Vive le France! France in WWII

     Some books set in France during World War II:

    When I was in graduate school years and years ago, I took an excellent class on Twentieth century French history, one of the books I had to read was Robert O. Paxton's Vichy France Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944.  The book is considered a classic history of the collaborationist Vichy government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain, and it has been reprinted numerous times since its original publication in 1972.  France's greatest WWI hero, Petain decided that Paris and France would be best protected by capitulation, with a twist. He offered to rule the southern half of France and its empire from a new capital in Vichy, while German troops and administrators ruled Paris and northern France. Paris did escape much of the destruction inflicted on other European capital cities, but at a steep cost. Vichy French policemen and military men were forced to arrest and fight against fellow Frenchmen and Allied forces, thousands of Jews (many foreign-born, but some French as well) were rounded up and sent eastward to camps, and thousands of French men and women were forcibly taken to Germany to work in factories and on other labor projects. It is an excellent book if you want to learn about Vichy.

    Taking Paris by Martin Dugard is a relatively new book. It belongs on your shelf next to Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, which covers 1940-1941 in the UK, the crucial year that saw the UK standing alone against Germany and teetering on the edge of collapse. Dugard's book covers the whole war, from the French perspective. Dugard takes the reader behind the scenes to learn about the personality conflicts and clashes amongst the Allied leaders, FDR, Churchill, and DeGaulle.  It also covers the French Underground and the effects of occupation on France. You might read some negative reviews (I did) which attack the book for being too general, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned quite a bit.

    Nancy Wake was an Australian woman who spent her life looking for action, and she found it in WWII France. While working as a journalist in France before France was invaded, she met and fell in love with a wealthy French businessman. When France fell, she found herself working for the French Underground, first as a messenger, then as part of a network of people who rescued downed Allied airmen and led them to safety over the border into neutral Spain, and eventually back home. Finally, she became one of the most wanted Underground leaders in France leading Resistance fighters in sabotage and skirmishes against German troops. The Germans even had a nickname for her, "the White Mouse." She became one of the most highly decorated women in WWII. Her life was extraordinary and should be a movie. (Actually it has been dramatized a couple of times in Australia and New Zealand.)

    The Lost Girls of Paris is a novel, historical fiction, based on the work of Britain's Special Operations Executive. The SOE was the brainchild of Winston Churchill. The mission of the SOE was to insert agents into occupied countries with orders to inflict as much damage on the German occupiers as possible and to arm and provide assistance to resistance groups. After a number of SOE male agents were captured and killed, Eleanor Trigg, an SOE clerk, had the idea that women would be better because they would be less conspicuous. Young, able-bodied men stood out in France; most men were in the military, in prison camps, in the Resistance, or in forced labor camps. Trigg hand picks and trains a few dozen women for insertion into France, mostly as clandestine radio operators. The novel focuses on the story of Marie, a young mother who spent her childhood summers in France with her mother's family. She has the language facility required, but does she have everything else that an SOE agent requires? It's a page-turner of a story.