Jockey Network
Francis Cammaerts was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in July, 1942. The SOE gave him the code name “Roger” and was flown to occupy France at Compiegne in March 1943. By the time autumn came around in 1943, there was a small network established by Francis Cammaerts. He developed a system that allowed him to know everyone in his group but no one knew who he was. They could only talk to him through letters in boxes. By the time of the D-Day landings Cammaerts had built up an army of 10,000 men and women. His area of operations went from Lyons to the Mediterranean coast and to the Italian and Swiss frontiers. On 11th August, 1944, Francis Cammaerts and Xan Fielding were captured while travelling from Apt to Seyne. They were taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Digne. The Allies began landing in France three days later. A lieutenant of the Jockey, Christine Granville, went to see Albert Schenck, the liaison officer between the French prefecture and the Gestapo. She told Schenck that the Maquis knew about the arrests and would arrange for him to be killed unless he released the men. He did not have the power to release them but he contacted Max Waem and after the payment of two million francs the men were given their freedom. |
Apolônio de CarvalhoApolônio de Carvalho, born on the 9th of February, 1912, and died on the 23rd of September in 2005. He was a Brazilian socialist. Because to his communist beliefs, he was expelled from the Brazilian Army. He left for Spain and fought alongside the republics in the Spanish civil war. He later fought against the Nazis with France. He received the rank colonel once the war ended.
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André MartyAndré Marty was born in Perpignan, France in 1886. André was a naval engineer, he led a mutiny to try and stop the French Navy intervening against the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He was sent to prison that year and was released in 1923. During the D-day landing, Marty attempted to organize a communist revolution. However, under instructions from Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Maurice Thorez and other leaders refused to cooperate. André Marty died on November 23, 1956 due to lung cancer.
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Hélène Mordkovitch
Hélène Mordkovitch was born in Paris, France, in 1917. Hélène was a student in physical geography, but was low on money so she worked as a librarian at the laboratory in the Sorbonne. Hélène was in charge of the machine that printed the newspaper and she kept it hidden in the physical geography laboratory.
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