partisans and palletes

[2ndArmored]

For an upcoming WWII display, I'm in charge of the French partisan section. I know that Stens (+ mags, etc.) were air-dropped to them in quantity, but I can't find any photos of the containers. I'd like to make one that's historically correct and not slap together something generic just for expediency. Any insight the membership can contribute would be appreciated.

 

 

~ Have guns, will travel (vertically)

[JimB]

Somewhere in my reference collection there's an old French hardcover on the war & resistance in country. One of the pix was a war archive image of German Officers examining the contents of a SOE drop in France. Looked to be an aluminum container, maybe a repurposed drop tank off a Fighter that was attached to a droug parachute.

 

Old Frenchie lady I knew in Canada was former Maquis during the occupation, she complained about those drops

she stated they were intended to drop in fast to avoid detection but that also meant partisans had to clean up the impact zone, get rid of the drop container which was problematic in Vichy France.

 

Later they went to smaller pallets with chutes however those were often spotted coming down so the area would get saturated with French and German troops

worse yet, if a drop was done near your farm, well sucked to be you. Claire was 14 when she lost her parents, some English bomber scuttled their load while going down, wiped out most of the family farm but she survived, she was in one of the barns when an English bomb took out the main house. Gal detested Axis and the Allies alike however Berlin was the greater enemy to her. Married a Canuck Officer post war, immigrated as a War bride to Quebec.

 

this is what she told me

further, while she detested the English, she commented Canadians and Americans were decent for the most part. German troops were Very respectful of French girls as France was seen by Berlin as an Ally. Thing was that the German military really wasnt very German. You had Belgian, Dutch, you name it units and some of them were totally evil. Post Normandy she was raped multiple times mostly by UK forces at like 17 years of age, think about it some...Claire was a Partisan girl

she commented while things were bad under Berlin, it became a true Hell on Earth for awhile after Germany lost control to the allies.

 

Anyways, how shipments were dropped depended on when and to who

she also mentioned she suspected London sometimes set up Partisan drops as a diversion so London could insert either SOE or OSS people in country

to quote "We were cannon fodder", they were seen as expendable persons

 

pretty certain one of John Minnery's How To Kill books has at least one pic of an opened drop crate too

 

just an aside, the majority of crap dropped in France ended up in German hands