French hero of World War 2

[Lionel Mandrake]

French fighter who located Doodlebug launch sites

By Phil Davison, Financial Times (London, April 17 2009)

Joseph Brocard was the last surviving member of the French resistance network Agir, which identified top-secret launching pads for Nazi V1 “Doodlebug” flying bombs in northern France – information that changed the course of the second world war. Although V1s would eventually kill more than 6,000 people in the London area and injure 18,000, had it not been for Brocard and Agir, the bombs would probably have caused 10 times as many casualties. Hitler had planned to launch 5,000 a month and had he succeeded the D-Day landings would have been put in doubt.

Maps and drawings provided by Brocard and his comrades revealed that more than 100 top-secret Nazi construction sites in northern France all had one thing in common – a long ramp – and that those ramps pointed towards London. It was only later, after the Royal Air Force photographed a strange new pilotless aircraft being assembled at Peenemünde, on Germany’s Baltic coast, that the allies realised the French sites were for launching the Vergeltungswaffe, or revenge weapon, with which Hitler intended to avenge allied bombing of German cities.

Dwight Eisenhower, who was supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe at the time, and would later become US president, wrote: “If the Germans had succeeded in perfecting and using these weapons six months earlier than they did, our invasion of Europe would have proved exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible.”

For the whole story, browse:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ccbdcd12-2b76-11de-b806-00144feabdc0.html

This guy's adventures make fictional spies like James Bond seem tame in comparison.

[Lars39]

1. Fascinating.

What a brave man. How awful that people used his war-time efforts against him, though.

[Lionel Mandrake]

5. Did the collaborators really deny jobs to Resistance leaders?

The story quoted the son about this aspect of the story.

[mix]

2. very interesting read

Thanks for posting, I enjoyed that. What a life, indeed. Strange how he was blackballed from government positions after the war despite his heroic status.

The article also made me realize how significant the defeat of Nazism was, once again, and how things could have been quite different if Germany had not overextended its military. Also if men and women like Brocard had not succeeded in helping to destroy so many doodlebug sites, Europe might never have been liberated.

Merci, monsieur.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Thank you for a thoughtful response.

I wonder what Ike's reasoning was. How would ten times as many V1's have affected D Day?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. For the true definition of hero...

This man is the role model.

K&R

:patriot:

[Lionel Mandrake]

9. Yep. Amazing, incredible, ...

Choose your own adjective.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Doodle bugs aka buzz bombs.

My mother told me that it was sort of ok while you could hear them because it meant they were still flight. It was when the engine cut out that panic ensued cos nobody could predict where one would land. One took a house out 50 yards from my grandmother's where we lived. When I was a baby, and air raid warnings sounded , they'd stick me either under the oak kitchen table or under the staircase.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. My mother said the same

She said they'd all start counting when the engine noise stopped, because the bomb would tend to hit the ground and explode a fixed amount of time later.

[Lionel Mandrake]

11. It sounds really scary.

I can only imagine how it would feel to be counting the seconds after the engine cut out.

[uppityperson]

6. Distant relative was in Resistance, captured, dug a ditch with a bunch of other prisoners

managed to escape with help of a man plumbing a house and didn't end up shot in the ditch with the others. Had to hide out very much after that. Was a quiet elderly man when I met him. Now is RIP Papere.

RIP M'sier Brocard

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. How fortunate that he survived!

I once heard a talk by one of the fortunate ones. He mentioned that he didn't often get a chance to take a bath while he was in the Resistance.

Having to hide out all the time couldn't have been much fun, but it beats being shot in a ditch.

[uppityperson]

13. They were an incredible group of ordinary men and women

We are spoiled here, in the USA, not having had to fight here for so long.

[Lionel Mandrake]

15. I kinda like being spoiled.

It has been a long time, hasn't it?

The last clear cut invasion of the USA by a foreign power was 1812-15 (after which both sides claimed victory).

There was also fighting in Texas in the 1830s and 1840s.

There was considerable fighting here in the 1860s, during what some call the War of Northern Aggression (most of us call it the Civil War).

The "Red Dawn" scenario was never plausible.

[rockymountaindem]

10. Salut

Et merci pour votre courage, monsieur.

[Lionel Mandrake]

14. RIP Joseph Brocard.

A hero among heroes.