Résistance française : les opérations secrètes qui ont sauvé le Débarquement – Documentaire – MDW

Dans l’ombre des forêts, des rails et des lignes haute-tension, ils ont frappé sans relâche. Ces hommes et femmes de l’ombre ont écrit l’une des pages les plus secrètes et décisives de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. 👋 + de documentaires histoire 👉 http://bit.ly/3lqyFpY 🙏 Abonnez vous !

00:00 – Introduction : Le 6 juin 1944 et la Résistance en action
01:00 – Les premiers sabotages et leur impact stratégique
04:10 – Coordination depuis Londres et efficacité des réseaux
07:00 – Étienvan, premier héros saboteur
10:00 – La naissance d’une stratégie du sabotage organisé
14:00 – Les chemins de fer, cible n°1 de la Résistance
18:30 – Techniques et tactiques des saboteurs français
24:30 – Mission Joséphine B : une opération clé en 1941
28:00 – Le rôle du BCRA et du SOE britannique
33:00 – Le matériel britannique et la formation des agents
38:00 – L’opération Pilchar et les messages codés de la BBC
43:00 – Mission Armada : saboter sans tuer
48:50 – Jeanne Bohek : saboteuse et formatrice
51:40 – Le sabotage massif avant et pendant le Débarquement
55:00 – Impact militaire et hommage aux résistants

Destruction de câbles téléphoniques, mise hors service de lignes à haute-tension, déraillement de trains, dynamitage de viaducs, les hommes de la Résistance n’ont jamais hésité à prendre les plus grands risques pour accomplir des sabotages aussi spectaculaires que dangereux.

Ce documentaire revient sur l’incroyable ingéniosité des résistants. Leurs actions, dans l’ombre de l’armée allemande et au risque de leurs vies, a facilité le débarquement des forces alliées en Normandie, le 6 juin 1944.

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Camps, massacres, persécutions : La terreur méconnue des Balkans sous Hitler https://youtu.be/hscXBOHrWB0
Printemps 1944 : L’évacuation des camps nazis et la marche forcée vers la mort https://youtu.be/5bnnSpmze-Q
Infiltré à Auschwitz : l’histoire vraie de l’homme qui a défié l’enfer nazi https://youtu.be/bza02Cvb-yo

👉 Découvrez notre playlist dédiée à l’histoire de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqKSNbk66i9l5m1ot0TGV7O5Qd6PbMazj&si=WX-fbWQX7JApuvDG

LES GRANDS SABOTAGES DE LA RESISTANCE
Réalisé par Laurent Portes
Tous Droits Réservés

#SabotageWWII #RésistanceFrançaise #HistoireDeFrance #Débarquement #DocumentaireHistoire #SOE #BCRA #NotreHistoire

June 6, 1944. It is 6:00 a.m.
when the Allied fleet unleashes a rain of iron and fire on the
German troops defending the Normandy coast between Cherbourg and Caen. The landing has just
begun. This is the largest
naval operation of all time. An operation of insane audacity in
which thousands of French men
and women, the resistance fighters, participated in the shadows. And among them, the saboteurs who will
multiply their actions to slow down the Wehrmacht. It’s an orgy of sabotage. They’re absolutely everywhere. There has been a wave of sabotage
all over France, that’s for sure. It’s a kind of
complete disorganization of the territory. The first actions of the saboteurs
began at the very beginning of the occupation, four years earlier,
with spontaneous and isolated acts. Over the months, the techniques
and equipment have been improved. The saboteurs’ actions
multiplied until they were coordinated from London in order to disrupt
the powerful Nazi war machine at the crucial moment, D-Day. Cherbourg is completely cut off
from the rest of France because the Resistance did
its sabotage work very well. Sabotage is, par excellence,
the weapon of the resistance. We were mainly looking for a way
to annoy them as much as possible. This is the most effective way
to fight an enemy superior in numbers and equipment. This is the nightmare
of the occupying army. And this is above all one of the keys
to the success of the Allied landings on the Normandy coast. In his War Memoirs,
published in 1948, General Dwight Eisenhower pays a
strong tribute to the French Resistance. He claims that without her,
the Allies would have had much more difficulty liberating French territory. According to him, the coordinated action
of the resistance fighters and saboteurs was equivalent to that which would have been accomplished by 15
divisions, roughly 200,000 soldiers in battle formation. However, in June 1944, there were no more than 14,000 active resistance fighters in Normandy. So how did this handful of
resistance fighters, armed with nothing but bricks and bric-a-brac, manage to
slow down the terrifying German war machine to such an extent
and contribute so strongly to the Allied victory? I believe that what
General Eisenhower meant was that it was a kind of divine surprise
at first, because we know that the allies did not have
real confidence in the role that the French Resistance could play. Numerically, they were perhaps not
numerous enough, despite the weapons and equipment parachuted to them via
containers, that it was not going to be enough to
implement this large operation which would be Operation Overlord, and then
the liberation battles which would follow. More than half of what was
parachuted into France by the Allies was dropped from July 1944 onwards. This clearly shows that the
French Resistance had to prove itself in the eyes of the Allies to benefit
from this recognition and massive support. And to prove themselves,
the resistance fighters, embedded within the civilian population behind enemy lines,
had a means of action terribly feared by the Germans: sabotage. Of the 1,050 railway sabotage operations
ordered by London for D-Day in the Normandy region,
the saboteurs carried out 950. A success that far exceeded all
the expectations of the Allied high command. For the saboteurs
of the Resistance, this result was the culmination of four years
of preparation, trial and error, and learning. June 1940. German troops
parade through Paris. The French army collapsed
in barely five weeks. Declared an open city,
the capital falls without a fight. Alone in London, General
de Gaulle refused to capitulate. Honor, common sense, and
the higher interest of the fatherland compel all free Frenchmen
to continue the fight wherever they are and however they can. Very few French people hear this appeal
on the BBC airwaves. And yet,
from the very first days of the occupation, dozens of isolated individuals engaged
in acts of sabotage against the German army. Sabotage in France,
it was initially and sometimes immediately, that is to say from July, August 1940,
the result of spontaneous actions by people who could not stand the occupation
and who were not in an organized framework, but who would, for example, set fire to
vehicles in barracks or outside
to show their discontent. There is a case like that in Nantes,
for example, which from the beginning of the occupation,
a small group of Nantes residents attacked German vehicles in this way,
which also prompted a reaction from the Vichy prefect, who, through this poster,
explained that sabotage was absolutely forbidden.
Okay, of course. And this is a poster that dates from
September 10, 1940, which therefore implies that there were spontaneous actions. I have only just arrived
in the department, and I have already had to acknowledge that a
serious incident has just occurred. Sabotage is a crime. If the perpetrator is not discovered,
innocent people will pay for the guilty. As soon as the German troops arrived,
among the first documents they posted in each town was
a warning against sabotage. Indeed,
they listed many telephone lines that had been cut,
particularly in Normandy and the North. And there, we can have dozens
of cables cut in one or two nights. So obviously, it’s
not a coincidence at all. I think we also need to mention
these other, much more discreet and much
less quantifiable forms of sabotage. For example,
on fortification construction sites, you have workers who, precisely, on a
personal basis, I think, will also attempt, from time to time,
acts of sabotage. This is something that workers,
in fact, have known for a very long time. It’s truly something
that’s in the… Let’s say, the basic principle,
especially of the saboteur worker. The word sabotage is
directly inspired by the word sabot (sabot). In Parisian slang,
this term refers to a bad worker. It was the trade unions,
heavily influenced at the time by the anarchist movement, that theorized from the beginning of
the 20th century the use of sabotage as a privileged instrument
of the class struggle. Thus, one could read in 1908
in the Syndicate Action. To fight against employers,
direct action is the most effective method. It includes sabotage, boycotts,
general strikes, in short, anything that can hinder capital. There are one-off actions. It could be sabotaging a cement mixer,
it could always be that small gesture that will make us try to hinder
the German war machine. It doesn’t necessarily count for a huge amount,
but the fact remains that if it has multiplied by dozens and dozens of
workers, ultimately, we are contributing to it in some way. Here, it really comes down to small gestures,
individual discontent, but which cost a great deal. Because when you are caught
sabotaging telephone lines, as early as September or October 1940,
you are sentenced to death by the German military tribunal and you are shot. This is not insignificant at all. So, once again, they’re
not messing around when it comes to occupation. Moreover, the first
Resistance fighter to be executed was a saboteur. A Norman saboteur. Étienne Achavan,
a 48-year-old farm worker. We know almost nothing about him. There are no photos, no traces, except for
a commemorative plaque at the place of his execution. On June 20, 1940,
two days before France signed a disastrous armistice,
this veteran of the Great War cut telephone cables,
just laid by the Germans, near an airbase in Rouen. Did he hear
General de Gaulle’s appeal? Mystery. Denounced, Achavan was arrested and
shot by the Germans on July 6, 1940. He was the first of a long list
of martyrs of the resistance cause. Achavan was the first hero
of the Resistance, the first victim, the first person to be shot. Then, we turn it into a myth,
we communicate about this myth, and it becomes an example, indeed. And then those who sabotage can
refer to this mythical example which has a basis in truth,
but which is transformed and which they incorporate into their identity. We have plenty of
examples like that. We build resistance,
we build our own myth. In the secrecy of the
nascent clandestine operation, Étienne Achavan’s heroic act was whispered from mouth to ear. His action is magnified. He became a legend. It is said that Achavan acted
on direct orders from London. It is implied that he is
a British agent parachuted in. It is claimed that the cable that cut it
prevented the Rouen base from being warned of an imminent RAF attack. It is even rumored that dozens of
German planes, grounded thanks to his sabotage actions, were
destroyed by a targeted bombing. The reality is that it’s a
telephone cable, that it must have bothered two people at the end of the line, and then
the line was repaired. Point.
And it was all for nothing. But it is an act of resistance,
undeniably. Through his act of sabotage, Étienne Achavan
becomes a genuine resistance fighter. And his isolated initiative
will inspire many others. But just like him,
the first resistance fighters mostly risked their lives
for symbolic actions, without military impact. Divided, fragmented, without weapons,
without strategy, the resistance of the early years did not
yet have the means to carry out large-scale operations. Resistance, initially, is
something that is initially unorganized. These were awakenings of conscience from a very
small minority of French people at the time who considered the occupation unacceptable
and who sought to react. The resistance is organizing itself
slowly, very slowly. Organised sabotage
is something that will happen two or even three years later, in 1943. For that, it will be necessary to wait
until the Resistance gains strength, becomes structured
and above all unites. This unification of all movements
was the work of Jean Moulin, with the creation of the National Council
of the Resistance in February 1943. But in 1940, we were still far from it. The first networks are just being
established. In total, more than 250
clandestine movements disappeared and emerged under the occupation. At first,
they were content to print leaflets, then for some,
underground newspapers. As the months and the war progressed,
other forms of action against the occupier developed, primarily
acts of sabotage. Initially, we want to do something,
so we make leaflets. For some, it will become
an almost full-time activity. They are happy about that. And indeed,
we can say that those who turn to sabotage do so because at some point
they want to move on to something else, something where they feel they are
more effective. They have this particular characteristic
of seeking direct action. Who are these saboteurs? What do they look like? What do they have in common? What particular spark
drives them to act? There is no
physical composite sketch of the saboteur. On the other hand, he must still
possess a certain number of qualities, moral qualities, but also
have energy, a certain sense of audacity,
be a fighter, be a leader of men. You also need to have
a lot of self-confidence. When an objective cannot be
reached because it is guarded, one must have enough
bite to find another that can cause the same damage. We were mainly looking for a military way
to annoy them as much as possible. Guy-Pierre Gautier was one
of those saboteurs of the Resistance. In 1942, he was 17 years old. He is a student in La Rochelle. When one of his comrades is arrested
and shot by the Germans, he joins the resistance. First, the leaflets were printed using
a children’s typography set. And very quickly, direct action,
sabotage. And we started with the railways. There were trains that passed through La Rochelle, at Saint-Maurice. There was a cash deposit and
the Germans would occasionally hide the waiting trains. We all arrived carrying
a small bag and some sand. And we slipped between the kings. There were 40 wagons, 48 ​​wagons. We put the sand in
the bearing boxes. It damaged the wagons,
so the wagon was immobilized. As a result, German supplies
are disrupted for a few days. It was a successful operation,
but one that was not part of any overall military strategy,
except perhaps to hinder the occupier by any means possible. The main thing was
to recruit and destroy. That was the ultimate goal. But again, it had to be learned. So, I had made contact with
the Orochelle resistance groups and the railway workers who were
giving us information. Railway workers are
key figures in resistance actions,
because their profession gives them a very strategic role on the ground. As such, their role in
sabotage operations will take on considerable importance. The role of railway workers is
quite unique. It is very important. Not all railway workers were in the
resistance, but a significant number of them were. Overall, railway workers are
more likely to pass on information that will allow others
to know where and when to sabotage, etc.,
than to sabotage directly themselves. The railways were the Achilles’ heel
of the German war machine, because from the beginning of the occupation in 1940,
railway workers were the only ones able to travel throughout the entire territory. They are the only ones who know what the Germans
load onto the trains, when, and for what destination. They are the eyes and
ears of the Resistance. They thus become the
preferred technical advisors of the saboteurs. Sabotaging a railway line
also requires knowledge. And that’s where
these railway workers will truly be able to act. And for them, it’s ultimately very easy
to sabotage, whether it’s a locomotive, I would say, or a railway line. Because a truly successful act of sabotage does not simply
destroy. It must also be designed to make
repair as difficult as possible and hinder the opponent for as
long as possible. For example, there’s no point in
attacking the rail in a straight line. The train, even if derailed,
would remain virtually intact and the damage would be quickly repaired. Conversely,
by sabotaging the track in a fast curve, the centrifugal force multiplies
the effect of the derailment, resulting in much greater destruction. The most important thing
is to create rail breaks, especially during sabotage operations involving convoys. That is to say, in a curve,
not only do trains derail, but they also take the railway tracks with them. And so, in this situation, it is necessary to both lift
the wagons and lift the engine. That causes a huge,
huge amount of damage. And all of that, too, is a skill. Near Chalon-sur-Saône,
a freight train derailed following an act of sabotage
committed by a terrorist group. The Nice Express,
arriving at high speed, a few moments later, left the rails. The SNCF immediately sent
a large amount of clearing equipment to the site. Forty-eight hours later,
traffic was restored. When attacking locomotives,
the saboteur takes care to always destroy the same part and always on the
same side, the left. It will therefore be impossible to reconstruct
a working machine from two sabotaged machines. And spare parts stocks will
run out more quickly, making future sabotage
increasingly effective. But the sabotage will take on a whole
new dimension with the entry of the Communist Party into resistance. Banned from the start of the occupation,
the party had gone underground, waiting for its moment. On June 21, 1941,
Hitler launched the invasion of the USSR, with whom he had signed a
non-aggression pact two years earlier. Operation code name: Barbarossa. Immediately throughout
occupied Europe, communist activists took action. In France, they now have only
one watchword: sabotage. Their idea, the communists’ idea,
is that action must be taken immediately. They call it immediate action,
that is to say, therefore, to act is to be resistant. Therefore, we must act
without waiting for anything. In the clandestine newspapers published by
communist activists, calls for sabotage are now omnipresent. Activist, distinguish yourself
through patriotic actions. Harm the enemy, hinder
and sabotage war production. Whereas the Gaullist resistance fighters,
for example, are put in a situation which is
rather to say: We will organize ourselves, train ourselves and wait for the moment,
which will be roughly the day of the landing, when we will be able to take action
immediately while we are well prepared, well armed, etc. And there, we will have an
immediate and very important impact on the success of a strategically vital operation. Two strategies are therefore clashing within
the Resistance, and not only for political reasons. Firstly, General de Gaulle was
not in favor of sabotage. No doubt, this accomplished military man, a
theorist of mobile warfare, does not approve of this unconventional way
of conducting combat. And the position of the allies is the same. Certainly, destroying the infrastructure
on which the enemy relies, disrupting its supplies, and
paralyzing its battle logistics are key strategic objectives. But rather than trusting
saboteurs, they prefer to resort to another, much
more radical technique: bombing. The alternative is
indeed bombing. Moreover, it is interesting because we
see that the resistance forces even tries to dissuade the allies from bombing because
the bombings, admittedly, cause much more damage
and are unfortunately more effective. If you turn a city into a field
of ruins, obviously, the roads that run through
those cities will be stopped. Bombings are also considered
to be effective in principle, which is completely false. For example, a railway line,
you can destroy 10 kilometers around it. It will still only take a few hours
to rebuild the railway line in the middle. So this question of effectiveness is
really a political debate, in reality, about who contributed the most
to the final success. Between 1940 and 1945,
the Allies dropped 550,000 tons of bombs on French territory, targeting
ports, factories, the railway network, and power plants. During the four years of occupation,
more than 60,000 French people were killed by British or American bombs. Workers, for example,
who sometimes live very close to the factory, in workers’ housing estates,
risk their lives and there are a significant number of French people who have been
killed, victims of these strategic bombings. The opportunity to achieve the same
effects, but without destroying or killing the inhabitants around it,
involves sabotage from within the target itself. The resistance says: But you know
that we are on the ground, we know exactly where,
strategically, it will be most useful to carry out such a sabotage operation. They are trying to put themselves forward,
but the allies are listening to these demands from the resistance fighters,
but are not going to act on them. In any case, not right away. First, here too,
French fighters will have to prove themselves by successfully carrying out some
spectacular targeted operations. The first one took place in June 1941. Its code name: Josephine B. It involved sabotaging a
power plant in Pessac, near Bordeaux, which supplied power to
the railway line that went to Spain. And at that time there were fears
that the German women would cross Spain to go to Gibraltar. And then there’s the one that also powers the
submarine power station, the submarine base in Bordeaux. Since the end of 1940,
28 Italian submarines under German command have effectively established themselves
in the port of Bordeaux, threatening all Allied ships
sailing across the Atlantic. Too far from the English coast, too well protected by German aircraft, this base seemed,
in the spring of 1941, impossible for British bombers to reach. The only solution: sabotage. The first mission was by the
British secret services to destroy the electrical transformer at Pessac
and thus deprive the submarine base of energy. It’s a failure. The British were then forced
to turn to the Free French of General de Gaulle,
who knew the terrain. Would they have reliable men,
ready to carry out the operation? These saboteurs were recruited by
Free France, trained by the British, and trained in parachuting,
since at the time no other way was known to infiltrate agents. They were sent to France in June 1941
and they successfully carried out this operation. During the night of May 11-12, 1941,
Second Lieutenants Cabard and Varnier jumped over the Gironde with all
the equipment necessary for their operation. Blocks of plastic sealed
in magnetic boxes, time- delay detonators,
but also radio equipment, false papers, civilian clothing. They are accompanied
by Sergeant Jean Formand. And in the days that followed,
they were joined by another Free French officer, already parachuted
into the occupied zone, Joël Le TAC. After three weeks of scouting,
the Saboteur quartet takes action. During the night of June 5-6,
he slipped inside the transformer station, avoiding the only one
posted by the Germans. In less than half an hour,
the plastic blocks were placed on the eight transformers
of the installation, connected to incendiary bombs. Ten minutes later,
as the commando rode away on bicycles, the post exploded. Six of the eight transformers
are irreparably destroyed. The Josephine B mission is a success. It will take more than a year for the station to be
operational again, considerably disrupting
the operation of the submarine base in the meantime. But the real success
of this operation lies elsewhere. After Josephine B, no one
doubted the military value of sabotage. Working hand in hand,
British intelligence services and Free French commandos would
make it one of the linchpins of the Allied strategy for the landing. From the moment we enter
into the logic of an armed struggle and the preparations for a reconquest
of the territory, the Resistance will also put itself
at the service of the Allied and of course French intelligence services. Because from the moment he arrived in London
in June 1940, General de Gaulle wanted France, which was
then deprived of everything, to have a genuine intelligence service. This service would become the famous BCRA,
Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action. In October 1941, the BCRA established
a military action section. Its main mission: to recruit and train
agents who will then be tasked with destroying
strategic targets in occupied territory. In short, saboteurs. In January 1942, De Gaulle
finally gave his approval. He agrees to include
sabotage actions in his defense strategy. But in order for the saboteurs of
Free France to be able to take action, they needed to obtain the support
of the British, who often considered the BCRA as a rival
to their own secret service. The British, like the Americans,
in terms of secret services, and therefore sabotage,
since everything goes through the secret services, have their own branch,
their own organizations in France, which they run, but which are
populated by French saboteurs. And then, besides that,
we have the Gaullist services which work in France, but which,
in order to work in France, depend entirely on the British services. The BCRA’s British counterpart
is the SOE, for Special Operations Executive. A secret service also created during
the summer of 1940, at the express request of Winston Churchill
to, in his own words, set fire to occupied Europe. Because Churchill, unlike the
military, believed in the virtues of sabotage. The SOE is not an
intelligence service like any other. It’s not even
a military organization. It reports to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and is accountable only to the Prime Minister. Even his name is a secret. These agents simply call it the firm. And each of the services with which it
collaborates knows the SOE by a different name. Its missions:
to coordinate the action of partisans in all countries occupied by
Nazi Germany, to train them in clandestine action, to equip them, to designate objectives
and to organize operations on command. With the SOE, sabotage will become a
technical act and the saboteur, an expert. They are truly
top-level technicians. They are technicians of demolition and
sabotage, but they require the implementation of know-how. Truly, indeed,
very precise and highly specialized expertise. This is why
BCRA saboteurs, like SOE saboteurs, are trained in England
over a period of three to four months. To ensure the security of this training,
the SOE has a network of secret schools located in mansions
or castles, scattered throughout the United Kingdom,
from Wales to Scotland, the STS, Special Training Schools. Imagine some coastlines,
away from prying eyes, a little away from the main roads. And there, in groups of five,
the apprentice saboteurs will receive instruction in French from
seasoned British instructors. So of course,
we’re going to teach them how to handle explosives, their characteristics, and
how to use them. But we will also teach them
very practical things for the success of an operation. The student saboteurs begin their
training with four weeks of preparatory training in the south of England,
where physical training and practical tests follow one another. Then, they follow up with an
investment hardening course, where they train in shooting,
explosives, the use of military equipment and combat techniques. Next comes the parachuting course
in the Manchester area and finally, the Special Finishing School,
where the future agent is trained to operate clandestinely. He learns how to encode a message,
resist interrogation, escape surveillance, or pick a lock. Other STS programs prepare future agents
for more specific missions, such as industrial sabotage. Once you’ve entered a factory,
what do you need to sabotage so that the factory can’t
be restarted very quickly? What is often underestimated
is that destruction is quite easy. Breaking a part is easy enough,
but repairing it is also very easy. So, to be effective, for example,
in industrial sabotage, they make a habit,
on machine tools, of always destroying the ball bearings. The Germans were severely lacking in
ball bearings at the end of the war. They destroy the ball bearings
on the machines, they destroy the factories where
the ball bearings are manufactured. A true science of sabotage is being
patiently built up, little by little, in the schools and laboratories
of the British secret services. Methods are developed there,
procedures are devised, technical data sheets and manuals are written. We design a whole range
of specific equipment dedicated to sabotage. The British began to consider
the design of specific equipment as early as 1940-1941. And they did indeed invent everything. The best proof that they
invented almost everything is that in 1944-1945, the Germans, in turn,
sent saboteurs into France. To do pretty much
the same thing, sabotage, etc. They use
British equipment, either equipment they have captured or equipment they have
copied, and they use British procedures. They are truly specialists;
they are very imaginative, even in terms of equipment. That is to say, when we look at the equipment
made available to these agents, sometimes it is things that may
appear quite remarkable, but it is made of cheap, low-grade materials. I think they’re really going too far. As soon as an idea arises,
we analyze it, we study it, and if the object or at least the procedure seems
interesting, we will put it into action. All ideas, sometimes even the most
outlandish, such as: this pen equipped with a tear gas capsule to blind
Germans and escape in case of a surprise check. A gadget that
James Bond wouldn’t have turned down. But it is in the field of explosives
that British ingenuity proves most productive. The most widely
used explosive is plastic. It offers several advantages. First of all, it is a very
powerful explosive that allows for the clean breaking of thick sections of steel
such as rails in the context of railway sabotage. The plastic sheet also has this advantage,
which is that it is very malleable. It looks a bit
like modeling clay. The saboteur can attach it to any
surface of the target he has targeted. And besides, it’s an explosive
that is very reliable, very stable. You can shoot at a block of plastic,
nothing will happen. For this block of plastic to explode,
the saboteur must insert a pyrotechnic detonator inside,
a small brass capsule containing a much less stable explosive,
connected to a firing system. And here again, the
SOE’s inventiveness knows no bounds. Saboteurs have
a fairly wide variety of firing devices at their disposal. First, the slow wick. The slow wick is the most classic. This is what you find
in mining operations; it is a woven cotton cord
containing powder that burns at a rate
of one centimeter per second. A simple and reliable system,
but not very discreet, as three meters of wick need to be unrolled
to obtain a five-minute delay. A process not sophisticated enough
for the engineers of the British secret services. In Solentienne, every
problem has its solutions. They invented what they
called time pencils. It’s shaped like a pencil, a
lighter pencil. And the principle is that it’s a
chemical product that will erode a wire and release a spring which will cause the detonation. And they invent pencils
that correspond to different times depending on whether the saboteur
needs 10 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, or even 24 hours to move away
from the place where he placed the pencil. So, we crush a small capsule
which releases the liquid and which then erodes the cable. It works well. It’s not
absolutely reliable either. Of all the SOE’s inventions,
the fog signal was undoubtedly the most popular among
resistance saboteurs. Originally, this small capsule was
a voice firecracker, literally a firecracker that explodes loudly
when a train passes by. It was used by railway workers
to warn the driver of a track incident further along
his route. But modified by the SOE,
it becomes a formidable tool in the hands of saboteurs. Discreet, simple and quick to install,
it requires no adjustments. Even better, it is the train itself
that triggers the explosion of the charge. There is a real diversity,
an ingenuity in the invention of small instruments. And when the British send
equipment to France, they send it in
metal cylinders called containers. And we organize, for example,
a container for railway sabotage that specifically contains the right
explosives, the right shapes, the right fasteners, the right time pencils. Everything is prefabricated, in reality. They no longer have to design things themselves,
they simply have to know how to use what has been designed in England. But just like the training
of saboteurs, the design and manufacture of all
this equipment is a long, very long process. It will take months before teams
of saboteurs are ready to take action from England. Throughout 1942, there was only one
successful mission in France carried out by the
teams of the BCRA and the SOE. Operation Pilechard. In 1942,
a team came whose role was to sabotage the
largest radio transmitting station in Europe. The French had built
the largest transmitting station in Europe just before the war,
and the Germans used it to transmit, but especially
to jam the BBC. Not only does the Aloui station,
located a few kilometers from Bourges, jam BBC broadcasts,
but it also disrupts radio communications of British bombers flying over
French territory. During the night of May 4-5, 1942,
two saboteurs from the BCRA jumped over the occupied zone. These are Privates Paul Baudaine
and Henri Claster. In London, they are nicknamed the Russians,
because they escaped from a prisoner camp in Germany and reached
England with 186 others via Russia. After walking the 45
kilometers to their objective,
they managed to trap two of the four pylons supporting the
transmitter antennas, before having to flee under fire from the Germans
guarding the site. Half an hour later,
the charges exploded. It will take two weeks
to get the station back in working order. The saboteurs, however,
took six months to return to England, passing through Spain seven times. But thanks to the success of Operation
Pilechard, occupied France was able to listen to the BBC for two weeks
without any jamming. This is London. Please listen now
to personal messages. Gaby, eat your soup, my dear. These personal messages, often cryptic,
sometimes totally ludicrous, are essentially
coded instructions intended for the internal Resistance or agents of the BCR. People are terrible. Amilcar drives a strong one. It is true that the coded messages
from the BBC are the way of letting the people concerned,
who are in on the secret, know that the operation which has been planned for a long
time is going to take place. Whether it is an airdrop of weapons, the
arrival of agents by Operation Lysander,
those small British planes that land on
clandestine landing strips, or the signal for the insurrection
or the triggering of these different action plans. Because the resistance has been growing over the months. When the Germans invaded the
free zone in November 1942 and dismembered those who remained of the French Army loyal
to Vichy, many soldiers went underground. The resistance groups are forming,
which will soon be joined by young men who refuse to do
compulsory work in Germany. From London’s perspective,
it becomes vital to coordinate these networks and resistance groups to integrate them
into the overall Allied strategy. Over the months, thanks in part to
the personal message from the BBC, the Resistance, with the support
of London, carried out more and more actions, becoming better organized
and, above all, more and more effective. That’s the basis of this
efficiency, it’s having a command center,
an operational center that will organize everything down to the bottom. From the spring of 1943,
the BBC also broadcast another kind of message daily:
a song, The Partisan Song, which would soon become
the anthem of the Resistance. The review of the cords The second verse of the text, written by Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon,
ends with these words: Oé Saboteur, watch out for your burden, dynamite. With this song of the partisans,
the saboteur becomes one of the emblematic figures of the Resistance. At the time this text emerged, the
organized sabotage finally reached its full extent. From the end of 1943 onwards, the operations became
increasingly audacious. Among the most spectacular was
the Armada program, led by a legendary duo of saboteurs,
Raymond Basset and André Jarreau. André Jarreau, a
garage owner in Chalon-sur-Saône, who participated in the resistance for two
years as a smuggler, another form of resistance. He was helping
escaped prisoners cross the demarcation line. And he will do this until the beginning of 1943,
after which, having been spotted, he has to go through Spain
to reach England. And there, he was trained as a saboteur
and sent back for three missions to France, notably with his comrade
Raymond-Marie Baset, twice as part of what was
called the Armada Mission, which consisted of acting particularly
in Saône-et-Loire, in the Creusot region,
on infrastructure, high-voltage lines,
hydroelectric dams, in order to obviously hinder the Germans. Le Creusot is the nerve center
of French metallurgy, now under German control. Foundries, steelworks and especially the factories
of the Schneider group, which manufactured locomotives
for the Reich, were twice targeted by Allied bombings
which did not reach their objectives, but caused nearly
300 civilian casualties. It was to avoid a third
bombing and its deadly consequences for civilians that the BCRA
proposed to the allies to send these saboteurs. Jarreau and Basset’s mission is
simple: destroy as much electrical infrastructure as possible in order
to deprive these factories of energy and block production. It’s a resounding success. They will destroy several
transformers. Five out of the nine planned ones are destroyed. They will also destroy pylons,
thus depriving the factories of Le Creusot of power sources. They worked so well
that London said to itself: Well, these are seasoned men,
we’ll send them back into the field. This time, not in Burgundy,
but in the Paris region, in order to deprive the
main factories surrounding Paris of food supplies. Another success. During this Armada 2 mission,
André Jarreau destroyed 182 pylons. In London, there is jubilation. Even the most reluctant generals
among the Allied General Staff now recognize the effectiveness
of the Free French saboteurs. So here we have examples which are recognized,
including at the level of the Allied General Staff, as strong examples. What’s interesting, though,
is that the strength of sabotage doesn’t lie in large-scale,
successful sabotage operations. Actually, it’s multiplication. This is what happens
at the time of the landing. It is the multiplication of
low-intensity acts of sabotage, but which, by their sheer number, end up completely
paralyzing a railway system, for example. But to multiply acts of sabotage,
you always need more saboteurs. And even though the SOE Training Schools are
running at full capacity, it is not enough. Especially since, starting in the autumn of 1943,
plans for the Normandy landings began to be drawn up. Plans in which sabotage
will play a real role. The solution? Use saboteurs trained
in England to train other saboteurs directly in the maquis and
networks of the internal resistance. Among the most remarkable of these
bomb disposal instructors, parachuted in from England, was
a woman, Jeanne Bouhec. Jeanne Bouhec
is a truly incredible character. It’s about a young chemist who worked
in a gunpowder factory near Brest in June 1940 and who left for London, who boarded
a ship and left for London. And who, from the beginning, seeks to get involved,
etc., joins Free France, enlists as a soldier. She was one of the first women
in London to enlist in the military. And she works in a laboratory
that is responsible for making what is called in English Homemade Explosives,
that is to say, making explosives from commercial products. So the idea is to give recipes
to resistance fighters so they can make explosives from things they can
find in stores. Jeanne Bouhec arrived in London on the 18th at the
end of 1940, even before General de Gaulle had made his famous appeal. She was 21 years old at the time. But she would have to wait until August
1943 for the BCRA to agree to make her a licensed saboteur and send her to
train men in the field. For months, the young woman would undergo,
with rare tenacity, the same training as the big men of the
Free French commandos. Weapons handling, hand-to-
hand combat, parachuting. And on February 29, 1944, finally,
she received her mission order and her code name: Ratau. Over the next three months,
Agent Ratau crisscrosses occupied Brittany by bicycle or on foot, from one maquis to another. She receives parachute drops,
distributes equipment and trains dozens of
Breton resistance fighters in the basics of sabotage. Resistance fighters who are just waiting for a
signal to take action. A signal that will come soon,
carried by the BBC airwaves. June 1, 1944. As every evening, the BBC broadcasts
its personal French messages. Among the messages that day was
a glass of Verlaine. The long sobs
of the violins of autumn. A message announcing
the imminent landing. But contrary to popular belief,
it is just one message among many. So it’s surprising,
it’s a message that ends up embodying the triggering of the sabotage. In fact, it’s typical;
it’s a message intended for a network of saboteurs
controlled by the British SOI. Just one . For a very long time,
it was believed that only the long sobs of the violins of autumn were
truly the triggering element. In fact, on June 5, at 9:15 p.m. precisely,
more than 160 messages will be launched on the BBC area. And each time, a resistance group
will enter the scene. On June 2, 1944,
the departmental leaders of the resistance movements gave
the order to take action. Each unit,
each group receives a list of specific objectives determined in London. These objectives are divided into five
different plans which must be executed in perfect coordination. The Turtle plan, which will have to disrupt
traffic on the roads. The Violet Plan, which involves sabotaging
telegraph and telephone lines. The Blue Plan, the destruction
of high-voltage power lines. The Red Plan, guerrilla operations
against the occupier once the Allies had gained a foothold on the continent. And finally, and most importantly,
the green plan which organizes the paralysis of rail traffic. During the four days preceding
the landing, the saboteurs meticulously prepared their actions. The targets are identified,
the equipment is concealed. The unstall routes are
checked and during the night of June 5th to 6th, everything changes. We can know that there has been a
lot of sabotage. So quantitatively,
we know that it’s true. This is not a myth.
There was a huge amount of sabotage. As for whether it was
effective, that is, whether it helped, for example,
the success of the landing, we know that it contributed, for example,
to the paralysis of the railway system at the time of D-Day. So, it had an impact. That’s undeniable. Especially since, from D-Day onwards,
the resistance took action across the entire French territory. From north to south, from east to west,
hundreds of saboteurs planted bombs and unbolted rails. In large cities,
electricity is intermittent and the telephone often rings unanswered. Let’s take the example of Cherbourg. Cherbourg was completely cut off from the rest
of France for almost 24 hours because the Resistance had done
its sabotage work very well and had cut all the telephone cables. It’s a major port,
a large city, yet they find themselves completely isolated. From June 5 to 6, 1944, it is estimated that 75% of road traffic was interrupted by
sabotage actions, which clearly shows the scale of the phenomenon. But armored divisions and
tanks travel by train. It’s much faster than by road
and it doesn’t cost any petrol. And that will delay them considerably. It will take them three times longer
to get there as reinforcements than it would have if they had been able to
take the train. However, Hitler did not believe that the
landing would take place in Normandy. He is waiting for it further north,
in the Pas-de-Calais, where the English Channel is much narrower. As a result, only three
armored divisions were assigned to the defense of the Normandy coast. The others are scattered
throughout the territory. Slowed down by the actions
of the Resistance, they will take days,
or even weeks, to reach the front. Among those that had more difficulty
reaching Normandy was the sinister D’Azreich division,
an SS division stationed in the Toulouse region, which would ultimately take more
than three weeks to reach Normandy. His journey will be bloody,
punctuated by massacres like that of Oradur-sur-Glanes, perpetrated in
retaliation for the actions of the Resistance. Years after the war,
General Max-Joseph Pemsel, chief of staff of the German Seventh Army
, the one that first received the shock of the Allied attack
on the Normandy beaches, would also testify to the impact
of the actions of the resistance fighters. The lines and cables were cut,
destroyed by the resistance. I had no idea of ​​the
general situation on June 6th. I could not take any action
regarding the movement of my troops. I was reduced to directing the battle
in the manner of William the Conqueror, by sight and sound. So it was Germans, blinded
, deaf and isolated from their possible reinforcements, who tried to repel
the Allied landing on the morning of June 6, 1944. An isolation of a few hours,
a few days at best, but a few days and a few hours
that would be decisive for the outcome of the battle. This terrible battle would last more
than two months, killing nearly 100,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians. But its toll would probably have been
much heavier without the thousands of acts of sabotage carried out by the Resistance
which blocked Wehrmacht reinforcements and gave the Allies
an overwhelming logistical superiority. When the last Germans surrender
in Normandy, Paris will already be liberated and France will be able to sit with dignity
at the table of victors. Victors who,
like General Eisenhower, will pay tribute to the Resistance
and first and foremost to its saboteurs.