For France
ONE could convict this book easily on two minor charges. First, it is too lightweight to substantiate the claim of its sub-title, " The Story of British Aid to French Patriots of the Resistance." Secondly, it does not conform to the advice of the King of Hearts, to begin at the beginning, to go on to the end and then stop. The tale is told by the hop, skip and jump method ; halfway through the book, when we have already been many times behind the enemy lines, we come suddenly on a chapter entitled " Our Early Beginnings."
But what does it matter, after all ? The story is factual and true and authoritative, for Colonel Buckmaster is himself the legendary figure who was at the back of it all. A devoted lover of France and the French, he had in 1941 the chance to help the cause of French resistance. From then until the liberation of France he organised the selection and the training and the operations of the 500 British, Canadian and Mauritian agents, of both sexes, who were dropped or flown into France on these fantastic missions. (A hundred and thirty lost their lives, many in horrible ways.) Frenchmen in Britain were ineligible to join, since they were required by Free French Headquarters ; and Colonel Buckmaster himself voices his surprise., which his readers must feel, at finding that there were so many individuals to hand with not only the qualifications and the guts, but also the ability to pass themselves off as Frenchmen and French- women.
I have sometimes been privileged to sit in and listen open-mouthed to the reminiscences of men and women who remained in Colonel Buckmaster's sieve after his prolonged and ruthless riddling ; who survived the stringent physical and mental tests which he devised for them ; and who then took part in his operations. His was surely in
• some ways the hardest part : to select the people, to be tough with them, to be fend of them, and to send them out into a duel world of risks which he could not share himself. Reading this book com- pletes the experience, for we see the whole as it were from the control tower. Simply though he tells his story, we can perceive the anguish when expected messages failed to come through, and the clash between the two familiar anxieties : anxiety for the safety of brave friends and anxiety for the success of an operation.
On D-Day the whole widespread system, armed and charged by faith and devotion,, was sprung like a mine. Even then there were sacrifices to be made ; prisoners in concentration camps who had helped to build up the organisation were put to death, and messages arrived as succinct as this one, which Colonel Buckmaster quotes : " Bridge destroyed. Jerome killed."
During the month after D-Day, Colonel Buckmaster toured France, and found himself " continually being escorted to upland meadows where the spot on which a British parachutist first touched French soil was pointed out with veneration." I hope that this book is being published in French : its substance is food for pride to
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