The men are, L to R, S/Sgt. Gene McParland, 4712 59th Place, Woodside, L.I., N.Y.; T/Sgt. Walter F. Skora, 5423 S. Sawyer Ave., Chicago, Ill.; and Sgt. Kenneth L. Mueller, 5425 N. Richard St., Milwaukee, Wis., who are standing by the roadblock. Sindorf, Germany. 28 February, 1945.

Company H, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division.

US Signal Corps photo and original caption.

Picture 1: Nancy Wake training with French maquisards

Picture 2: Nancy wake portrait, same day

Picture 3: Nancy Wake's fake identity card

Picture 4: Nancy Wake working giving some information to French maquisards as a liaison officer of the SOE

Nancy Wake (1912-2011) during the war (short summary):

During the Battle of France, Nancy Wake served as an ambulance driver. After the fall of France in 1940, she joined the escape network of Captain Ian Garrow, which later became the Pat O'Leary Line. She specialized in escape routes, helping British soldiers, resistance members and Jews cross into Spain via the Pyrenees. Because of her ability to evade capture, the Gestapo nicknamed her “the White Mouse.”

In early 1943, while trying to leave France, Wake was arrested in Toulouse with a trainload of other passengers but released four days later. The head of the O'Leary Line, Albert Guérisse, managed to secure her release by claiming she was his mistress and had been trying to hide her infidelity from her husband (all of which was untrue).

After reaching Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and underwent extensive training. On 29–30 April 1944, as part of the three-person “Freelance” team headed by John Hind Farmer (code name Hubert), Wake parachuted into the Auvergne region of France. The team’s mission was to serve as liaison between London and the local Maquis groups.

Wake’s duties included identifying parachute drop zones, recovering supplies and funds, and distributing them among the Maquis, including pay for individual fighters. She also took part in several firefights, showing remarkable courage and determination under enemy fire.

On 2 June 1944, when the Mont Mouchet Maquis came under attack, Wake and her team joined retreating partisans on a three-day, 150-kilometre march to the village of Saint-Santin.

She was the most decorated Allied servicewoman of World War II.

You can read more about her over there: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/nancy-wake/

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Picture 1: The turret of Jule Beaulieux shortly after it has been disabled

Picture 2: The turret nowadays at Vieux-Condé

Picture 3: The turret showing a german annotation: "Defeated on May 20, 1940"

Jules Beaulieux during the war:

Before the war, Jules Beaulieux worked as a laborer for the French National Railways (SNCF) in Valenciennes. When France mobilized in response to the German threat, he was assigned to the 54th Fortress Infantry Regiment (RIF).

He served as a machine gunner inside a dismountable turret armed with an 8 mm Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. His position was buried in a concrete emplacement and well camouflaged near the Sarteau Bridge near Fresnes-sur-Escaut. On May 19, 1940, French engineers destroyed the Sarteau Bridge. That day, Jules Beaulieux wrote a final letter to his parents:

“The Sarteau Bridge is going to be blown up. I’m alone in the turret. Not a single comrade. I’m afraid. I have to stay. I wonder what I can do with just a machine gun against armored tanks. Farewell, Mom, Dad, Jeannette, and my sisters and brothers. Goodbye, little sister. There are people who want to cross, but it’s too late. Think of me, little sister. I hope you’ll all be happy afterward. Goodbye, Mom.”

On May 20, 1940, for an entire day, Jules Beaulieux held off repeated German assaults, inflicting heavy losses. He reportedly killed or wounded around a hundred soldiers and destroyed three light vehicles. Eventually, the Germans located his turret and brought up an antitank gun. One shell ricocheted off the armor, but three others pierced it, thus killing Jules Beaulieux.

Astonished that a single man had resisted them for so long, the German soldiers buried him beside his turret and rendered him military honors. On the turret, they inscribed the words: “Nieder Gekampft 20-V-1940” (“Defeated on May 20, 1940”).

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Photo: Hans O. Lindh

Source: SA-Kuva, Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive

The photos are licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. You may distribute, edit and publish the photographs as long as SA-kuva is credited as the source.

Shared without edits

Picture 1: Father Jacques de Jésus with his fellow soldiers during his conscription (1939)

Pictures 2 and 3: Jacques de Jésus in his priest outfit (date unknown).

Jacques de Jésus during the war:

Lucien Bunel is conscripted in 1939, thus becoming "maréchal des logis-chef" (Chief sergeant) in the 6e Groupe Autonome d'Artillerie. He his captured by the germans on the 18th of june 1940 at Lunéville. He regains freedom in november 1940.

While he takes back his teaching work in the middle-school he founded in Avon, Jacques de Jésus quickly takes part in the "Vélite-Thermopyles" Résistance network. He uses his status of headmaster of the boys' school to hide and protect people refusing to serve the Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO), an apparatus designed to send forced workers to Nazi Germany.

Jacques de Jésus allows Lucien Weil, a jewish science teacher, to work in his school, thus defying the racist politics of Vichy France. Using fake names for the boys, he welcomes jewish children in the middle-school. Among them were Hans-Helmut Michel, Jacques Halpern and Maurice Schlosser (Jean Bonnet, Jacques Dupré and Maurice Sabatier).

Following a denunciation, the boys' school is encircled by the Wehrmacht the 15th of january 1944. The three children are immediatly sent to Auschwitz where they are murdered as part of the genocide. Jacques de Jésus is sent to multiple jails and internment camps. In occupied France, Fontainebleau then Royallieu. In Nazi Germany, Neue Bremm then Mauthausen. His calvary ends in Gusen, Austria.

During his detention, Father Jacques tends to the sick and celebrates Mass. He leverages and expands existing solidarity networks, thus allowing weaker people to eat bigger meals thanks to their peers' generosity.

Weakened by an illness contracted during his detention, Lucien Bunel, also known as Father Jacques de Jésus, died a free man on the 2nd day of june 1945.

Father John

© Auteur inconnu/ECPAD/Défense

Context:

These three soldiers are from the VIIth Army. The two men on the right seem to be officers given that they are wearing leather boots and pistol holsters. From his sleeve, we can even deduce that the man on the right is a captain.

The vehicle is a Panzerspähwagen SdKfz 223, very similar to the SdKfz 222 but equipped with better communication devices and lacking the 20 mm gun.

This picture has most likely be taken in the Lille-Dunkirk pocket during Operation Dynamo, around the 30th of May 1940. In this sector, the French forces fought valiantly to delay the German troops and thus allow the evacuation of most of the British Expeditionary Force.

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