Paul Sinkinson

[The Frenchman’s Daughters], [[Paul Sinkinson]]

In 1940 a motley crew of a couple of French soldiers and civilians, a couple of British soldiers and a French train engineer made their way to the latter’s farm enroute to the French coast and to England. This was just after Dunkirk. The engineer was murdered by German’s at his farm and his three daughters joined the others in the escape.

Once they reached London the engineer’s daughters approached De Gaulle to join the Free French. Here is where the most interesting part of the book starts. In detail it outlines the 18 months of training they undertake in Yorkshire to prepare them for their return to France. It included what you would expect, physical training, Morse code, map reading, weapons from hand guns to knives to hand-to-hand combat. For the three young women, 19 and 16 year old twins, it also included a weekend in a brothel where they learn to be comfortable with their own sexuality as well as with men in German uniforms. The men learn how to operate trains, boats and tanks and they all learn how to parachute out of a plane in the dark of night.The details of all the training are fascinating.

In 1943 the men parachute into the south of France and the women arrive over the Pyrenees from Spain. All had spent time in Gibraltar getting a tan, nothing was left to chance. Their clothes, shoes etc. had been made in France and sent to them in England for wear and washings.

Now they put their training to use with the goal of disrupting the Germans without making it look like the activities were carried out by the local citizens. They wanted to avoid retaliation. They bombed bridges, sabotage trains, take back gold and jewels the Germans had stolen from Jews. This funded weapons for local resistance groups.

As D-Day came closer they joined forces with local French resistance groups, assisting with training and disruptive activities leading up to and beyond the Normandy invasion. At one point they work an operation with the American Army.

It is fiction but the writing style is more like nonfiction which adds to the reality of the book. I have my usual complaint of poor editing. In this case the author confuses two characters and has, Jean, a Frenchman from Lillie, introducing the group to his parents at their farm in Yorkshire. Edward was from Yorkshire and his parents lived on a farm. At the beginning of the book is a list of characters with a short biographical note which helped me sort this out. One other thing that bothered me was they all survived the war, with just two of the men getting wounded. I know their training was to help them avoid this, but I found it unrealistic.

I have read a number of books, fiction and nonfiction, about World War II and the resistance. None have had the level of detail on the training and activities as [The Frenchman’s Daughters.] I highly recommend it.

Reviewed March 8, 2018
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2… (lisätietoja)