Read Online A Troubled Peace by L. M. Elliott - Free Book Online Page A

heights.”
    The doctor paused, closing his eyes, as if listening to the radio once again. “So we closed the passes. We raised our flag. We attacked Nazi convoys and patrols. But the plan’s success, our survival, depended entirely on the paratroopers coming. Our maquis were excellent fighters, but they only numbered a few hundred. All we had were peasants, horse carts, and whatever guns we could steal. And courage, of course, a legion of courage and esprit de corps .”
    Henry noticed the doctor’s hands had begun to tremble.
    â€œAll through France, underground Resistance newspapers celebrated our bravery, using us to inspire other Frenchmen to rise up. Despite this, no paratroopers came. We were left to face the Nazis alone.”
    Henry felt sick. He knew just how the SS and the Gestapo would react to such defiance. “Nothing? The Allies sent nothing? Are you certain your radio signals got through?”
    â€œOh, they got through.” Anger crackled through the doctor’s voice. “For weeks, de Gaulle’s headquarters radioed back, telling us to hold on a few more days, that there were weather delays, that the paratroopers might be needed elsewhere, Eisenhower’s forces were pinned down at Normandy, that our airstrip needed a few more yards of length before they could use it. London did parachute in Sten guns and Enfield rifles. Oh, yes, and machine gunsfrom World War One . The guns jammed the first time they were fired—by eight farmers trying to hold back three hundred German soldiers armed with tank mortar that blasted holes in mountain rock.
    â€œWe also begged the Allies to bomb the Nazi airfield in Chabeuil.”
    â€œWait,” Henry interrupted. “I came past that airfield. I saw destroyed Junkers. We must have bombed it.”
    â€œYour Allies claimed their air reconnaissance showed only ten planes. Therefore, the field was not a ‘credible threat’ worth risking fliers and aircraft. What about the risk to our villagers, our children? We radioed back that our spies knew the Nazis had hidden sixty planes in the forest. Finally, the Americans were sent to fly a raid. But they hit the wrong field, miles away. When they did hit Chabeuil, it was already too late.”
    Henry hung his head. He knew how orders were often messed up when transmitted from the French through the British to the Americans. Crews could be sent to bomb the wrong sites and then redeployed the next day to correct the mistake, needlessly risking their lives twice. The fliers had a word for it: snafu — s ituation n ormal a ll f ouled u p.
    He persisted in trying to find something positive. “But we dropped personnel. When I was here last spring, there were SOE men, British special ops, experts in explosives and espionage. Right?”
    â€œYes, they sent SOE. The British also dropped engineering officers to guide the airstrip construction and “pianists,” radio operators. The American OSS parachuted in fifteen rangers led by two young lieutenants from South Carolina and Texas we could barely understand.” The doctor tied off the coil of bandages around Henry’s chest with an irritated yank that made Henry gasp. “Brave men but not exactly the four thousand paratroopers we expected.”
    The doctor’s bitter sarcasm grew. “But of course, we are grateful for the great patriotic display on Bastille Day, July Fourteenth. In broad daylight, seventy-two Flying Fortresses roared over Vassieux, escorted by fighters from Algiers. We rejoiced, thinking, finally, the paratroopers had come. But it was more arms and food containers, eight hundred of them, floating to earth on red, blue, or white parachutes. The planes circled and then roared away.
    â€œThose canisters barely hit the ground before the Luftwaffe flew in from Chabeuil, alerted by the sound of all those engines, the sight of all those chutes. Villagers tried to cut loose the containers,