Lucien Dumais remains probably the Canadian-French secret agent best known, probably because it is one of the few to have told his memories of War in two volumes. But in fairness to the former non-commissioned officer, promoted to Captain later when the enlisted in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) or British secret service, it is the media of the Second World War, with the agreement of pharmacies propaganda and military censorship, which made him a hero well before the end of the conflict.
Sergeant Major Lucien Dumais, wearing a mustache, May 11, 1940.
Lucien Dumais had a great war. Enrolled in the Fusiliers Mont-Royal in September 1939, he participated in the occupation of Iceland in 1940. He participated in the Dieppe raid of August 19, 1942 with the rank of sergeant-major company. Captured during the operation, he escaped from a train of prisoners who brought him to Germany the next day. He then returned to England after many vicissitudes and was poured into the Secret Service where he was sent to North Africa, to direct patrols on horseback he led through German lines disguised as Arab.
Back in England, he was swapped with the paratroopers of the British intelligence service. Parachuted into occupied territory, he organized resistance networks in Brittany and Normandy and at the time of the invasion, he crossed the German lines, visited his old regiment at Falaise and then recrossed the lines and returned to assist the French Resistance in Brittany. Promoted to captain, Dumais was awarded the Military Medal (Mr) and Military Cross (MC) by the British and American Liberty Medal with silver palm.
Dumais told that he and two comrades, Corporal and Private Vermette Cloutier, decided to escape on 20 August when they had been loaded onto a wagon cattle to carry them in Germany.
As French language, the three men believed to have more opportunities to escape in the heart of France as their Anglophone counterparts.
They then untied the planks under the car, waited until the train slowed down and allowed themselves to fall along the railway. Unfortunately, despite having clearly heard the voice of Cloutier and knowing that his friends were not very far away, near the German guards prevented Dumais join them. He lost sight of them. After wandering through the countryside, he resolved, in the day , 21, to approach people in a farmhouse.
The woman, seeing him, immediately understood. Having learned the Dieppe operation by radio, she did immediately disappear into the basement of a warehouse that was in the garden. This lady knew that the Germans were looking for escaped through the countryside. Having ensured that nobody seemed to notice the presence of Dumais, she immediately gave him food and wine served. Then, aided by his gardener, she took away his uniform and handed him the clothes. And we decided to make him spend the night in an abandoned cabin in the woods nearby.
way there, saw a small poster Dumais menacing Death Penalty who will shell, house or do not denounce a military enemy of Germany. He realized how dangerous it was to run his new friends to whom he later dedicated an eternal gratitude for their spontaneous gesture of heroism in defiance of their lives.
August 22, handed him his new friends clothing, French money, tickets and bread as much information as possible to get to the free zone and then Spain. The invasion of the area known only became free after the Allied landings in North Africa, a few months later. But even in so-called free, the Germans controlled the Vichy police.
After reading some of the country by train, Dumais eventually reach the free zone a few days later and spent five weeks at the Hotel de la Gare-des-Lussac Cheaux, hosted by the Resistance. Lussac-of-Cheaux, Dumais went to Marseilles and the American consulate.
The consul sent a French doctor who appeared with Pat O'Leary, head of a resistance network. The latter, a physician, was educated at McGill University in Montreal, then enlisted in the RCAF at the beginning of the war, before being sent on mission in France. He was subsequently arrested by the Gestapo and died in exile in Germany.
Dumais, with other escaped prisoners, including one poor fellow Scots who had managed to escape from a prison camp in Dunkirk and who lived in hiding for 13 months, went by train up Canet-Plage, near the English border. No fewer than 65 men crowded into a small three-room cottage.
Finally, they boarded a fishing trawler which took them to Gibraltar. After a night and a few hours there, Dumais flew for the first time board a plane and returned to England. There, a series of interrogations began. Leads immediately to London, he was asked to provide information on the Dieppe raid. He had the privilege of being interviewed by none other than the great patron of combined operations commandos, Lord Louis Mountbatten, cousin of King George VI and, after the marriage of his nephew, Prince Philip, became the uncle by marriage of Queen Elizabeth II.
few days later, the Intelligence Service sensed Dumais to take service in the spy unit and resistance activities behind enemy lines. Dumais asked to think, because he had been missing and presumed dead during the raid on Dieppe, the Red Cross not finding his name or in hospitals or in prison camps. His family had even celebrated a funeral service for him in Montreal. After a moment's reflection, Dumais finally accepted and was seconded to the Intelligence Service.
The Canadian military did not wait until he writes his memoirs to advertise his achievements. By April 1943, made it known in the newspapers that was to him who had the merit of having organized the patrols on horseback who swept the plains Goubellat in North Africa.
A British colonel gave him a nice letter of recommendation that it subsequently, seemed quite happy to read. It said that the mother tongue of Dumais has been a great help when acting as a liaison with a French unit. The letter added that Dumais had displayed the utmost contempt for his safety at all times he was gifted with a strong personality and he possessed a rare sense of humor.
Dumais told later how he had come to the idea of forming his famous horse patrols on African soil. With good friends among the French farmers, he could get them eight horses and a big mullet. He put these patrols at work and went from farm to farm in no man's land to see if he was not German soldiers hiding in the area. When he and his men unearthed, they were prisoners and brought back with them.
The men Dumais had chosen for this mission all knew and were riding for the most part, stable boys and jockeys in British peacetime. Some had already run at Newmarket.
Subsequently, Dumais was sent to France and for nine months, he led a group of guerrillas in the midst of dangers of all kinds. "Work exciting, but with too many details of administration," he recounted later in speaking of the operations perilous that saved hundreds of British airmen, Canadian or allies.
When the invasion came on June 6, 1944, the indomitable Dumais, measuring only 5 feet, decided to kill the Germans. It brings together 150 of his assistants and the most hardened French, putting on his uniform to fight the English captain of the Canadian army he had hitherto concealed, he became their leader.
Armed with machine guns sent by parachute or "borrowed" Germans they killed, they went to fight on the Brittany peninsula as a very irregular section of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).
During the first ten days of August 1944, the Maquis Dumais had fought in the woods and came five times struggling with the Germans. In a memorable night, they killed 50 German soldiers and captured 36 prisoners made 36 vehicles loaded with supplies and ammunition.
In Dumais number of assistants, there were six young Breton, excellent "pitching" grenades. The best was a pretty blonde of 21 who had served as secretary Dumais as cover behind the lines, he toured France as a manager of a respectable undertaker who handle many urgent matters between Brittany and Paris.
Dumais disliked about the Germans he killed, but he finally admitted he had actually killed a few, including eight in a single night.
In an interview with La Presse, in 1991, nearly fifty years after the raid on Dieppe, Lucien Dumais said to be secret agent, he "must be a little crazy because it is a very safe way to commit suicide. "
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