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Richard Heslop - Xavier: A British Secret Agent with the French Resistance

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Richard Heslop Xavier: A British Secret Agent with the French Resistance
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Xavier: A British Secret Agent with the French Resistance: summary, description and annotation

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Colonel Richard Heslop, alias Xavier, was one of Britains Greatest Special Operations agents in France. Ingeniously orchestrating resistance groups and ruthlessly sabotaging German operations, Xavier played a crucial role in Allied espionage during the war, from late 1942 right through to D-Day. Sent to France in the middle of the conflict, he delicately balanced clandestine missions and dangerous wartime operations on a daily basis, yet his name barely gets a mention in the accounts of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), making this insight all the more fascinating. It is clear that Xaviers role was like no other. It was a job that involved frequent encounters with the terrifying possibilities of capture, torture and death; it was a job where a careless whisper could deliver a man into the hands of the Gestapo; and it was a job that involved acts of sabotage, espionage, theft, and sometimes even murder. Xavier is a dramatic and compelling account of courage and endurance in the face of a merciless enemy - the true story of one of Britains greatest secret agents. The best collection of military, espionage, and adventure stories ever told. The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spying and espionage tales. From WWI and WWII to the Cold War, D-Day to the SOE, Bletchley Park to the Comet Line this fascinating spy history series brings you the best stories that should never be forgotten.

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The story is alive with the high tension of clandestine warfare, and it is distinguished by an intelligence and natural authority exceptional in books of this kind.

Sunday Telegraph

Modestly and well told.

Sunday Times

A well-written, unemotional account one recognises the human being under the professional agent.

The Guardian

His experiences make interesting reading and bring back vividly a time when danger and death were commonplace.

Manchester Evening News

Contents

I dedicate these memoirs of courage, devotion to duty and determination, in the first place to my brave and faithful companions ALEX, PAUL. And in the second place, to D. E. L., whose patience and encouragement made them possible.

I feel indebted to so many people in England and France who have helped in so many seemingly small but often vital ways that it would need an appendix to name and pay tribute to them all. I must however mention in particular my friend Bob Taylor, a journalist of repute, for his patience and tireless assistance in the writing of this book.

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Heslop DSO

Herne Bay, Kent

Denis Johnson, Heslops American wireless operator.

Henri Petit, the Maquis leader in the Ain.

by Major-General Sir Colin McV. Gubbins KCMG DSO MC

I t is difficult enough for those who have never suffered it to imagine life in an occupied country under a brutal and utterly ruthless despotism. How much harder to appreciate properly the daily life in such conditions of a foreigner whose declared mission is actually to build up armed resistance to the oppressor among the populace, whatever the retaliation that would inevitably fall on him. Such was the authors role, and the country France.

In his favour was the fact that so many of the French people had refused to accept defeat and surrender and who, after the first traumatic shock, sought only the means to continue the struggle by forming clandestine groups of patriots of all classes. But among the populace as a whole there were followers of Ptain who accepted the status quo, followers of de Gaulle and of Moscow (after June 1941) who rejected it totally, and others who would have none of these things but fought for la Patrie alone. These acute political differences bedevilled the work of organising resistance, and made it doubly dangerous for those most active on it.

The build-up of successful resistance in all occupied countries during the war depended on two indispensable lifelines: developments in clandestine wireless telegraphy and in supply by aircraft whether of weapons or personnel. Without these material aids it would have been impossible to create and equip underground forces significant enough to affect the operations of regular forces. Given adequate aid, given the right spirit of the people, all this was rendered possible.

Colonel Heslop (Xavier) describes feelingly his sense of frustration and impotence during his first mission in France with no direct communication with Special Operations Executive in London. On his second mission to the Maquis in south-eastern France his whole position and his local standing are completely transformed. Now he can ask directly for the arms so desperately needed. Now he can report suitable dropping zones and the dates for parachuting can be mutually agreed. Now he can report in detail at any time on the local situation, and plans can be agreed for the development of his sector for specific operations against the enemy, and other urgent matters. All his demands could not of course be met: no occupied country or any individual sector ever got its full requirements our means were limited by higher decree. But during the war there were delivered by air to France more than 10,000 tonnes of weapons, ammunition and equipment. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, some 150 underground wireless stations were in touch with SOE from occupied France and Belgium. Xaviers sector certainly received its fair share and made most effective use thereof. For his services in France he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, Lgion dHonneur, Croix de Guerre with Three Palms and the American Medal of Freedom with Palm.

This is an absorbing book. Its interest lies in the authors factual narrative of what actually happened to him and of his hopes and fears through the trials and tribulations of underground and open warfare in France, where guerrilla warfare was being waged long before an allied soldier set foot on Norman soil, to the final dramatic meeting on his own stamping-ground with the invading American armies from the south. It is told with a wealth of detail which is at all times relevant and enlightening. The questions that spring to mind are answered immediately, the little happenings of daily life that are so important for security are faithfully reproduced. But what stands out in high relief is the courage, the endurance and the magnificent spirit in conditions of incredible hardship of those alongside whom he fought the men and women and even the boys and girls of France. The seas that surround our island saved us from this ultimate test.

R ichard Heslops brilliant account of the work of an officer in the British Special Operations Executive controlling resistance operations in German-occupied France is one of the most stirring special operations memoires ever written. With an exhilarating opening featuring what was clearly one of the most traumatic moments in Heslops life, the pace never slackens. Xavier, the title of the book, was Heslops fieldname on the ground in France. He was codenamed Marksman, the leader of the SOEs network, or circuit, of the same name which operated in the Savoie/Haute-Savoie/Ain area which stretches from Lyon in the west to the Swiss border, but his false documents listed him as Ren Garrat, a French factory worker by day while leading or plotting the attacks on the Germans by night.

The role of the resistance behind occupied lines in France is well known, celebrated in numerous war films and by a host of statues and monuments dotted around the French countryside. The main resistance groups were each controlled by an organiser like Heslop, but what is less well known is the importance of their operations during the invasion of Europe in June 1944. Since the Marksman circuit dominated most of the situation reports put out by SOEs F Section in the days after the D-Day landings, it is appropriate that as this Dialogue edition of this book was published, the few remaining veterans of D-Day were celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the Normandy landings.

The work of Heslops Marksman circuit in the weeks ahead of the invasion and in the immediate aftermath tied down large numbers of German troops with his numbers growing all the while, from just over 1,000 initially, to more than 3,000 by mid-May and thousands more within days of the landings as patriotic French men and women took up arms to add to the pressure on the Germans.

The extent to which the Marksman circuit expanded is reflected in Heslops repeated pleas in his reports to London (included here as an appendix) for more arms and ammunition both of which were by now in far shorter supply than enthusiastic resistance fighters. In a fascinating foreword to the book, Colin Gubbins, the operational head of SOE, refers to the difficulty they had in making the necessary supply drops with resources, and in particular aircraft, understandably stretched to the limit.

Gubbins rightly pays a glowing tribute to the resistance fighters who worked under Heslop. The Communist Maquis described in his reports as fighting like tigers were largely ignored by the authorities in post-war Gaullist France, so there is a timely reminder of the importance of their role, both in Heslops own account and in his situation reports, included here as an appendix.

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