Behind Nazi Lines

Now in paperback at a special value price, the true story of World War II American Red Cross volunteer Andrew Hodges, who traveled behind enemy lines to negotiate the release of 149 Allied prisoners of war.

In 1944, hundreds of Allied soldiers were trapped in POW camps in occupied France. The odds of their survival were long. The odds of escaping, even longer. But one man had the courage to fight the odds...

An elite British S.A.S. operative on an assassination mission gone wrong. A Jewish New Yorker injured in a Nazi ambush. An eighteen-year-old Gary Cooper lookalike from Mobile, Alabama. These men and hundreds of other soldiers found themselves in the prisoner-of-war camps off the Atlantic coast of occupied France, fighting brutal conditions and unsympathetic captors. But, miraculously, local villagers were able to smuggle out a message from the camp, one that reached the Allies and sparked a remarkable quest by an unlikely—and truly inspiring—hero. Andy Hodges had been excluded from military service due to a lingering shoulder injury from his college-football days. Devastated but determined, Andy refused to sit at home while his fellow Americans risked their lives, so he joined the Red Cross, volunteering for the toughest assignments on the most dangerous battlefields.

In the fall of 1944, Andy was tapped for what sounded like a suicide mission: a desperate attempt to aid the Allied POWs in occupied France—alone and unarmed, matching his wits against the Nazi war machine. But, despite the likelihood of failure, Andy did far more than deliver much-needed supplies. By the end of the year, he had negotiated the release of an unprecedented 149 prisoners—leaving no one behind. This is the true story of one man's selflessness, ingenuity, and victory in the face of impossible adversity. | “Filled with secret missions, Nazi villains, and daring escapes that actually happened, Behind Nazi Lines is thrilling, epic, inspiring—and have we mentioned true? Andy Hodges is a real hero whose story must never be forgotten.”—Eric Metaxas, New York Times bestselling author of Miracles and Bonhoeffer

“A riveting and action-packed story, Behind Nazi Lines takes you inside a Nazi POW camp in 1944 German-occupied France and shows how one brave American Red Cross volunteer negotiated the release of 149 Allied POWs. A great read.”—Marcus Brotherton, author of Shifty's War
 
“One of the most intriguing books I have read on WWII…A fascinating book about one of America’s unsung heroes in the European Theater…Captivating and nearly impossible to put down. I recommend it with enthusiasm to professional historians, history buffs, and anyone who wants to be inspired and entertained.”—Lyle W. Dorsett, author of Serving God and Country
 
“What a page-turner! It reads like a good novel, but it is all true. ”—Private First Class Bernard Rader, K Company, 301st Regiment, 94th Division
 
“A fascinating story of the courageous efforts to rescue POWs held by the Third Reich. Andy's story is one of great courage, risks, sacrifice, and commitment to a transcendent cause. He was a hero who risked his life to bring his fellow Americans home with honor.”—Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, former commander U.S. Army's Delta Force
 
“Superbly written and extensively researched, Andy Hodges’ story recounts a compelling piece of military history. It brings a human dimension to an underappreciated heroic episode to life. This informative, enjoyable and excellent work exemplifies a labor of love and courage one man had for his country.”—Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., former director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Senior Counsel for National Security Programs, Cyber Programs and Military Affairs, Auburn University | Andrew G. Hodges, M.D., is the firstborn son of World War II hero Andrew Gerow Hodges. He is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice and has served as assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. Dr. Hodges has helped pioneer a breakthrough to the brilliant unconscious mind, which he explained in his groundbreaking book, The Deeper Intelligence. Criminal investigators and journalists have sought Dr. Hodges' expertise in cases ranging from the murder of JonBenet Ramsey to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his family. 

Denise George is an author, teacher, and speaker. She has written or co-written twenty-seven books, including The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister; While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement; and The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill: The Untold Story of Arthur Shores and His Family's Fight for Civil Rights. Her work has been published in numerous magazines, journals, and newspapers. She is married to author Dr. Timothy George and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. |

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The story’s dialogue came from statements made by Andrew Gerow Hodges, Michael R. D. Foot, and the POWs that attended the Samford Reunion on January 25, 2002. These were video-recorded and included in the award-winning documentary For One English Officer. Other dialogue came from POW diaries, newspaper articles, military records, recorded statements, letters, telegrams, correspondence, and conversations with living participants and family members of participants. Some of the dialogue was created in a logical sequence to match documented stories and events.

All stories and events in this book happened just as they are described and can be documented by records, newsreels, military information/records, etc. All characters in this book are real, and appear in the story as they did in the real life events. The names of Schmitt’s nephew, Walter, and sister, Greta, were created. Schmitt had a sister and a nephew, but their names could not be found. The German sentry in Lorient, Klaus, was a created name/person.

The names Léon Spanin (his birth name) and Léon Rollin (his pseudonym) are used interchangeably throughout the book. He is also referred to by his nickname, Leo.

PART ONE

THE FIRST EXCHANGE

There was one man . . . on the Allied side, armed only with his wits and a Red Cross badge.

—HARLAN HOBART GROOMS, JR., COLONEL, U.S. MARINE CORPS RESERVE (RETIRED), PAST PRESIDENT OF THE BIRMINGHAM BAR ASSOCIATION, BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, USA

ONE

A CROSS, A FLAG, AND A DANGEROUS JOURNEY

Thursday, 23 November 1944, Thanksgiving Day, 94th Infantry Division Headquarters, Châteaubriant, France

Andy Hodges had been handed a job no one else dared to accept—a direct order from Major General Harry J. Malony, commander of the 94th Infantry Division, headquartered in Châteaubriant, France.

“It’s a suicide mission,” Malony’s chief of staff, Colonel Earl Bergquist, had told him. But Andy had his orders, even if he’d most likely become the target of a German bullet.

However dangerous the assignment, deep down Hodges welcomed the opportunity to serve his country. He thought about the lives that were depending on him—men with families in America, France, and Britain—mothers, fathers, wives, and siblings who waited for a word of hope about their loved ones recently declared missing in action. He hoped he could save the POWs held in the St. Nazaire prison camp. The prisoners were cold, hungry, and becoming deathly ill. They needed help, and quickly.

On that dismal predawn morning in late November, a cold rain spattered the sleeping French countryside. Andy placed a white flag in the jeep’s front holder, climbed inside, and began his trek toward enemy lines. Probably, no one expected his arrival on this day. In his hand, he carried a copy of a letter, dated November 21, 1944, typed in German on American Red Cross stationery. It was addressed to the camp’s Kommandant—whoever he was.

“An den Deutschen Kommandanten, St. Nazaire,” it said. That’s all. No specific name.

I hope the Kommandant has already received the original letter I sent beforehand. But I have no way to know.

The letter he held was his protection, his only defense, if he were stopped, questioned, and searched. But he knew it would provide little security against so brutal an enemy.

In seven or eight hours, back home in Geneva, South Alabama, Thanksgiving Day would dawn. He wanted to be there, sitting in his chair around the big family table, with his new bride and toddler son, his parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and longtime friends. He could almost smell and taste the traditional oven-baked turkey and cornbread dressing, marshmallow-crowned sweet potato casserole, last summer’s homegrown canned tomatoes, and pumpkin pies his family would feast on that day. But the whole world was at war, and he had his orders.

Dinners at home will have to wait—till next year, or the year after that. I sure hope I get to sit at my family’s Thanksgiving table again one day.

As he drove slowly down the narrow path from Châteaubriant, he shined his flashlight on the old, crinkled map of France, the only one he could find. When he reached Chauve, he stopped and checked the tangle of thread-like roads that branched out like a spider’s web from the small Allied-occupied village southeast of St. Nazaire on the western coast of central France.

Only about four miles to Saint-Père-en-Retz. That is, if I take the right road.

He picked up a pen and carefully marked the route he had been advised to take. It was in the French language and was confusing.

Northwest along Les Epinettes. Les Epinettes becomes Le Bourg. Stay left along the Rue de Nantes.

Andy’s sense of direction wasn’t so bad, but, except for a few words, he knew no French.

Maybe if I’d played less football and studied more languages in college, I’d be better equipped for this mission. At least I could read this map.

He worried about the accuracy of the faded map for the Vannes-Angers region of France, and how much the area had probably changed during the years of war. He ran his hand through his thick brown hair and sighed.

Must trust the map. No other choice.

Alone in the foggy, wet darkness, the twenty-six-year-old, tall, slender Alabamian continued his journey toward enemy territory. As he drove, his stomach knotted and burned. Bile rose and stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard but couldn’t dislodge it. He clutched the steering wheel tighter with each mile he traveled.

As he inched forward toward St. Père-en-Retz, he moved farther away from the Allied-controlled countryside, and closer toward the barbed wire blockade that ushered him into the German-occupied seaport pocket of France. He was thankful for the jeep’s canvas top that protected him from the rain—a perk granted to him by Malony. He shivered as the west winds blew in from the Atlantic and made the eerie fog twist in surreal shapes across the still dark countryside.

The German lines can’t be much farther.

Andy’s heart beat faster. He wondered how a German sentry would react to a lone American, wearing Red Cross insignias, driving a jeep sporting a large white flag, appearing ghost-like and unexpected at the opening in the concertina wire fence separating the combatants.

He’ll shoot me. That’s how he’ll respond.

Before he was ready, he was there. He saw the wire barrier within a few yards of him. He stopped the jeep and sat still, quiet, his eyes closed. In his mind, Andy envisioned the faces of the people he loved, as they would gather later that day around the family’s table. He saw his young bride, Mary Louise Shirley, the popular campus beauty who had fallen in love with him—Andrew Gerow Hodges, Howard College’s rising football star. Number 15.

Mary Louise Shirley—beautiful, brilliant, educated, from a good family—how did I, a poor country boy from South Alabama, ever get such a fine girl?!

Andy shook his head, smiled, and thought about the baby boy born to them a year after they married—Andrew Gerow Hodges, Jr. “Little Gerry” was almost two years old the summer Andy left Alabama to join the war effort in France.

The faces of Andy’s father and mother appeared next in his mind. He felt unusually thankful for his dad at that moment, a poor horse trader with little or no education, but a loving father who had taught his three sons great lessons in moral ethics, wisdom, honest hard work, and good common horse sense. He thought about his mother, kind, selfless, loving, and dedicated to her boys.

Poor Mom. I wonder if she’ll be able to handle emotionally receiving the missing-in-action telegram—or something worse—that might come before Christmas—if I don’t make it back from this mission.

For a brief second, a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him. He’d never felt so alone and so far away from those he loved, from those who had always offered him unconditional love and support.

I had a choice. I could’ve stayed home. I chose to come and serve.

Andy rubbed his left shoulder. The old college football injury still caused him pain. A teammate’s violent blow had ruptured his biceps tendon. But the suffering caused by a damaged deltoid didn’t hurt nearly as much as the military’s 4-F classification that came as a result of it. Andy was in excellent physical shape—a well-built, trim, muscular college athlete. But when the army medics had examined his left shoulder, they declared him unfit for military service. The news was unexpected, shocking, and caused Andy deep grief. He watched his buddies eagerly march off to war, and he agonized over his humiliating 4-F status. Finally he could bear it no longer. He knew the physical injury could keep him out of the United States military, but it could not keep him out of the American Red Cross. If the U.S. Army forbade him to come in the front door with his college friends and other recruits—well then, he could just join the American Red Cross and come in through the back door. And that’s exactly what he did.

He had chosen to come, leaving a wife and son, and a good-paying job, so that he could serve alongside his comrades, and help win this war against Hitler. The 94th Army Infantry Division, stationed in France, was glad to have him, gave him the rank of captain, and made him their ARC senior field director. Andy’s dedication to duty, dependability, and courage in difficult situations quickly earned the confidence and respect of Malony as well as Bergquist. The commanding officer had given him critical missions he’d entrust to no one else. Andy was doing his part, even if a small one, and inside he felt real good about it.

As Andy faced the wire barrier, he pondered how to proceed. He had witnessed firsthand the depth of German cruelty toward Allied soldiers. He felt the urge to turn the jeep around and go back to headquarters—back to the safety of Châteaubriant and the 94th Division. But he knew he couldn’t. If he’d learned anything from his father, it was determination and duty, not backing down when the going gets tough, and doing the best job you can do—even if it kills you.

And this trip might do just that.

Checking the security of his ARC collar pins and the Red Cross badge on his left shoulder, he licked his lips, took a deep breath, and somehow found the courage needed to move forward. He had no weapon, no protection—other than his wits, a letter, a white flag, and the Red Cross insignias.

I hope it’s enough.

Driving slowly to the wire, Hodges stopped abruptly when he saw a surprised German sentry running from the woods, pointing his automatic weapon and screaming: “Achtung! Halt! Achtung!” [“Look out! Stop! Your attention!”]

Here it comes. This ballgame may be over.

TWO

THE SPY

24 August 1944, St. Nazaire Sector, Brittany, France

Captain Michael R. D. Foot had proved himself a skilled assassin. As a member of Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS), whom Hitler called the “terror troops,” he had participated in many demanding and dangerous missions. This one, however, would be his first foray into German-occupied France. In the summer of ’44, Britain’s SAS commander ordered the young Foot to infiltrate the St. Nazaire sector of Brittany to hunt down a particular vicious German officer.

“A certain German, by the name of Oberleutnant Bonner, in the Sicherheitsdienst [SD], is causing us much trouble. He has been especially cruel to our POWs. Find him. Capture him if you can. If you can’t, then kill him,” the commander ordered Foot.1

Michael knew about the Sicherheitsdienst—the Nazi Party’s intelligence and security body, created by Heinrich Himmler in 1931. He’d personally seen the results of their unlimited power—given to them by Hitler himself—to deal with all opposition to the Nazi government. Foot eagerly accepted the assignment, and parachuted into Normandy, ready and eager to begin his secret mission. On August 22, he secured a jeep, hired a French SAS driver named Caplan, and together they wormed their way along narrow roads and set out to infiltrate enemy lines.

“Make haste, Caplan,” Foot ordered his driver. “We don’t have much time. Let’s get this job done and get out of here.”

Foot and Caplan spoke little as they sped down dirt roads toward St. Nazaire. As Foot saw the countryside pass by, he thought about the long list of military heroes sprinkled throughout his prominent British family—his great-great-uncle, the Royal Navy’s first sea lord, Jackie Fisher; his paternal grandfather, who had achieved the rank of major general; his father, Brigadier General Richard C. Foot, head of London’s air defenses; and himself, an SAS captain. He held his head a little higher. He felt proud—of his family, of his father, and of himself. He knew he had a legacy to uphold, and that he could never fail. He’d rather die than face embarrassing his distinguished father, or disgracing his celebrated British ancestors. Military failure was not an option for Michael Foot.

Foot watched closely for German machine gun nests hiding along the roadsides. He had been warned about Jerries crouching and hiding beneath and behind the thick hedgerows that grew in this part of France. He knew the Germans feared the SAS, the elite United Kingdom forces, one of the toughest in the military worldwide. He had heard of the unfortunate fates of SAS members when captured by the enemy, and the fact that few SAS men had ever seen the inside of a German POW prison camp. Most had been shot on sight, no questions asked.

As Caplan drove in the area near Savenay, the English officer thought about the recently failed Operation Bulbasket—a military disaster.2 He remembered that just the month before, a group of SAS members had been captured near Poitiers, France.

That was a bloody mess, a really bad show. Those mucking Jerries. They should all be shot for what they did to those SAS members.

Foot instinctively winced when he envisioned how thirty of these SAS men had been savagely tortured and executed by a German firing squad. He scanned the area around him, feeling an uncharacteristic moment of fear.

If I’m captured, I’m dead.

Suddenly, without warning, Caplan slammed on the brakes. The jeep’s wheels skidded to a stop at the edge of a steep drop-off in the middle of the road.

With his right hand, Foot grabbed hold of the windshield to keep from falling out.

“Caplan! What the blazing . . . !”

“The bridge! Sir, the bridge across the canal is gone!” Caplan shouted. “We’re lucky we didn’t go over!”

“Go around another way, mate!” Foot ordered, straightening himself in his seat and checking his wristwatch.

“Sir, there is no other way. We’ll have to go back. I’ll turn the jeep around. It might take a moment.”

“Do what you must!” Foot scowled. “Just chivvy on and hurry it up!”

Foot climbed out and stretched his long legs. It took several tries for Caplan to reposition the jeep between the tight hedgerows bordering the road. Foot checked his watch again and began to pace.

Hurry up, Caplan! Turn the sodding jeep around!

While he waited, Foot thought about his grandfather, a commanding officer in the Territorial Army Hartfordshire Artillery Regiment, who, in 1912, had told Michael’s father, Richard, it looked as if a war was going to occur. He suggested that young Richard enlist. Of course, he did. He fought throughout World War I, and made his father proud.

And that’s exactly the same thing that Richard, my father, told me in the winter of 1938–39, while I was still in university.

Michael had taken his father’s advice, enlisted, and was assigned to a searchlight battalion in an anti-aircraft command. He spent eighteen months in North Africa and Sicily, and was promoted to major in January 1944. He, too, made his father proud.

And I will make him even prouder as an intelligence officer with the esteemed SAS. I don’t dare make a muck out of this assignment.

Michael had requested the mission. He wanted to get closer to the enemy.

I’ve spent only six months with the SAS. They assured me I would get much closer to the daft Germans, and they were certainly right!

Back and forth, back and forth, Foot paced, waiting for his driver to turn around. Then he heard a terrifying shout.

“Halt! Hände hoch! Halt! Hände hoch!” [“Stop! Put your hands up!”] a harsh, deep voice shouted from behind him.

Foot felt his heart race. He stopped and raised his arms high. Then he turned around slowly, and looked straight into the barrels of machine guns. The camouflaged blouses and pot-shaped helmets instantly identified the enemies as German paratroopers. The weapons were no surprise, the deadly, rapid-firing MG42s. They proved a nasty combination. He held his breath and waited for a paratrooper to fire.

Go ahead. Shoot me. Get it over with. I am not afraid to die. But I had hoped for a more spectacular demise!

Foot, well bred, brilliant, and wealthy, felt he deserved a more sensational end to his mission, to his life.

His head held high and his face showing no expression, he mentally prepared himself to be shot.

One bullet to the head and it’s over. Finished. A life lived well, but cut short.

Michael Foot should prove a prized catch, one the Germans could brag about for a very long time. A handsome young intelligence officer, he had been well schooled before his military career, studying at England’s foremost universities, including Winchester College and Oxford University. His father had boasted of his son’s distinguished involvement in North Africa’s Operation Torch and Sicily’s Operation Husky.

“My boy also helped plan certain phases of the D-Day landings,” Michael had heard his father tell important friends.

My father will be disappointed; I’ve mucked up and let him down. He expected more from me.

The Germans kept their weapons focused on him. For the first time, he wanted to make the prestigious SAS insignia on his sleeve disappear. It was no longer a symbol of pride and honor, but a death sentence. Not only did it identify him as a member of the British Army’s most renowned special forces unit, but it proudly boasted the SAS’s pompous motto: “Who Dares Wins.”

They’ll see the insignia, and I’m dead. My new motto? “I dared. I lost.” I hope Father knows I did my best.

Foot kept his eyes on the machine guns. In the distance, he heard the gunning sound of the jeep’s motor, and the squeal of spinning tires, as his driver escaped down the road.

Good for Caplan! He’s nobody’s fool. At least one of us has been saved.3

The captain let out the breath he had been holding, exhaling a bit more loudly than he meant to.

A German lieutenant approached Foot, speaking in English.

“You are with the SAS? Impressive!” the lieutenant said, noticing the insignia on the captain’s left shoulder. A rare find. Not too many of you men left.”

Foot remained silent, ignoring the remark.

“You remember, of course, last month’s Poitiers incident?” the lieutenant asked Foot.

Upon hearing the name “Poitiers,” the surrounding soldiers nodded and some grinned.

Foot clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and focused on the woods far in the distance.

Yes. I remember. Some of those mates were my friends.

The officer, who then introduced himself as Lieutenant Bernstein, walked up close to Foot’s face and pulled a penknife from his pocket, the sharp blade extended. Foot didn’t flinch, as he expected to be stabbed or his throat to be cut. With one swift, unexpected move, Bernstein sliced at the SAS insignia on the captain’s shoulder. When two threads held the badge in place, the lieutenant ripped the insignia off with his fingers. With a smirk, he stuffed it into his pocket.

“For my son! He’ll appreciate it one day. Thanks for the nice souvenir,” he told Foot.

The captain could hardly believe his stroke of luck—on two counts.

I’m still alive! And you just saved my life, old Jerry! Without knowing it, you removed the one visible piece of evidence linking me to the SAS. Now, if you don’t see the SAS cheque book in my pocket . . . Foot struggled to hold back a smile of relief.

Bernstein then added: “I have decided to let you live. For the moment.”

Just like I thought—all mouth and no trousers! Well, Bernstein, you’ve lengthened my life much longer than you know! And thank you for not checking my clothes. Had you searched me, you’d have found my compass and MI 9 hacksaw. Now you think you can imprison me? I’ve got news for you, mate. I’ll escape! The SAS has taught me well!

The Germans hauled Foot to their POW prison camp, Camp Franco, a former French Air Force facility in the Fortress St. Nazaire. Michael told no one of his membership in the SAS. To the Germans at the prison camp, the young captain was no one special, just another captured Tommy.

 • • • 

Brigadier Foot received the SAS’s telegram one evening in early September 1944, advising him that his son, Michael, had been reported “missing in action, and believed killed.” He fell back into a chair and read the telegram again.

Missing in action? Maybe. But I refuse to believe my son is dead.

Brigadier Foot stood, walked to his dresser, and picked up the framed photograph of his son. A friend had snapped the shot the spring before, as Michael stood in full uniform in the brigadier’s garden in Hampstead. Young, tall, dignified, his hands clasped together in front of him, Michael fit like the perfect puzzle piece into the long line of military heroes that had so elegantly graced the Foot family tree.

I hope this won’t be the last snapshot of Michael I will ever see.

Even though the hour was late, Foot telephoned the SAS commander. Positioning his stiff-upper-lip military British posture, in a well-controlled voice he explained the telegram, and after a while ended the conversation:

“I know Michael is alive. I don’t care what it takes, find my son.”

The commander informed Foot of Michael’s last mission and the delicate war situation in France.

“Brigadier Foot, we believe Michael was captured by the Germans on 24 August on a mission in France—in the St. Nazaire sector. As you know, the enemy still holds a total of eight hundred square miles there—the Atlantic coastal ports: Fortress St. Nazaire and Fortress Lorient. The Americans have sealed more than sixty-six thousand Germans within those ports. The enemy is highly trained and well equipped. The Allies are frequent targets of their ambushes around those areas.”

“Do you have any evidence Michael could possibly be imprisoned in the St. Nazaire area, in a German POW camp?” Foot asked.

“We have no way to confirm that.” The commander paused. “Let me be frank with you, sir. After the incident at Poitiers, we must expect and prepare for the worst. You and I both know the Germans do not imprison SAS members. They usually . . .”

“Sir,” Foot interrupted: “My son has been shot at, parachuted over enemy lines, helped plan raids, taken part in air operations and in sea commando attacks, and organized daring escapes. I cannot believe he is dead. He’s too smart to get himself killed!”

“I am sorry for your loss, Brigadier Foot. Michael was one of our best. He will be greatly missed.”

Richard Foot coldly and formally expressed his gratitude for any offered help from the SAS commander, and said a proper British goodbye. But inside his gut, a volcano rumbled and threatened to erupt.

I’m sorry for your loss?! Michael WAS one of our best? He will be missed?! That idiot talks as if Michael is dead! Did he not hear a word I said?! It certainly sounds like I can expect little or no help from the SAS to find and rescue my son!

The brigadier poured himself a drink from his small sterling silver flask, plunked down in his chair, and tapped his right foot hard on the floor. Late that night, three whiskeys later, Foot lay in bed and thought about his son. He envisioned the sparkle in his eyes; his love for learning, for education; the intense way he conversed with others about stimulating ideas; his remarkable fund of anecdotes, his quick wit; his dreams of great things he hoped to accomplish in life. But he forbade himself to shed a tear. Proper British military fathers did not cry when an heir fell on some distant battlefield—no matter how loved. They understood the risks of duty, of serving one’s beloved country. They knew the many generations of blood sacrifices that had been paid—and would yet be required—by Britain’s native sons.

Michael had such a promising future. And . . . and now this tragedy. My only son. So young. Such great potential lost. Lost . . . forever.

Foot stared at the bedroom ceiling for the rest of the night. He dared not admit it, not even to himself, but his old, tough warrior heart was broken.

THREE

A WARM SEPTEMBER MORNING

13 September 1944, St. Nazaire Sector, France

Sergeant Harold Thompson and his twelve-man patrol were returning from an intelligence mission behind German lines in Festung St. Nazaire. Thompson, the young Gary Cooper look-alike from Alabama, and his comrades laughed and joked as they