Testimony of resistance fighters
Title
Testimony of resistance fighters
Description
First witness statement from a Resistance fighter
They had been warned by an English airman that the SS were going to carry out shootings and found refuge on 25th August. They were liberated on 29th August. The SS shot eight Resistance fighters and arrested three (out of 18-20). They had two airmen with them when they attacked the Sainte Catherine road. They had been ordered only to attack isolated Germans to avoid civilian reprisals. The American officer’s machine gun jammed and they were told to leave. They volunteered the following day and although the German command car was at the head of the convoy, they could not do anything.
Second witness statement from a Resistance fighter
The SS managed to shoot down their own aircraft instead of the British aircraft. The pilot bailed out.
Third witness statement (Pierre Madry)
Pierre describes former buildings including where George M. Mikels was imprisoned, the German Staff Headquarters and the prisoner camp. M. Le Monnier testified that the English were shot after being forced to dig their own graves. Against German wishes, the priest, Abbé Vard, came to bless them before burial. Five prisoners were shot. Gordon Brian Lafayette was not in the cemetery. Some bodies had allegedly been repatriated. Five soldiers remained.
Fourth witness statement (Pierre Madry)
An officer from the Wehrmacht was billeted at Pierre’s house and told him he was lucky to be alive after an encounter with some inebriated SS soldiers. The regular German army generally treated people well. They had given concerts and he had played darts with young German soldiers who were afraid of the SS. The camp held around 100 prisoners and George Mikels hid from the SS behind the dairy door.
A copy of a map showing where the Lancaster ND 533 crashed and the cemetery where the pilots were buried.
They had been warned by an English airman that the SS were going to carry out shootings and found refuge on 25th August. They were liberated on 29th August. The SS shot eight Resistance fighters and arrested three (out of 18-20). They had two airmen with them when they attacked the Sainte Catherine road. They had been ordered only to attack isolated Germans to avoid civilian reprisals. The American officer’s machine gun jammed and they were told to leave. They volunteered the following day and although the German command car was at the head of the convoy, they could not do anything.
Second witness statement from a Resistance fighter
The SS managed to shoot down their own aircraft instead of the British aircraft. The pilot bailed out.
Third witness statement (Pierre Madry)
Pierre describes former buildings including where George M. Mikels was imprisoned, the German Staff Headquarters and the prisoner camp. M. Le Monnier testified that the English were shot after being forced to dig their own graves. Against German wishes, the priest, Abbé Vard, came to bless them before burial. Five prisoners were shot. Gordon Brian Lafayette was not in the cemetery. Some bodies had allegedly been repatriated. Five soldiers remained.
Fourth witness statement (Pierre Madry)
An officer from the Wehrmacht was billeted at Pierre’s house and told him he was lucky to be alive after an encounter with some inebriated SS soldiers. The regular German army generally treated people well. They had given concerts and he had played darts with young German soldiers who were afraid of the SS. The camp held around 100 prisoners and George Mikels hid from the SS behind the dairy door.
A copy of a map showing where the Lancaster ND 533 crashed and the cemetery where the pilots were buried.
Date
1944
Temporal Coverage
Type
Format
Four printed sheets
Conforms To
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
CHoldenJ-170725-020001, CHoldenJ-170725-020002, CHoldenJ-170725-020003, CHoldenJ-170725-020004
Collection
Citation
“Testimony of resistance fighters,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/41102.
Item Relations
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