Philippe de Vomécourt
Had all of us in France meekly, lawfully carried out the orders of the German master, no Frenchman could have ever looked another man in the face.
He was the organiser (leader) of the Ventriloquist network (or circuit) from May 1941 until the liberation of France from Nazi German occupation in September 1944.
"[6] The American SOE agent Virginia Hall had as little contact as possible with Vomécourt as she considered him careless about security and full of grandiose plans.
In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Vomécourt was living on his estate of 120 hectares (300 acres) in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat in Haute-Vienne Department.
On June 13, 1941, SOE airdropped two CLE Canisters into Bas Soleil, Vomécourt's estate 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east of Limoges, France.
The canisters were dropped by an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber and contained sub-machine guns, explosives, and other materials.
Philippe worked south of the Loire River in the Sologne region, mostly in Vichy France which was unoccupied by Germany until November 1942.
As a sign of his displeasure, he delayed meeting a pair of newly-arrived SOE agents for seventeen days while they slept in ditches.
[14] To the contrary, the SOE agents believed that Vomécourt was "bluffing' by claiming that he had thousands of men waiting to be armed and trained when in fact he had only a handful.
The police told him they had arrested him to save him from the Gestapo and they registered him as Philippe de Crevoisier to conceal his identity.
Starr's explosives expert Claude Arnault and courier Anne-Marie Walters helped the escapees cross the Pyrenees into neutral Spain.
Vomécourt's intelligence enabled the Royal Air Force (RAF) to bomb the arsenal while trains loaded with munitions were present.
[21] Five RAF bombers were shot down by the Germans during the raid and Vomécourt's men rescued the survivors and got them on their way toward safety in neutral Spain via escape lines.
The Germans were separated from the American army by 100 kilometres (62 miles) with the intervening territory controlled by the FFI forces.
Macon agreed that the Germans would keep their small arms and march unopposed through the FFI territory to Beaugency where the surrender ceremony would take place.
[23] Vomécourt opposed the agreement and he traveled overland for 300 kilometres (190 mi) to the headquarters of American General George S. Patton to attempt to have the terms of the surrender re-negotiated.
He spent two days at home and then departed to join the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to help the millions of people who had been displaced in the war.
