“Now baseness can flood ! They look at the sky without turning pale,
to the earth without turning red.”


6 Juin 1953

For the parachutists, war was danger, boldness, isolation.

Out of all of them, the most exposed, the boldest, the loneliest have been those of France Libre (« Free France »).

Plundering in Cretse, in Libya, in occupied France, fights for the liberation of Bretagne, in the centre, in Ardennes ; the vanguard thrust forward in the decisive battle of the Rhine; that’s what they have done, in one extreme or the other - completely left to themselves or in the middle of enemy lines. There, lie their dead companions, there, they have earned victory.

The goal was attained, the victory carried. Now baseness can flood ! They look at the sky without turning pale, to the earth without turning red.

C. de Gaulle.

« It was in 1941 that Major Stirling imagined and perfected this new type of mission. He personally took leadership of the first groups in action in Libya. The SAS (Special Air Service), until 1945, intervened across the entire theatre of operations, preceding, in general, the large-scale allied offensives: Cyrenaic, Crete, Libya, Tunisia, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland.

The method of the SAS intervention could be summarized as follows: sending, in the easiest way, small groups of super-trained men with expertise in the techniques of battle and sabotage, to the extreme rear of enemy lines.

Reaching the destination was by far the easiest part. Getting back was the most difficult. The trumpcard was the element of surprise. Then, alas, defeat made the return risky.

What was not very often told was that Major Stirling, a great Francophile, preferred French people for that type of special mission. He had the feeling that French qualities and in fact French failings, were best suited to that type of individual intervention. […] At the end of the war, two of the four SAS regiments were entirely composed of French troops.

Small groups (special divisions), whose number varied with the nature of the mission, did their duty everywhere, carrying out the most extraordinary exploits. All of Great-Britain still echoes their praises. On the other hand, France knew almost nothing about that exceptional combat, fought by a handful of its fellow countrymen, far away from everything and everybody.[…] Many of these actions, being successful, were decisive for the military push and the victory of the Allied troops.

For example, in 1942, Germans and Italians occupying Sicilia, Crete, Tunisia, Libya, Cyrenaic, reigned over the Mediterranean borders and intercepted everything happening between Gibraltar and Alexandria. The last fortress, Malta, was crushed . The RAF was too far away to ensure a free naval circulation. The High Command asked for the neutralization of enemy airfields, to allow a huge last convoy one more chance.

Thus, Captain Bergé, the first of the French SAS, with four of his companions, and joined by a British officer and a Greek, were landed by submarine in Crete. Their attack allowed the destruction of twenty-two German planes, the entire truck fleet and the fuel store. Only the Briton would come back from the mission.

At the same time, SAS divisions, with jeeps and weapons, passed through the front line after a five hundred-kilometre expedition, attacked the German airfields on the coast of Tripoli. It would take the Lufwaffe a very long time to recover from these losses. The convoy had got through. […]

In France :

1. The Normandy landings or D-Day happened on the 6th of June 1944.At dawn, on the 5th of June, The French SAS platoons, in the vanguard of the armada of landings, were parachuted into Bretagne and went into action. Two hours later, the first victim of the liberation of his country, Corporal Bouetard, of Marienne’s branch was killed. Marienne himself, with some of his companions a few weeks later, died a hero’s death, after an incredible battle to disorganise German armies. Everywhere, the enemies’ divisions were stuck in Bretagne, unable to reinforce the plan of defence in Normandy. But in that unequal fight, losses were numerous, especially as enemy were killing wounded people. The terrible battle of Saint-Marcel was a sad example of it.

2. The landings in the South happened on the 15th of August. At the beginning of the month, SAS French troops were parachuted into the regions of Central France and Burgundy-Lyon, to neutralize the main communication lines. The Germans were in constant insecurity. Boldness and technique work wonders. And on the 4th of September, at Sennecey-le-Grand, four SAS jeeps, having crossed occupied France and taken advantage of the fighting in Normandy, reinforced their comrades, who had been fighting since August 12. At Sennecey, a huge German platoon was forced to leave in the dawn hours. They used all their arms – machine guns, bazookas, grenades – in a brutal slaughter. In return, later, they were destroyed. With only two survivors. Eighteen of our comrades were killed, with their commander, Captain Guy de Combaud-Roquebrunne.

In the Belgian and French Ardennes
During Christmas 1944, against the Wehrmacht.

In Holland, too.[…] This was the SAS participation in the war. Too long ignored in our own country, France, it was time, forty years after, to evoke here the heroic shadows of our comrades »

(Booklett produced by the Association of Former SAS Parachutists and Commandos of La France Libre, in which my father had participated just before he died, a few days before having the honour of receiving as his friend in Bretagne, one of the English who had disembarked there, Major Elwess. The president of the Association was Georges Caïtucoli. Honorary Presidents : General Bergé, General de la Bollardière, Château Jobert, Henri Déplante, Alexandre Loffi, Puech Samson).