User:T0nym531/Maquis (World War II)

The Maquis had many different sub groups with their own objectives and political affiliations. In 1944, an OSS agent, Robert R. Kehoe, was embedded within a group of Maquis and described the organization as "fractured",[11] observing that "the various components were quite independent, with members loyal to their own leaders and to the political forces behind them".[11] Different ideologies within the subgroups created tensions that had to be put aside at times during the war but prosecuted those of the far right after. People like Georges Loustaunau-Lacau and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, leaders of the French Resistance group Alliance, were both questioned about their loyalty during and after the war. This came as no surprise as both were from far-right political backgrounds, that didn’t favor the dominant Gaullist narrative. Lacau suffered the most, all the way up to his death by being put in jail several times, and accused by communist colleagues of siding with the Germans, while Fourcade was able to suffer fewer accusations by switching to Gaullism.

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Although the Maquis used whatever arms they could get, the groups affiliated with the Free French relied heavily on airdrops of weapons and explosives from the British SOE. SOE parachuted agents in with wireless sets (for radio communication) and dropped containers with various munitions including Sten guns, pencil detonators, plastic explosives, Welrod pistols (a silenced specialized assassination weapon favored by covert operatives) and assorted small arms such as pistols, rifles and submachine guns. The Maquis would listen to coded broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) the night before each supply drop. The information they would receive included the amount of supply boxes that would be dropped and when to light the fire signals that mark the drop zones. The Maquis had to confirm through radio if they received the message in order to lessen the risk of the supplies getting into German hands.