During the fall of 1943, an elite group of 24 French Canadian military officers were trained at Camp - X.
Their mission, was to drop into France several months prior to the ‘D’ Day invasion. Once there, they would link up with Résistance Groups ‘Maquis’. There, they would: recruit, arm, train and make saboteurs out of ordinary civilians.
Upon the completion of their tremendously successful mission, Sir Colin Gubbins, Head of Special Operations Executive (SOE), wrote the following report to Winston Churchill.
“The stream of coded messages put out by the BBC on the evening of June 5th 1944 was directed at some 175,000 French Résistance fighters, according to plan. The response has been overwhelming. Of 1,050 rail demolition's asked for by the Allied Command, 950 have taken place. The rail network is paralyzed and German traffic, driven onto the roads, has run into countless road blocks.”
This of course caused the Germans lengthy delays in getting back to Normandy from Calais and ensured the Allies a foothold on the beaches.
Even with
this great accomplishment, the Allies incurred terrible losses. One
can only imagine the catastrophe that might have been if it were not for
these brave men and women. It could have been another Dieppe.
A few of the names of the French Canadian agents trained at Camp X:
