of European Men, 19th–20th Centuries,” private www.essex.ac.uk/~hatton/Tim_height_paper.pdf.
183 He assumes the inertia: Author’s interview with Eric Katlama, March 23, 1999.
184 As a Russian immigrant: Author’s interview with Michel Katlama, March 14, 1999.
185 He also happens to love: Ibid.
186 “A quiet intelligent” through “a competent and loyal assistant”: British Intelligence file on Eric Katlama.
187 In the third week of April: Christiane’s memoirs place this event in January, but Alex remembers it clearly as April.
188 Christiane likes the handsome Alex: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 19, 1999.
189 he meets with Resistance members: www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/855.html.
190 “All southern England”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 248.
191 By the eve of the invasion: Roberts, Storm of War, p. 466.
192 Soldiers joke that if the invasion: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 311.
193 “The southernmost camps”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 249.
194 This will severely limit: O’Neill, Oxford Essential Guide to World War II, pp. 86–87.
195 They make a special effort: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1037. Rundstedt and Rommel were certain it would be in the Pas-de-Calais area, where the channel was at its narrowest.
196 Again, the deception works: Stokesbury, Short History of World War II, p. 211; O’Neill, Oxford Essential Guide to World War II, p. 87.
197 Knowing that it’s crucial: Churchill, Second World War, V:544–46.
198 “The tension continued to mount”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 249.
199 At four fifteen A.M.: Ibid., p. 250.
200 “I hope to God”: Roberts, Storm of War, pp. 469–70.
201 It is thrilling: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
202 So the commanders: Jane Penrose, ed., The D-Day Companion, quoted in Roberts, Storm of War, p. 471.
203 And on June 4: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1036.
204 On the basis of everything: Ibid., pp. 1036–37.
205 Around one A.M.: Ibid., p. 1038.
206 Hitler himself has been up: Roberts, Storm of War, p. 472.
207 Then he goes to bed: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1038. 133 At five fifty on the morning: Roberts, Storm of War, p. 473.
208 After the 101st Airborne: Ibid., p. 473.
209 “ABLE company riding through from a rooftop”: The Atlantic, November 1960. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365/.
210 At a cost of two thousand Americans: Roberts, Storm of War, p. 476.
211 “We were depending”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 248.
212 For a week after the invasion: Cobb, Resistance, p. 245; Jackson, France, pp. 544–45 (for Marseille and Toulouse).
213 This is vital: Cobb, Resistance, p. 245.
214 British air chief marshal Arthur Tedder: Roberts, Storm of War, p. 477.
215 “The first twenty-four hours”: Quoted ibid., p. 459.
216 By the end of June 11: www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered. By July 2, those numbers had swelled to about 1,000,000 men, 171,532 vehicles, and 566,648 tons of supplies.
217 “In our circles”: Roberts, Storm of War, pp. 479–80.
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218 “Throughout France the Free French”: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe.
219 Now, for the first time in years: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
220 Christiane is captivated: Ibid.
221 “We had a common enemy”: Ibid.
222 Christiane spends the battle: Author’s interview with Christiane Boulloche-Audibert, March 25, 1999; Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
223 The Maquis suffer two dead: www.memoiresvivantes.org/histoire_resistance_dunlesplacesetvermot.php; Dictionnaire biographique de Paul-Camille DUGENE; and www.morvan-des-lacs.com/images/actualites/le%20massacre%20de%20dun2.pdf.
224 “I’m coming back with you”: Boulloche-Audibert, Souvenirs.
225 Rommel has joined the conspiracy: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1031.
226 To Rommel’s chief of staff: General Hans Speidel, Invasion, quoted ibid., p. 1039.
227 “Don’t you worry”: Ibid., p. 1040.
228 Speidel believed that: Ibid., p. 1042.
229 no more than fourteen: Photo and caption in Eparvier, À sous la botte des Nazis.
230 ZUR NORMANDIE FRONT: La Libération de Paris, documentary, 1944.
231 “The assassination must be attempted”: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1043.
232 “The threatened collapse”: Ibid.
233 Eisenhower remembers late June: Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 263.
234 Seven weeks pass: Ibid., p. 272.
235 the anti-Hitler plotters get a boost: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 1033–45.
236 By July 1944, the conspiracy: Ibid., pp. 1030, 1034.
237 The thickness of this particular wire: Ibid., p. 1049; Roberts, Storm of War, p. 481.
238 “somewhere between a monastery”: Ibid.
239 The compound includes: Ibid.
240 Before darkness has fallen: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1060.
241 The conspirators’ failure: Ibid., p. 1064.
242 Goebbels initially blames the Allies: New York Times, July 21, 1944.
243 “Seized by a titanic fury”: Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 1070.
244 “Who says I am not”: Churchill, Second World War, VI:25.
245 “Believe me, this is the turning point”: David Irving, Hitler’s War, pp. 662–64.
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