The Road at St. Liseau: A Novel of Espionage in World War Ii

By Thomas W. Becker

When Army Bombardier Capt. Robert Marsden crashes his B-17 in France during World War II, he doubts hell survive.

The Nazis have already occupied the country, but good fortune smiles on him: Lisa Jardin, an attractive nursing student, brings him back to health. At first, he wonders if shes real or if shes a figment of his imagination.

Not only is she real the two fall in love. Marsden joins the French Resistance in the little village of St. Liseau, carrying out sabotage missions against German occupying forces and supplying critical information to allied Supreme Headquarters as it prepares to invade the beaches of Normandy.

But even his brushes with death cannot prepare him for the chain of events that are set into motion when German troops retreat deeper into the French countryside. Fighting for their very lives, the lives of the villagers will be forever changed at The Road at St. Liseau.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491767603

Thomas W. Becker

Thomas W. Becker is a teacher, author, and photojournalist who traveled throughout the world delivering presentations and gathering material for 15 books and more than three hundred published articles. He lives in Spring City, Pennsylvania, where he continues to write and deliver public talks on technology.

Book preview

THE ROAD AT

ST. LISEAU

A Novel of Espionage in World War II

THOMAS W. BECKER

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THE ROAD AT ST. LISEAU

A NOVEL OF ESPIONAGE IN WORLD WAR II

Copyright © 2015 Thomas W. Becker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

On the cover: The village of St. Liseau photographed from the road.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6743-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6760-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908800

iUniverse rev. date: 6/3/2015

Contents

Author Preface

Cast of Characters

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

This book is dedicated to my daughter Barbara, and to

my close friend Nancy, who were always there for me.

Books By The Same Author

Non-Fiction Under The Name Thomas W. Becker

Pageant Of World Commemorative Coins, Whitman Publishing Company, Racine 1962.

The Coin Makers, Doubleday and Company, Garden City, 1969.

EISENHOWER The Man, The Dollar and The Stamps, The American Mint and Postal Society and Mintmaster Inc., 1971.

Exploring Tomorrow In Space, Sterling Publishing Company Inc., Garden City, 1972 Foreword by Dr. Wernher von Braun

Our American Coins. The U.S. Treasury Department, Bureau Of The Mint, Washington DC, 1972 (on contract).

Aerospace: Crossing The Space Frontier. University of Missouri, Center for Distance and Independent Study, Columbia, Mo. 1988, rev 1998. Gifted high school self-study course in the history of space technology 1920-present. Mid-term and Final exams.

Studying Planet Earth: The Satellite Connection. University of Missouri, Center for Distance and Independent Study, Columbia, Mo. 1997. Gifted high school self-study course in remote sensing and Earth studies. Mid-term and Final exams.

Eight Against The World: Warriors Of The Scientific Revolution. Author House Publisher, Bloomington, Indiana 2007.

A Season Of Madness: Life And Death In The 1960s. Author House Publisher, Bloomington, Indiana 2007.

The Race For Technology: Conquering The High Frontier. Author House Publisher, Bloomington, Indiana 2008.

Novels Under The Name Tom Becker

A League Of Shadows. Xlibris Publishers, Bloomington, Indiana 2009.

The Cape May Protocol. Strategic Book Group, Durham, Connecticut, 2010.

The Road At St. Liseau – iUniverse, Bloomington, Indiana, 2015

Remembrances:

"The war is over for St. Liseau, but the price has been almost too much to bear, and I have some very bad news for you. Francois died at the barricade – he was standing out in front of the barricade facing the Bosch all by himself, in the open. They killed him when his gun ran out of bullets. But there’s more. He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him while she shook with grief.

Mr. X was actually General Georges LaForte of the French army, Robert remarked casually. He also died at the barricade. There was a price of twenty thousand francs on his head. He withheld his name to protect your family and the safe house; he knew if the Bosch learned he was here they would move heaven and earth to hunt him down, and your family would all be discovered and executed. He was a very courageous man.

Robert to Lisa,

after the battle for St. Liseau

I’ll tell you why, General, Donovan’s eyes narrowed and he sneered out the word general. "Because they represent an occupied country under the heel of the most brutal and arrogant oppressors ever known to mankind. Because they hide in the shadows or in the bushes or in a mud-filled ditch afraid of being caught. Do you know what the word reprisal means, General? The Germans grab the first twelve or fifteen citizens off the street they can find, line them up against a wall, and shoot them down with machine guns – fathers, mothers, children, wives it makes no difference. Because German soldiers rape the women in public and walk away laughing; because they hear the screams of their comrades being tortured by the cruelest methods ever devised…"

OSS General Wild Bill Donovan

just before D-Day 1944

Author Preface

Humankind is capable of such magnificent achievements – and such terrible tragedies. This novel is about both these kinds of events.

In the silent background beyond the obvious carnage of World War II, was a vast army of intelligence agents on both , scrambling to get highly secret information about each other’s plans, military strengths and weaknesses. An army of spies experienced terrible risks and ordeals to gather highly secret information; their exploits have never really been documented until recent years.

The story you are about to read could have taken place hundreds of times in hundreds of different places. For the sake of the novel, however, it has been narrowed to follow the challenges and exploits of a select few individuals caught up in the desperate need to do whatever it cost to win the war against the enemy.

Most of the novel is true to the historical record. The only differences are the lives of the principal characters. The story printed here uses actual historic events as the background against which their lives are presented and followed.

The Commandant of Nordhausen assembly plant existed, but is given a different façade. Poor Frieda, the Commandant’s concubine, is taken from actual events. B17 bombing raids over Germany certainly took place, but the novel follows only one B17 crew that is shot down (for the sake of the story). The French Maquis performed thousands of clandestine missions, but you will read about only one small group of freedom fighters. Emil, Marie, Claude, Mr. X, Francois, Lisa and Robert are fictional characters - counterparts of real Resistance people who fought valiantly against overwhelming German odds to operate a safe house secretly rescuing and housing downed allied pilots and soldiers in France.

Other events, such as the existence of The Oslo Report, the meeting between Colonel Dornberger, Wernher Von Braun and Hitler, and Maquis attacks on German fortifications at Caen, St. Lo, and Vertan are real. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force and Office of Strategic Services are real (as is Wild Bill Donovan). The Road At St. Liseau depicts the gallant work of the French Resistance against the German occupation army roughly between 1940 and 1945. The real background is a glimpse of what was accomplished or lost on both sides.

The novel attempts to portray the brutality and savagery of the German military forces in World War II, and the selfless sacrifices of allied troops. Colonel Tielmann at Nordhausen and Commandant Captain Metzger of the German garrison at St. Liseau, are good examples of brutal Nazi arrogance. At the same time, the brave and self-sacrificing exploits of the French Resistance and the German Underground are described accurately to depict the heroism of these freedom fighters.

Several Hollywood DVD movies - 13 rue madeleine and The House On 92nd Street provide an understanding of how intelligence agents operated. The Spy Game, The Recruit, The Good Shepherd and Saving Private Ryan, are more modern movies with similar narratives. All are excellent dramas and are well worth viewing. If you are interested in pursuing a deeper background about the intelligence community in the World War II era, the following factual accounts are the best sources available:

Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day June 6 1944: The Climactic Battle Of World War II. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1994.

Dornberger, Walter. V-2. The Viking Press, New York, 1954.

Johnson, David. V-1 V-2: Hitler’s Vengeance On London. Stein & Day Publishers New York, 1982.

Jones, R.V. The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc, 1978.

Smith, Richard Harris. OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency. The Lyons Press, 1972/2005.

Cast of Characters

Locations: France, Germany (the Harz Mountain region especially), Nordhausen, Peenemunde, London, Holland, English Channel, Baltic Sea, and the fictional village of St. Liseau barely sixty miles south of Paris.

Robert Marsden – lead male character, organizer of espionage/sabotage missions in France, falls in love with Lisa Jardin and works from the Jardin family safe house.

Lisa Jardin – lead female character, young attractive daughter of Emile and Marie Jardin, nursing student who falls in love with Robert and helps with espionage/sabotage of German activities in and around St. Liseau.

Francois Jardin – Lisa’s young and impatient brother who fights for St. Liseau.

Claude Renoux – competent leader of the rural Maquis/French Resistance group throughout France.

Mr. X – secretive, mysterious and brave Maquis leader and freedom fighter.

William Wild Bill Donovan – General and Director in charge of the newly formed Office of Strategic Services, the American overseas intelligence branch in WWII.

Ian Barringer – British Colonel in charge of Overseas Operations European Training School of allied European spies, in England.

Prologue

Analysts at British Intelligence in London were stunned by a series of documents forwarded to them by the British Embassy in Oslo, Norway dated November 1, 1938. The Report was so incredible it couldn’t be believed; yet it was so detailed in scope that it couldn’t be brushed off, either. Completely supported by drawings and photographs, the Report told of new and far advanced secret German weapons being built and tested at a place called Peenemunde in northeast Germany. The Report took technology to the next higher level of what the Office of Technology Operations referred to as the future of warfare. The documents became known within British Intelligence simply as "The Oslo Report."

The documents pictured a flying bomb that was pilotless and extremely accurate, and that could move through the sky at better than 400 miles per hour, faster than any known combat fighter plane. A second description listed an acoustical torpedo that would unerringly travel straight to its target with a better than ninety percent accuracy and a level of confidence that guaranteed destruction of the target.

Yet a third description was even more fantastic – a guided rocket that could cross the Channel in five minutes and reach supersonic speeds, making it not only difficult to see but completely silent as well. Diving from fifty miles out in space, the missile could strike its victims with no warning, carrying a ton of dynamite that could obliterate an entire city block with an accuracy range of 150 miles.

Another weapon was listed as an anti-aircraft shell with a proximity fuse, fired by anti-aircraft guns where the shells exploded just before they hit a target, scattering pieces of shrapnel and throwing a blanket of concussion all over an enemy aircraft.

At first, The Oslo Report seemed genuine and was taken at least partially seriously, but as time went on and deeper scientific analysis came to bear on it, many in the science community believed it to be a hoax. For starters, how could one person gather such information about some of the most highly guarded secret activities of the German government? Also, why was work on the projects being done without the civilian population knowing about it?

There seemed to be no general confirmation about such things, and no one came forward to tell of actually having witnessed the kinds of work to construct these weapons. Within a year, after considerable science and technology study, the Report was somewhat hesitantly accepted in British circles as genuine. Many secret agents from Britain’s MI6 Intelligence group were sent into Europe to gather information, but even secret agents who went to Peenemunde could barely find adequate evidence of weapons testing.

World War II began early in September 1939 with the German bombing of Poland followed by further invasions in the Lowlands (Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg), Scandinavia, and finally France in June 1940. Using the Spanish Civil War as a testing ground for new German aircraft and tactical strategies, Hitler introduced into warfare a new concept of blitzkrieg (lightning war). The new concept was a very sudden and fast-moving attack that completely surprised and stunned governments and militarists, allowing the Germans quick defeat of one country after another. The defeats often were carried out in just a few weeks. Countries not only were unprepared for war, but the shock of sudden physical invasion left governments transfixed.

***

In mid-summer of 1943, designers of the Nazi weapons program were summoned to Bertschgaden to meet with the Fuhrer. Adolph Hitler sat motionless for only a few moments. He was visibly excited by the film he just viewed and now his fascination for grandiose schemes and startling weapons rose up in his mind to grab hold of him. The new weapons would totally revolutionize warfare; if only they had been available in 1938, this complicated war would not have been necessary.

Hitler’s dream of world conquest, like all the other dreams he had, would be true already and his Machiavellian social inventions of a master race and a settlement of the final solution of Jewish extermination would be a fait accompli." A tiny hint of a smile crossed his lips as he looked across the room at the two men who were making it all possible.

Wehrmacht Colonel Walter Dornberger and his brilliant protégé Dr. Wernher von Braun, shifted their eyes from the models on the table back to Hitler’s face, satisfied the film depicting a remote-controlled flying bomb and a continent-spanning liquid-fueled rocket had done its intended job. The Fuhrer was visibly impressed – even elated – as he stood up and held out his hands for a celebratory handshake.

From that moment onward, Hitler knew he at last would have his revenge on Britain. Each weapon carried in its nose a full ton of dynamite that would obliterate any object it fell upon – houses, factories, airplane hangars, office buildings, even fields of soldiers. Victory now was in his grasp! He shook his guests’ hands warmly and assured them that they had done a masterful job. Pausing only a moment, he half-apologized to both men for not having believed in them.

On the plane back to the rocket test center at Peenemunde, Dornberger reflected on the many long and rugged frustrating years of trial and error engineering to develop the weapons. There were sixty thousand separate modifications – and they weren’t finished yet, but each new change eventually flew successfully.

From their start in 1923 as a highly competent group of hobbyists at Kummersdorf outside Berlin, to the ultra-modern Rocket Test Center at Peenemunde, had been a long and bumpy road filled with failure after failure despite the best European minds that could be gathered together at the test center.

A whole decade of tiny successes and enormous failures added up to a nearly finished product destined to change the course of history and usher in the birth of a new age of travel into space, and political supremacy. Today – July 7 1943 – brought the Fuhrer’s blessings of increased financial support as well as promises of full-scale production. It was a hard-won victory, but no matter how dutifully the men worked, both men feared neither the flying bomb nor the guided rocket could be readied in time to meet the expected allied invasion of the German Third Reich.

1

A t an airfield far outside London, the Air Operations Officer climbed the few stairs to a broad platform, stood before a gigantic map of Western Europe, and turned to face the large group of airmen anxiously awaiting the name of the day’s target. Poking his long pointer up into the middle of Germany, he quickly announced: Gentlemen, today’s target is of some importance - Schweinfurt, he said matter of factly, then waited for the inevitable moans and groans from the assembly of fliers.

"You will be flying at ten thousand feet which should