Les Compagnons de l'ombre. French Special Services Facing History, 1940–1945

These fifty Compagnons de la Libération reveal singular figures: from Jacques Voyer, who lies about his age to enlist in the Free French Forces, to Henri Drouilh, who at over 50 embarks on clandestine airborne operations over occupied France. From Pierre Briout, the fitter turned saboteur, to Roger Coquoin, director of the Paris chemistry laboratory; from Georges Lamarque, a disillusioned Pétainist, to Henri Labit, one of the volunteers of June 1940; from Colonel Gentil, a veteran of both world wars from the Armistice Army, to Albert Kohan and Jan Doornik, who, not even born French, fight for the values of France. All of them, however, share a determination to fight in the shadows to liberate France, in the mould of Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, who prefers to face the indignity of a conviction for desertion rather than the shame of capitulation.

The fifty biographies of Compagnons are grouped into ten thematic chapters whose introductions shed light on the relationships between General de Gaulle's services in London and the Resistance in France, the birth of the trades and methods of clandestine action — sabotage, communications, airborne operations, escape lines — and the emergence, alongside the British services MI6 and SOE, of the French model of secret and special service of which the DGSE is the heir.

Les Compagnons de l'ombre draws on more than 8,000 documents, often unpublished, from French and British archives, and offers a rich iconography (over 1,000 illustrations) drawn from the collections of the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Resistance museums, as well as from the collections of the DGSE and its Service Action.