With their supplies running out and under pressure from the German army, the SAS were ordered to form smaller groups to return to Allied lines.

[1] To counter the American advance the Germans had moved reinforcements, including the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen, into the area.

The advance party's objective was to contact the local French resistance, carry out a reconnaissance of the area, identify targets for an attack and locate a suitable dropping zone for the main force.

[1] A member of the resistance assisting to move the parachute containers died after eating plastic explosive, believing it was some sort of cheese.

[2] The SAS's aggressive patrolling, sabotage attacks and the number of fire fights they had engaged in, led the Germans to believe they were up against a far larger force than there actually was.

To gain information about the location of the SAS camp, all the male residents of Moussey between the ages of 16 and 60, a total of 210 men, were arrested.

[5] On 29 September 1944 Captain Druce was sent to cross back over into the American lines, with the order of battle for a Panzer division which had been obtained by a member of the resistance.

[3][6] At the start of October, with Patton's army stalled and supplies running out, the likelihood that the Americans would relieve the SAS had dwindled.

Lieutenant Colonel Franks ordered his forces to split up into small groups and make their own way back to the Allied lines 40 miles (64 km) away.

Their investigation discovered that of the 31 missing SAS men, 30 had been murdered by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), some of them at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in the Vosges mountains.

In a coordinated operation by the Wehrmacht and SS, villages were raided, French resistance fighters and the captured SAS soldiers were executed.

The leader of the execution commando, Karl Buck, thought it unwise to leave mass graves of shot allied soldiers in an area so close to the front line.