There are many threads on Bluesky & the loons place today about the Landings 81 yrs ago

[irisblue]

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The eve of the 'Great Crusade' 5 June 1944

Like every day at 9.15 pm French time, the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th, forming the Morse for V for Victory, sound across the airwaves of BBC's Radio Londres.
The speaker of the 'Ici Londres, , Franck Bauer, then reads out personal messages that are known to individual Resistance groups...
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BBC Radio Londres had begun using the message system back in September 1941 when SOE radio operator Georges Bégué sent back the first message of this type.
The idea was simple, at the start of the programme each evening, which brought general news from the Allied side of the war to people in occupied France, messages only known to specific groups or networks were read out in what were presented as personal messages.
2/8

As preparations began for D-Day, hundreds of written messages had been sent out from London to all officially recognized groups several weeks before. Then, on 1 June, SOE and BCRA run networks received via Radio Londres, 146 and 15 alert messages respectively.
Whilst these messages did not alert them specifically to an impending invasion (although most must have guessed it), the alert messages meant that imminent action in terms of specific tasks, such as sabotage, would be called upon in the next seven days.
3/8


The SOE Ventriloquist network, led by Philippe de Vomécourt, who was living under the false identity and occupation of a hunting warden in the Sologne area south of Orléans, received four alert messages on 1 June 1944 and which were repeated the following two nights.
4/8

The four messages read, 'Françoise est en congé' (Françoise is off work), Je me sens tout courbaturé (I feel all achy), On les a vu venir (We saw them coming), and.... one that is part of the D-Day legend, the first three lines of the poet Verlaine's poem, Chanson d'automne.
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
5/8


Naturally, the Germans listened to these messages and tried to make sense of them.
Based in Tourcoing in northern France, the 15. Armee had a listening post in a series of bunkers in the grounds of a villa.
Several weeks before, the Germans had captured some Resistance members from a group under de Vomécourt's supervision.
Someone who had knowledge of the messages that had been received in written form had talked, no dount under torture, and the Germans knew that the second part of Verlaine's verse was a call to action, no doubt signalling the invasion.
6/8


On the evening of 5 June, a radio operator at the 15. Armee listening post at 4 bis Av. de la Marne, duly picked up and reported the lines,
"blessent mon cœur
d'une langueur
monotone".

The Germans now knew that the Allies were coming in the next 48 hours, but where?
7/8
on the evening of 5 June 1944, 155 call to action messages were sent for SOE networks and another 57 to BCRA networks.
During the night of 5/6 June, the Resistance carried out over 1,000 acts of sabotage, knocking out phone lines and blowing up railways, and hampering infrastructure and thus playing a vital and often overlooked role in the success of D-Day.
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[Lovie777]

1. History...

Thanks

[irisblue]

2. Honestly, the History threads on both platforms, are doing a bang up job IMO

[Deuxcents]

3. Thank you for this post..I learn something new here all the time 🙏

[irisblue]

4. TY, I like nerding out with my people.