As the summer of 1944 advanced, the situation across France became more confused. Allegiances shifted, troops of multiple nations came and went in large numbers, hope was on the rise. And the shifts were sometimes rapid. In the overall longue durée of French history, the summer of 1940 and the summer of 1944 act like bookends surrounding the Vichy regime and occupation, with liberty and self-determination outside the brackets. The summer of 1944 is also a time of pride, in retrospect, when France regained its self-respect through the activities of ordinary people like the farmer’s daughters, Denise and Marie-Louise Yoder, and the Naidet family, whom we shall meet in this chapter. This was the time of the rise of the Resistance, celebrated, mythologised and commemorated almost from the moment of liberation.
There had been individuals and networks of the Resistance since the beginning of the occupation, of course, growing as the war went on and increasing with the German take-over of the south of France in the autumn of 1942. The Resistance was not a single entity, some showed loyalty to the Communist Party; some were supporters of De Gaulle and the Free French. After the invasion of Normandy, they were increasingly regularised and known as the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur, or FFI. Many had been members of the armed forces during the First World War (like Jules Perret) or at the start of this war, like Francois Michel De Champeaux, who had worked with the Indian troops in France in 1940, and then joined the FFI in September 1944, becoming the chief liaison officer with the American XV Corps advancing up through Lorraine, Alsace and into Germany. In rural areas, the Resistance were generally known as the Maquis – the word means scrubland. In country places like Étobon, with the threat of men being taken to Germany for manual labour, the RAF dropping arms and equipment and the increasing fragility of the German occupation and its Vichy supporters, the numbers enrolled in the Maquis rose dramatically in 1944. Throughout the year, across the nation 140,000 Maquisards were armed by the RAF and 24,000 were killed in battle. As well as pitched battles, sabotage continued and increased – the Peugeot factory at Sochaux near Belfort was destroyed by its own workers in November 1943.
Not all the Maquisards were local peasants. Addi Bâ Mamadou had come from Guinea in West Africa, joined the French Army in 1939, was imprisoned by the Germans but escaped and joined the Maquis in the Vosges. He was captured by the Germans and shot on 18 December in 1943, but his contribution is well remembered in France.
The contributions of Indian POWs, however, are less well remembered, and even disputed. The Times of India ran a story in August 1944 that spoke of Épinal escapees fighting with the Maquis, acting as snipers and guerrillas, “Indian soldiers are taking part in the liberation of France. When the full story of their exploits is told, it will prove to be one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the Indian Army.”
On the other hand, a local French historian specialising in the period wrote, “It is worth pointing out that these escapees categorically refused to take up arms again against the Germans.”
Where lies the truth? The British Establishment was keen to make much of Indians taking up arms. The French were keen to minimise or even erase it. In both cases, they had a strong motivation for that stance.
Partly, this can be explained by tracking the movements of the 950 Regiment of the German army – Bose’s Legion Freies Indien or Azad Hind Fauj, recruited in the Stalags. In the summer of 1944, they were in southwest France, near Bordeaux, part of the Atlantic Wall designed to keep the Allies out. After the Allied landings, the Germans were forced to withdraw from the south and centre of the country, and 950 Regiment went with them. During that withdrawal, several atrocities were committed and several Indians were shot out of hand by the FFI in Poitiers.
Their retreat took them through the Belfort Gap and the Vosges, and into the area around Colmar, where they stayed for several weeks. This left a strong impression in some parts of France, an impression that has almost completely overridden any memory of the escapees’ involvement against the Germans.
Additionally, some Indians – as, indeed, some French themselves – switched sides twice. One member of the 950 Regiment helped an escaping American officer and was shot by the Germans.11 There are, however, a few references in French sources to Indian involvement. One source reports an Indian who joined the FFI of Montbéliard. This could be the same unnamed “old sergeant” referred to in admiring terms by Jules Perret on 17 May, “This sergeant looked fierce, almost ferocious. The story of this Hindu does not end there. He did not want to go to Switzerland. He wanted to stay with the [Resistance] of Montbéliard … he was always after his rifle, polishing it. He was a tough fighter.”
A week later, Perret wrote, “The Germansare reacting. They fired on the Hindusat Ban. One wounded … They say that, near Vesoul, a group of Hindus who were being attacked rushed a German patrol, destroyed it and took the guns from the dead soldiers.”
Some Indians were prepared to join the struggle for the liberation of France, perhaps having been welcomed by French civilians, or perhaps on general anti-German principles. A telegram from the British Embassy in Berne to the Foreign Office in London on 10 June reported thirty Indians and four or five air force evaders who joined the Maquis to the west of Belfort, tasked with cutting the road from Belfort to Besançon and clearing the Swiss frontier when the moment arrived.
Another story from the Allied side is that of Nadir Khan. He was a havildar major in the Sikh Regiment, captured at Benghazi. During his imprisonment he “gave the authorities considerable trouble” and so was sent to the punishment camp at Graudenz. In due course, he ended up at Épinal, having stolen a map and compass along the way. After the bombing, he joined the FFI for a period of five months and was ‘employed as one of a band of silent Killers. His job was to stalk and kill any German at any time and he maintains that he actually got eleven.
He didn’t escape to Switzerland but stayed with the FFI until the Americans arrived in September. The only source for this information is the medal recommendation in the National Archives in the UK, which would have had to be supported by an officer and approved by the chain of command. The note of doubt in the word “maintains” is interesting. Nevertheless, the point of this medal is – as with most awards – to encourage others. At a time when public opinion in India was moving against British rule, it appears that HQ was keen to keep the army on board as much as humanly possible, and gallantry awards were a key part of that.
Excerpted with permission from The Great Epinal Escape: Indian Prisoners of War in German Hands, Ghee Bowman, Context/Westland.
