When your torture and mass deportation policies inspire resistance then reprisals for assasinations are inevitable. Subject: french resistance Martyred Village : Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-Sur-Glane by Sarah Farmer Paperback - 300 pages (July 2000) Univ California Press; ISBN: 0520224833 Not the Germans Alone : A Son's Search for the Truth of Vichy by Isaac Levendel, Robert O. Paxton (Preface) Hardcover - 280 pages (June 1999) Northwestern Univ Pr; ISBN: 0810116634 Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac, Konrad Bieber (Translator), Betsy Wing (Translator) Usually ships promptly. This book is the basis for the excellent French film, Lucie Aubrac. Paperback (November 1994) Univ of Nebraska Pr; ISBN: 0803259239 Resistance, Rebellion, and Death by Albert Camus Usually ships promptly. Paperback Reissue edition (September 1995) Vintage Books; ISBN: 0679764011 Sisters in the Resistance : How Women Fought to Free France, 1940-1945 by Margaret Collins Weitz Usually ships promptly. Paperback - 352 pages (March 1998) John Wiley & Sons; ISBN: 0471196983 Sisterhood of Spies : The Women of the OSS by Elizabeth P. McIntosh Usually ships promptly. Hardcover - 282 pages (May 1998) United States Naval Inst.; ISBN: 1557505985 Also in Paperback Tales of Good and Evil, Help and Harm by Philip Hallie, Doris A. Hallie (Afterword), John J. Compton Usually ships promptly. Paperback - 227 pages (August 1998) Harperperennial Library; ISBN: 0060929014 An account of three ordinary people who made a profound difference in the lives of many. In LEST INNOCENT BLOOD BE SHED, Philip Hallie chronicled the story of the French village of Chambon, whose inhabitants saved 5,000 Jews from certain death during Word War II. In this inspiring sequel, Hallie focuses on the same theme of good in the face of evil and offers an eloquent meditation on morality. This Grim and Savage Game: The OSS and U.S. Covert Operations in World War II by Tom Moon (Introduction) Usually ships promptly. Paperback - 352 pages (June 20, 2000) Da Capo Pr; ISBN: 0306809567 Back to the Fighting Nancy Wake, then 31, became one of 39 women and 430 men in the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive which worked with local resistance groups to sabotage the Germans in the occupied territories. She was trained at a British Ministry of Defense camp in Scotland in survival skills, silent killing, codes and radio operation, night parachuting, plastic explosives, Sten guns, rifles, pistols and grenades. She and the other women recruited by the SOE were officially assigned to the First Aid Nursing Yeomantry and the true nature of their work remained a closely guarded secret until after the war. In February 1944, Nancy Wake and another SOE operative, Major John Farmer, were parachuted into the Auvergne region in central France with orders to locate and organise the bands of Maquis, establish ammunition and arms caches from the nightly parachute drops, and arrange wireless communication with England. Their mission was to organise the Resistance in preparation for the D-Day invasion. The Resistance movement's principal objective was to weaken the German army for a major attack by allied troops. Their targets were German installations, convoys and troops. There were 22,000 German troops in the area and initially 3-4,000 Maquis. Gaspards recruitment work, with the help of Wake, bolstered the numbers to 7,000. Nancy led these men in guerrilla warfare, inflicting severe damage on German troops and facilities. She collected and distributed weapons and ensured that her radio operatives maintained contact with the SOE in Britain. On one occasion Nancy cycled 500 km through several German checkpoints to replace codes her wireless operator had been forced to destroy in a German raid. Without these there would be no fresh orders or drops of weapons and supplies. Of all the amazing things she did during the war, Nancy believes this marathon ride was the most useful. She covered the distance in 71 hours, cycling through countryside and mountains almost non-stop. Her focus was rock steady to the end of her epic journey, when she wept in pain and relief. "I got back and they said, "how are you?" I cried. I couldn't stand up, I couldn't sit down. I couldn't do anything. I just cried." Pitched Battle It was an extremely tough assignment: a near-sleepless life on the move, often hiding in the forests, travelling from group to group to train Maquis, motivate, plan and co-ordinate. She organised parachute drops that occurred four times a week to replenish arms and ammunition. There were numerous violent engagements with the Germans. The countryside was wracked with hostage taking, executions, burnings and reprisals. No sector gave the Reich more cause for fury than Nancys - the Auvergne, the Fortress of France. Methodically the SS laid its plans and prepared to obliterate the group, whose stronghold was the plateau above Chaudes-Aiguwes. Troops were massed in towns all around the plateau, with artillery, mortars, aircraft and mobile guns. In June 1944 22,000 SS troops made their move on the 7,000 Maquis. Through bitter battle and escape, Nancy and her army had cause to be satisfied: 1,400 German troops lay dead on the plateau, 100 of their own men. Nancy continued her war: she personally led a raid on Gestapo headquarters in Montucon, and killed a sentry with her bare hands to keep him from alerting the guard during a raid on a German gun factory. She had to shoot her way out roadblocks; and execute a German female spy.