6 - The Sequences of Aid

Summary

The local nature of much Resistance activity helped sustain it. From its emergence to its regeneration following destruction by the occupier, aid-based resistance resembled a perpetual motion machine. Others have already recounted the escape network experience. In addition to the handful of memoirs written by their participants, a large number of accounts by former fugitives have been published in Great Britain and the United States – so many true stories of adventure and occasionally love unfurling across the length and breadth of France. In this chapter, however, I shall seek to shed light on the first two phases of aid supplied on the ground. These consist of the first moments following the downing of an Allied aircraft or the escape of an Allied serviceman and the weeks that immediately followed, during which efforts were made to locate go-betweens who might escort fugitives to Spain and, from there, Gibraltar and England. Located upstream of escape networks and fully dependent on the willingness of local people who enjoyed no other source of support, these two phases of assistance ensured that pro-Allied energy was a renewable resource. The third phase of aid – which was also the most difficult to attain for those concerned – consisted in the establishment of organized networks requiring money, permanent agents and relay points to the border. This is why, though the Allies recognized 34,000 helpers, only 2,000 escape network agents were interviewed after the war by the French secret service.