Stash Of WWII French Resistance Weapons Found

[DougGuy]

French Resistance cache unearthed including STENs named ‘Pepette’ and ‘Alice’ (PHOTOS)
10/19/17 | by Chris Eger

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Odds are, a little elbow grease and some lube will get those STENs up and running again. (Photo: The Lyonne Republicaine)

A couple remodeling an old home in north-central France found a cache of ammo, grenades and submachine guns hidden under a granite floor, The Lyonne Republicaine reported.

The find was made in July by the couple in the Quarré-les-Tombes area, about 150 miles away from Paris. Cached under the floor were three STEN guns, over a dozen Britsh Mills bomb type fragmentation grenades, three handguns, more than 1,000 rounds of ammo, and several Bren light machine gun magazines.

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Two of the sub guns were engraved, one with the name Pepette and another in the name Alice.

The couple donated the find to the Museum of the Resistance in Morvan, who are demilitarising the weapons and plan to exhibit them starting next Spring.

According to the museum, the cache probably belonged to the Maquis Vauban, a Resistance group that operated in the area in 1943 and 1944.

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During World War II the Allies dropped literally tons of arms and munitions to local resistance forces across occupied Europe to give the Germans a little heartburn. Though squirreled away over 70 years ago, caches left behind by various underground groups have popped up in Denmark, France, and Latvia in recent months, as have individual arms buried during the war for one reason or another.

[Scorpion8]

That's a cool story. Imagine to have unearthed that find!

[Omega]

Soon they will need more airdrops...just saying.

[bedbugbilly]

Thanks for posting - that's certainly an interesting "find" and I would imagine there are such things in many places waiting to be discovered. They all look in amazing condition. While not a whole lot of folks give thought to the Resistance, they are to be remembered for the risks and sacrifices that many made during the war in "fighting back".

I once worked with a man, who as a child, lived in Holland under the Nazi occupation and he was old enough to remember the atrocities that they did to the residents as well as knowing some who were in the Resistance, including his father. He had some fascinating stories and was a kind and gentle man but when it came to the Nazis, he had true hatred for them and what they did to the people in the area where he lived.

Thanks DougGuy for the post - a great story!

[Shawlerbrook]

The Liberator pistols were one of the coolest weapons given to the French Resistance

[reddog81]

The Liberator pistols were one of the coolest weapons given to the French Resistance

I guess that depends on how you define cool. I know I'd rather have a STEN and a 1,000 rounds of ammo over a Liberator and a couple rounds... While neat the Liberator was intentionally a cheap throw away gun.

[Outpost75]

They find old weapons caches in limestone caves scattered throughout Italy all the time. Some of them pre-dating WW1. When in Tuscany some years ago I fired a flintlock musket with BP, flint and ball cast from materials recovered froman old cellar. Local Carabinieri barracks has sizable inventory of working WW2 German weapons and ammo, they are all set ifthe Swiss decide to invade 8-).

[Ballistics in Scotland]

uh yeah resistance,,,, only known to have actually done something once patton drove his tanks out of Normandy.

notice first thing they done? turned them over and demilled them.... morons.

think any American would have made much notice to finding something like that?

That had to come up sometime in this thread. The French resistance was an almost miraculous organisation, such as no other nation has ever produced. It produced useful cooperation between groups as diverse as pre-war communists and fascists. For much of the pre-invasion period its direct military action had to be limited to occasions of particular benefit, due to the German custom of executing a hundred for one. Those who claim Japan would find a rifle behind every bush in America must know a way around that one, but the French resistance didn't.

But their espionage and sabotage activities, which meant tens of thousands of people living on their nerves with no such thing as a tour of duty, were priceless long before the invasion. The accurate location and description of fortifications and industrial targets, in areas where collateral damage had to be minimised, meant that bombing greatly reduced the benefit the Germans were able to get from the French infrastructure. Intelligence on radar and the German bomber guidance beams was of immense benefit in losing Germany's air war and saving thousands of British civilians. Bombs were designed around how much concrete slave-workers put into U-boat pens. Hundreds of Allied airmen were smuggled back to the UK, risking fairly comfortable POW status for them, but something far worse than by being hit by something in battle, for those who saved them.

After the invasion, their operaNtions had a huge effect on the German ability to move troops to Noat rmandy. General Eisenhower, writing in peacetime and after detailed consultation with his staff, estimated their value at that of ten regular divisions. But he was only the supreme commander, so what would he know? At that point they seized anwiold occupied various areas. To quote one example, in the Vercours plateau 4000 men fought 10,000 Germans, with probably as many more held from Normandy in reserve, and suffered around 650 dead. They knew it would happen, short of a German collapse in Normandy, and what it achieved was what they did it for. The average life of an SOE or OSS radio operator was six weeks, and I will get around to below-average in a moment.

Holland is a tragic story. Resistance there was effectively wiped out by Major Giskes of Abwehr intelligence, who caught one or two agents and worked on them by the only interrogation method that really works: humane and sympathetic questioning with the merest hint of keeping them out of the hands of the real nasties, and the intellectual discipline of working out what someone knows, and using it to get at what you don't. Real-life espionage is about human relationships and information science, not guns and cars that turn submarines. Unfortunately many of his captives were tortured or executed when a byproduct of the von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hitler was the handover of intelligence functions and prisoners to the SD. Giskes, in his book, recalls wondering if he would have to shoot his own way out of the SD headquarters.

Marks, son of the bookstore in "84 Charing Cross Road", suspected that things were going wrong. There were too many excuses for failure to communicate, and agents weren't transmitting the code phrases to indicate that they hadn't been arrested and "turned". Marks had set up a special department to detect "indecipherables", coding errors which made an entire message illegible, in order to avoid the extreme vulnerability of a repeated message. The Dutch agents, and no others in Europe, sent no indecipherables at all, suggesting that the messages weren't being composed in the field. Being a 23-year-old cryptographic genius, profoundly unmilitary and irresistibly drawn to anarchic wit, it took a long time to convince his superiors, and around fifty agents were sent to their deaths. But they went.

The biggest liability in intelligence work is the tendency of so many people to shoot their mouths off as soon as they think of something that will make them sound big. I don't know what made me think of that right now.

[Shawlerbrook]

The Liberator was designed as a way to get a Sten or something more lethal. By cool I mean sort of unique and designed for a very narrow mission.

[Outpost75]

The descendants of Jedburghs who survived and returned alive from their mission in Brittany with 12th Army Group in 1944 owe a debt which cannot be repaid to the Brit instructor cadre who shared what is now looked upon fondly as old school tradecraft. The curious here would be wise to seek the writings of M.R.D. Foot to read up on the preparations for the A-Day and D-Day landings.

[Artful]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsDTZKbVZiw


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY01EF8lTPI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-OJkJgxyE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b41mliPt0Xo


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih3EYj-pYY

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ww2+French+resistance+documen tary

[DerekP Houston]

Those would be hanging on my wall proudly if I had found them. I guess the museum is a good alternative since they are French and will probably get arrested just for finding them.

[Geezer in NH]

Note they are cutting them up to make display pieces.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Those would be hanging on my wall proudly if I had found them. I guess the museum is a good alternative since they are French and will probably get arrested just for finding them.

They used to get accidentally discovered in France fairly often a few decades back. As long as they were in the hands of an actual former resistance member, the police used to say:

"You really shouldn't have that, so what a good thing you have decided to hand it in voluntarily."
"I have?"
"You have."

Somebody else who gets caught with a secret hoard of full-auto weapons gets treated pretty much the same as he would in just about any other country. It is a bit like the diminishing visit by D-day veterans to France, who find there is nothing they can't do except buy their own drinks. It is the people born after the war, who talk about "we" when it wasn't "we", that imagine them to be ungrateful.

[Boaz]

Thanks DougGuy , interesting !

[Thumbcocker]

How much ammo was there before the authorities were called?

[Kestrel4k]

+1 BiS; I would post my opinion on people who denigrate those heroes simply because they are French, but the conversation could easily go downhill from there.

[bedbugbilly]

B in S - well said!

[Bzcraig]

That's a cool story. Imagine to have unearthed that find!

Yes, indeed!

[rondog]

If I found something like that, or a stash of cash, or gold coins, etc. - nobody would ever hear about it. Remember the people a few years ago that found some cans full of gold coins in California and hollered "look what we found!"? It was all promptly snatched away from them by the "authorities". I wouldn't have made a peep. Finders keepers.

[Artful]

secret meetings don't make you anything, actually doing something makes you something. that never happened till after d day and things went against the germans. that's because they realized there was a goot chance Germany wouldn't be around much longer.

obviously you never learned your history, nor watched the videos I posted of the french resistance history

[JBinMN]

Thanks for posting up this topic!
:)

Very cool find!
:)

[waksupi]

secret meetings don't make you anything, actually doing something makes you something. that never happened till after d day and things went against the germans. that's because they realized there was a goot chance Germany wouldn't be around much longer.

You lack knowledge. Where do you think the intel for D-Day came from? The OSS was working behind the lines with the resistance for a long period before the invasion.

[vzerone]

This is interesting too even though it happened years ago:

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/syrian-army-claimed-to-have-found-a-cache-of-5000-stg-44-rifles.html

BIS, Waksupi, and other's are right about the French resistance. Tired of people bashing France about what happened with them in WWII. Don't forget the French helped us in our Revolution.

[bedbugbilly]

Just a general comment and then I'll shut up. This post about the "find" is an interesting post and I, for one, enjoyed it and seeing what was found. It always amazes me though, that when a post such as this is made, there are always those who will find fault with the French, the Italians, etc. in regards to WWII.

In regards to "secret meetings don't make you anything" and nothing happened until after D Day - some folks need to do a little studying and put their prejudices away.

I had a cousin who was shot down over enemy territory while on a mission during WWII. He avoided capture for over a week and fortunately, he was able to make contact with a member of the Resistance. It took weeks of movements at night, hiding during the day assisted by members of the Resistance who put their lives at risk and those of their families and villages to help him out until he could be assisted in making his way back to England. "Doing something"? I'd say that was doing something.

The Resistance was very beneficial in collecting intel and getting it to the Allies. It's one to be here today, in a country where we all have the freedom to own guns - and then criticize those who lived in occupied countries and were subject to the atrocities of the Nazis. Remember, guns were confiscated. Remember that if caught working for or helping the Resistance, the retributions were severe in most cases - torture, execution of not only you but your family and members of your community.

I'm an old geezer and as such, I was fortunate in my lifetime to know many of those who were alive during the War. "War brides" that were from "occupied" countries and they often shared their stories of the horrors of Nazi occupation. U gad friends who had liberated Concentration Camps - and they never got over what they saw. I knew those who had spent time in German POW camps who had witnessed executions along with starvation - one talked very little of it but he did tell me that when their POW camp was liberated by an American unit, they surrounded the camp and set up machine guns to establish the perimeter so what German guards that were still there and hadn't taken off upon the Americans advance on the camp - they turned the German guards over to the prisoners for "justice". I had a professor in college whose entire class was on his experiences during the war. He was born in Estonia and had fought with the underground before being captured and sent to a Concentration Camp. (He was Jewish). He told of his experiences there as well and of the atrocities he had witnessed but he somehow survived. He dressed casually and often wore short sleeved shirts and made no effort to cover up his "tattoo" on his arm - he wore it as a badge of honor to pay respect and remember those who did not survive - he was a survivor yet lived with the guilt everyday.

My point - study your history before you criticize a group that you obviously know very little about. It's called "respect". Unfortunately, the "Greatest Generation" is fast fading. But, if you could talk to those veterans who had experiences with the "Resistance" fighters, you'd find that there were many who were downed pilots and airmen as well as escaped prisoners who owed their lives to the "underground" that helped them escape from occupied territory - the same men and women who collected much needed intel and risked their lives to get it to the Allies.

Nun said.

[Bent Ramrod]

“The long, low sobbing of the violins of August

Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor.”

You bet they helped the invasion, and made the German occupation as uncomfortable for the occupying army as possible. The question is, would “we” be able to rise to the occasion like they did, under similar circumstances.

The Polish Resistance got even less credit than the French Resistance did. They had just finished collecting enough bits and pieces from crashed experiments so the Allies could reverse engineer a V-2 rocket when a whole one landed in Sweden, a gift on a silver platter. But the point back then was to get the mission accomplished, not how much self-esteem could be garnered.

[WILCO]

I guess that depends on how you define cool. I know I'd rather have a STEN and a 1,000 rounds of ammo over a Liberator and a couple rounds... While neat the Liberator was intentionally a cheap throw away gun.

The liberator pistol was intended as a stepping stone in the acquisition of other weapons.

Shoot your opponent in the head, take his weapon. Repeat as necessary.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Since I know nothing about the resistance, French, Dutch, Italian or any other country I can't comment on it but I do have strong feelings about some weapons. As for the weapons shown in the pictures I could care less what they do with that batch of stamped out ****. Now if it were a stash of Lugers, Walther P38s, or Broom Handle Mausers then I would be very upset. When I see pictures of what they did in Australia to all those Lugers brought back by Aussie soldiers retuning from WWI and II I want to scream. I agree with Rondog about finding a treasure of any kind. I wouldn't say a word. I used to read a lot of those treasure hunting magazines and I wondered why no one ever found anything. Then it dawned on me. The people who found treasure simply kept there mouth shut.

[texasnative46]

To All,

A dear friend of mine goes to Italy & Greece regularly to visit "family in the old country". = One of Bob's cousins is now a general contractor about 50KM north of Anzio & routinely is asked by the local governments to demolish/clear the site of abandoned/"falling down" buildings.

His cousin said that he long ago lost count of the WWII weapons/ammo that he found within/under such deteriorated buildings. - Under one old barn's stone floor, he found over 50 MP40 SMG, numerous SMG magazines, Mauser rifles, several "Commission rifles" & several hundred pounds of German-issue ammo.
(He notified the local police, who removed the SMG & gave him the BA rifles/ammo.)

My GUESS is that there are many caches of weapons all over western Europe, just waiting to be discovered.

yours, tex

[Omega]

Since I know nothing about the resistance, French, Dutch, Italian or any other country I can't comment on it but I do have strong feelings about some weapons. As for the weapons shown in the pictures I could care less what they do with that batch of stamped out ****. Now if it were a stash of Lugers, Walther P38s, or Broom Handle Mausers then I would be very upset. When I see pictures of what they did in Australia to all those Lugers brought back by Aussie soldiers retuning from WWI and II I want to scream. I agree with Rondog about finding a treasure of any kind. I wouldn't say a word. I used to read a lot of those treasure hunting magazines and I wondered why no one ever found anything. Then it dawned on me. The people who found treasure simply kept there mouth shut.Personally I get upset when they destroy any weapon or artifact, I don't care what quality it is. And it definitely irks the heck out of me when they do it just because they are anti-gun, and not because it posses any kind of danger, like maybe those grenades.
Here, we brought back a few war trophies, turned them over to the museum for cataloging. We have quite a few AKs hanging on the walls of our HQs, they are not operational, but not demilled either. The museum "owns" them but they have a policy to not demill any of the weapons unless they are explosive in nature, then they are made inert before they are displayed.

As to the resistance, that was a bygone era and unfortunately IMHO not many left with that type of bravery. I happened to visit a few of those countries and the general populace has given me (us) a disapproving look while in uniform but a whole different attitude while in civilian clothes. But there are a bunch of older folks out there that remember, and show their gratitude/hospitality whenever we encounter them. It's the new European generations that have forgotten what their past generations lived through and the sacrifices made on their behalf that give me the attitude I have against many of those countries. I don't expect them to kiss our behind by no means, but at least not show the disdain they do so openly.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The Liberator was designed as a way to get a Sten or something more lethal. By cool I mean sort of unique and designed for a very narrow mission.

Rifling isn't a lot to ask for. The Sten cost 25 shillings a time, and although I wouldn't call it the bestimporta value in the world, was an efficient combat weapon. You could get a lot of them into an air-drop canister. The Liberator could be considered an assassination weapon, and one which could b. e dumped afterwards - but not for a high-grade assassin and a high-grade target. Their main iimportance was to be psychological. A man with one of those hidden away, even where he would never go back to it, was more likely to carry on with his real duty of spying or spreading real information about the war. Garrison troops who can go where they like, when they like, are far more valuable than those who can never turn their backs on civilians.

A million Liberators were made, for distribution half in France and half in the Far East. A small number were distributed, but most destroyed unissued. The thinking might have been that they would get otherwise useful operatives into fatal trouble.

[JBinMN]

It's the new European generations that have forgotten what their past generations lived through and the sacrifices made on their behalf that give me the attitude I have against many of those countries.

That could sadly be said a different way...
"It's the new American generations that have forgotten what their past generations lived through and the sacrifices made on their behalf that give them the attitude they have against their own country. "


They also forget, or are ignorant of what those European countries/people went thru under Fascism or Socialism & Communism, other wise they would not be raising such a stink. Not too much different than some folks of color who are clamoring for segregation for themselves with no whites allowed. And "Desegregation" & the Civil rights marches/activities that helped open up society to remove segregation, are much more recent history. Yet they forget...

History is bound to repeat itself, as long as there are ignorant younger generations who do not listen to those who came before.

Relics of bygone days like was found there in France & other places, ought to remind those who are ignorant of history, that there were folks who had to fight to be liberated in any way that they could, & try to become more free than the oppressive methods & ways of the Fascist/Socialists/Communists would allow them to be.

[Outpost75]

You lack knowledge. Where do you think the intel for D-Day came from? The OSS was working behind the lines with the resistance for a long period before the invasion.

And the SOE, Mi5 and Mi9 long before the OSS...

[Omega]

That could sadly be said a different way...
"It's the new American generations that have forgotten what their past generations lived through and the sacrifices made on their behalf that give them the attitude they have against their own country. "


They also forget, or are ignorant of what those European countries/people went thru under Fascism or Socialism & Communism, other wise they would not be raising such a stink. Not too much different than some folks of color who are clamoring for segregation for themselves with no whites allowed. And "Desegregation" & the Civil rights marches/activities that helped open up society to remove segregation, are much more recent history. Yet they forget...

History is bound to repeat itself, as long as there are ignorant younger generations who do not listen to those who came before.

Relics of bygone days like was found there in France & other places, ought to remind those who are ignorant of history, that there were folks who had to fight to be liberated in any way that they could, & try to become more free than the oppressive methods & ways of the Fascist/Socialists/Communists would allow them to be.Oh, don't get me wrong, that is exactly what is happening here as well, it's just that the conversation was about Europe. Luckily we do have a Constitution and a populace that has so far rejected many of the things that goes against it, so far, that would have us be as bad as they are out there. So far recruitment has been stable, but the quality of soldier we are getting now seems to be of the kinder gentler variety and it takes much more to produce the kind of soldier it takes to defend our country. But on the upside, many of our weapon systems mimic their PlayStations and whatnot, so the learning curve is shorter.

[Thumbcocker]

Many of the more effective resistance groups were communist. They were used to operating as a clandestine organization and well organized.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Personally I get upset when they destroy any weapon or artifact, I don't care what quality it is. And it definitely irks the heck out of me when they do it just because they are anti-gun, and not because it posses any kind of danger, like maybe those grenades.
Here, we brought back a few war trophies, turned them over to the museum for cataloging. We have quite a few AKs hanging on the walls of our HQs, they are not operational, but not demilled either. The museum "owns" them but they have a policy to not demill any of the weapons unless they are explosive in nature, then they are made inert before they are displayed.

As to the resistance, that was a bygone era and unfortunately IMHO not many left with that type of bravery. I happened to visit a few of those countries and the general populace has given me (us) a disapproving look while in uniform but a whole different attitude while in civilian clothes. But there are a bunch of older folks out there that remember, and show their gratitude/hospitality whenever we encounter them. It's the new European generations that have forgotten what their past generations lived through and the sacrifices made on their behalf that give me the attitude I have against many of those countries. I don't expect them to kiss our behind by no means, but at least not show the disdain they do so openly.
Omega, I understand and appreciate what you are saying. It seems stupid and suicidal to you and me for Europeans to deprive Christians of any chance to oppose the invading hordes of Muslims that far out numbers the army of the Ottoman Empire that tried to invade about nine centuries ago. What I should have added in my post was the fact that it made no difference to the morons that destroy weapons what guns they were. They would have just as gleefully destroyed a stash of Lugers. They just don't care as long as they can smash weapons. We also have such a place and it is located in Anniston, Alabama. It is in the arsenal there and the machine is called Captain Crunch. Jimmy Carter had the machine working around the clock destroying all the guns stored in armories around the country including 22 target rifles. A picture of this was printed on the cover of the American Rifleman many years ago. An Illinois scrape dealer blew the whistle on the operation. I watched a tour of the plant about two years ago and the women in charge of the destruction machine explained that the receivers about to be destroyed were declared unserviceable. They looked to me to be new and packed carefully, as though they had come directly from the MFG. If they had been declared unserviceable why weren't they in a scrap bin. Remember who was in the White house at the time?

[Omega]

Omega, I understand and appreciate what you are saying. It seems stupid and suicidal to you and me for Europeans to deprive Christians of any chance to oppose the invading hordes of Muslims that far out numbers the army of the Ottoman Empire that tried to invade about nine centuries ago. What I should have added in my post was the fact that it made no difference to the morons that destroy weapons what guns they were. They would have just as gleefully destroyed a stash of Lugers. They just don't care as long as they can smash weapons. We also have such a place and it is located in Anniston, Alabama. It is in the arsenal there and the machine is called Captain Crunch. Jimmy Carter had the machine working around the clock destroying all the guns stored in armories around the country including 22 target rifles. A picture of this was printed on the cover of the American Rifleman many years ago. An Illinois scrape dealer blew the whistle on the operation. I watched a tour of the plant about two years ago and the women in charge of the destruction machine explained that the receivers about to be destroyed were declared unserviceable. They looked to me to be new and packed carefully, as though they had come directly from the MFG. If they had been declared unserviceable why weren't they in a scrap bin. Remember who was in the White house at the time?Yea, and also recall many police stations dumping weapons in the ocean or otherwise destroying them sometime back...maybe even now though I am not personally aware of any.

[texasnative46]

Ballistics in Scotland,

Fwiw, about 2 decades ago, I was present on the range when a Liberator pistol, straight out of the cardboard box, was tested with over 20 rounds of standard issue .45ACP cartridges at ranges from "near contact" to 20M. - All but one of the bullets struck the standard military silhouette.
(The miss was from 15M.)

Inasmuch as the Liberator was designed to kill an Axis soldier at very close range & to thereafter take his weapon/ammo/grenades/etc. that "degree of accuracy" seemed sufficient for the intended use.

yours, tex

[starmac]

What do you think happens to firearms that are turned in to the so called buy back programs some cities have initiated??

If someone had unearthed those stens here in this country, what would be their choices. As far as I know there is no path to legally keep them, if donated to a museum they would likely be demilled at most of them.

[Omega]

What do you think happens to firearms that are turned in to the so called buy back programs some cities have initiated??

If someone had unearthed those stens here in this country, what would be their choices. As far as I know there is no path to legally keep them, if donated to a museum they would likely be demilled at most of them.Why, stash them further for the upcoming revolution of course...I mean, yea turn them in.

[woodbutcher]

:grin: A previous poster mentioned the OSS.A late comer for sure.Here`s a little trivia for you folks.Do any of you know the name Sterling Hayden?He served in the OSS,IIRC in the Nordic Countries area.Pretty interesting read.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I thought he served in the Baltic states, Croatia, Serbia etc.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Yea, and also recall many police stations dumping weapons in the ocean or otherwise destroying them sometime back...maybe even now though I am not personally aware of any.
It happens every year in the City of Angels. Every year they dump all the weapons they have in a large stack bed truck and complete with motorcycle escort, head down the freeway to the smelter at the harbor. The mayor and sheriff along with the chief, don hard hats and pose for the slobbering press and their cameras. All the news networks carry the story with, of course the pictures.

[JBinMN]

Oh, don't get me wrong, that is exactly what is happening here as well, it's just that the conversation was about Europe. Luckily we do have a Constitution and a populace that has so far rejected many of the things that goes against it, so far, that would have us be as bad as they are out there. So far recruitment has been stable, but the quality of soldier we are getting now seems to be of the kinder gentler variety and it takes much more to produce the kind of soldier it takes to defend our country. But on the upside, many of our weapon systems mimic their PlayStations and whatnot, so the learning curve is shorter.

I am pretty sure we are on the same in thinking here..
:drinks:
:)

[Artful]

Omega, I understand and appreciate what you are saying. It seems stupid and suicidal to you and me for Europeans to deprive Christians of any chance to oppose the invading hordes of Muslims that far out numbers the army of the Ottoman Empire that tried to invade about nine centuries ago. What I should have added in my post was the fact that it made no difference to the morons that destroy weapons what guns they were. They would have just as gleefully destroyed a stash of Lugers. They just don't care as long as they can smash weapons. We also have such a place and it is located in Anniston, Alabama. It is in the arsenal there and the machine is called Captain Crunch. Jimmy Carter had the machine working around the clock destroying all the guns stored in armories around the country including 22 target rifles. A picture of this was printed on the cover of the American Rifleman many years ago. An Illinois scrape dealer blew the whistle on the operation. I watched a tour of the plant about two years ago and the women in charge of the destruction machine explained that the receivers about to be destroyed were declared unserviceable. They looked to me to be new and packed carefully, as though they had come directly from the MFG. If they had been declared unserviceable why weren't they in a scrap bin. Remember who was in the White house at the time?

I asked someone in Army reserves, he said they were ordered to send in stuff by date of acquisition, stuff that was brand new but old stock was sent back for destruction - he had a half of a M16 receiver that was a paperweight on his desk. He said it had never had a magazine inserted.

[woodbutcher]

:grin:Hi Gopher Slayer.You might be right.It has been a while since I saw the program on the subject.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[Ballistics in Scotland]

:grin: A previous poster mentioned the OSS.A late comer for sure.Here`s a little trivia for you folks.Do any of you know the name Sterling Hayden?He served in the OSS,IIRC in the Nordic Countries area.Pretty interesting read.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.al
Leo

If Croatia and Serbia want to move to the Baltic I won't stand in their way. But they were last heard of in the Balkans. Anthony Quayle, the Colonel Brighton in "Lawrence of Arabia", served as an SOE agent in Albania. Of course working with guerrillas was probably easier than blending into a civilian population with a language plenty of Germans understood. A lot of spy movies are based on the public forgetting that people speak different languages in other countries. I can read French about as well as English, and communicate effectively, but I couldn't begin to pass as French. Even the British military intelligence operatives who worked under cover in Northern Ireland, including women, reckoned on only being able to stand a minute or two's casual conversation.

The story of Jean Moulin is worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Moulin

So are the blue plaques you find on walls all over Paris, to resistance members and spur of the moment insurgents who died liberating the city, without an English-speaking uniform in sight. I was twenty when I saw one on a street corner near the foreign ministry where the tank "Quimper" was destroyed when General Leclerc's Free French got in, and I had a ticket to Quimper for my summer course in my pocket at the time. I believe it is the picture in the top centre:

http://liberationparis70.paris.fr/fr/oeil-d-expert/

A British war correspondent who had seen a very great deal, said that the bravest thing he ever saw was General de Gaulle walking up the half-dark aisle of Notre Dame de Paris with people firing submachine-guns, and not knowing whether it was feux de joie or something else. Being French they didn't damage the great rose-window, though.

I think it was WB Yeates that said "Unhappy the land that has need of heroes". But France did, and had them, as many as anywhere else could ever have.

I have a couple of very interesting little booklets. One is the British army's booklet for soldiers in France after the invasion, preparing them to meet a population impoverished, malnourished, culturally different, intensely nationalistic and often eager to be more generous than they could afford. The other is the American army's "112 Gripes about the French". Both are highly admirable books. But "112 Gripes" seems aimed primarily at smoothing over friction. The British version encourages men to actually enjoy the French, as if they were only twenty miles away and likely to be on friendlier terms than they used to be.

https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/

[GOPHER SLAYER]

If Croatia and Serbia want to move to the Baltic I won't stand in their way. But they were last heard of in the Balkans. Anthony Quayle, the Colonel Brighton in "Lawrence of Arabia", served as an SOE agent in Albania. Of course working with guerrillas was probably easier than blending into a civilian population with a language plenty of Germans understood. A lot of spy movies are based on the public forgetting that people speak different languages in other countries. I can read French about as well as English, and communicate effectively, but I couldn't begin to pass as French. Even the British military intelligence operatives who worked under cover in Northern Ireland, including women, reckoned on only being able to stand a minute or two's casual conversation.

The story of Jean Moulin is worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Moulin

So are the blue plaques you find on walls all over Paris, to resistance members and spur of the moment insurgents who died liberating the city, without an English-speaking uniform in sight. I was twenty when I saw one on a street corner near the foreign ministry where the tank "Quimper" was destroyed when General Leclerc's Free French got in, and I had a ticket to Quimper for my summer course in my pocket at the time. I believe it is the picture in the top centre:

http://liberationparis70.paris.fr/fr/oeil-d-expert/

A British war correspondent who had seen a very great deal, said that the bravest thing he ever saw was General de Gaulle walking up the half-dark aisle of Notre Dame de Paris with people firing submachine-guns, and not knowing whether it was feux de joie or something else. Being French they didn't damage the great rose-window, though.

I think it was WB Yeates that said "Unhappy the land that has need of heroes". But France did, and had them, as many as anywhere else could ever have.

I have a couple of very interesting little booklets. One is the British army's booklet for soldiers in France after the invasion, preparing them to meet a population impoverished, malnourished, culturally different, intensely nationalistic and often eager to be more generous than they could afford. The other is the American army's "112 Gripes about the French". Both are highly admirable books. But "112 Gripes" seems aimed primarily at smoothing over friction. The British version encourages men to actually enjoy the French, as if they were only twenty miles away and likely to be on friendlier terms than they used to be.

https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/ I had read before that Sterling Hayden had spent his time in in the OSS smuggling arms to from Italy to partitions in what later became Yugoslavia, which happens to be in the Balkans and no where near the Baltic. He was well suited for the job since he held a Masters ticket on sailing ships before the war. I just went on Google and read it again.

[Smoke4320]

you heard I found what .. well the neighbors said last week I had a Lion before that it was a tank ...go figure

[lightman]

Thats an interesting find, and an interesting period of history. Thanks for posting the pictures.

[Artful]

25 sterling pounds for a STEN?
This link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/a-rough-guide-of-the-costs-of-guns-during-wwii.html says a Mk II was only $11.
I think the liberator pistol was a better bargain.
The complete pistol kit included a waxed cardboard box, 10 cartridges (headstamped FA-42 for Frankford Arsenal, 1942), an instruction diagram (no words) and a wooden shell-extractor dowel. It was completed at a cost of $2.10 each, while the Liberator itself was produced for only $1.73 per unit.

I don't remember where I read it but Ike didn't want the pistols dropped as it made the population harder to control after the Allies pushed the Germans out of an area. A lot easier to catch a man with a STEN then a pocket pistol.

I understand that a larger number were dropped in the Pacific Theater of operations.

[texasnative46]

Artful,

A great many Liberator pistols were airdropped into the Philippines, according to a display at the Ft Bragg Museum, with the hope that the local civilians would "cause trouble for" the Japanese forces.
(I was told by a docent there that many a Filipino civilian got himself/herself a Japanese rifle/pistol/grenade/money by using a Liberator, cane-knife, spear, knife or club. - Even a common rock/piece of lumber was sometimes used to take out a Japanese soldier/policeman.)

ADDENDA: One Filipino guerrilla, who is only known as "Little Pedro", reportedly KILLED at least 2 dozen Japanese officers, Japanese Secret Police agents & at least a few Filipino collaborators with various weapons, including grenades & poisons.
(After VJ Day, he was never identified & may not have survived the war. = It is also possible or perhaps even likely that "Little Pedro" may have been a woman from Manila.)

yours, tex

[texasnative46]

To All,

On a daytrip to Cibolo park yesterday PM, one of our local ex-GIs said that when he was stationed in France in the mid-1960s that his unit found FOUR MG34 machineguns, with some crates of 8x57mm MG ammo, in a "little cave near the Luxemburg border".
("Les" said that the unit turned-in the MG to the local German Border Guard Service station & that he's wondered ever since, "who hid them away".)

yours, tex

[Ballistics in Scotland]

25 sterling pounds for a STEN?
This link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/a-rough-guide-of-the-costs-of-guns-during-wwii.html says a Mk II was only $11.

I think the liberator pistol was a better bargain.
The complete pistol kit included a waxed cardboard box, 10 cartridges (headstamped FA-42 for Frankford Arsenal, 1942), an instruction diagram (no words) and a wooden shell-extractor dowel. It was completed at a cost of $2.10 each, while the Liberator itself was produced for only $1.73 per unit.

I don't remember where I read it but Ike didn't want the pistols dropped as it made the population harder to control after the Allies pushed the Germans out of an area. A lot easier to catch a man with a STEN then a pocket pistol.

I understand that a larger number were dropped in the Pacific Theater of operations.

Twenty-five shillings, of which there were twenty to the pound, and I think the price came down a little. It wasn't a time when companies wanted to gouge the government. It wasn't a bad answer to what was needed - a very fast supply of weapons suited to fairly briefly trained users, which could be made in workshops not previously adapted to firearm manufacture. Their limited range was pretty much what was common to all submachine-guns, but I have seen palm-sized groups made, probably not at the closest of ranges, by the extremely experienced ladies who tested them in the factory. It was easy to have an accident with the Sten, for if it was dropped on its butt, the inertia of its bolt was enough to strip a round from the magazine, into an empty chamber and fire it. Fingers could also be inserted into the ejection port, resulting in severely bitten fingers, a failure to fire, and an alerted enemy.

Its predecessor was the Royal Navy's Lanchester, a heavy, wooden-stocked copy of the German M28. This was very well-made and thoroughly efficient but large and heavy. Most of the Sten's deficiencies were cured in the Sterling, which officially was introduced around 1953. But a small number were sent for troop trials in wartime, and special forces tried them interesting places.

I still think very few Liberator pistols were issued. It was really only suitable for use in a moment of extreme disorder - for example when German troops were struggling to reach Normandy, and it was difficult to count casualties and organise the civilian reprisals. In those circumstances the Sten was of much more general use. While the Germans were in what they would call peaceful administration or part of Vichy France, a large supply of Liberator pistols among those who weren't trained agents would just have got a lot of people into trouble for minimal real benefit.

BSA designed the Welgun suppressed submachine-gun for guerrilla use, which was intended to be more reliable than the Sten, but this seems debatable. Very few saw use, and the Sten MkIV, better made than the earlier versions, took its place. What did see some use, and possibly still does, was the Welrod suppressed pistol. This rather than the Liberator was intended for "official" assassinations, or whatever you call them when the target is in uniform and wes here he wasn't invited. It was a manually operated magazine pistol, because with an automatic you get quite a bit of noise from the ejection port. At least the .32ACP version might have a claim to be the quietest of all firearms, but the rubberised fabric baffles needed replacement after very little use.

This one didn't have markings of any kind, possibly so that if any were found, the Germans would have the even more unsettling experience of wondering if there were illicit factories in France. They would execute hostages at the drop of a hat in reprisals, but probably not in reprisal for wasting resources searching automobile workshops where nothing was found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welrod

The de Lisle carbine, on the other hand, required no baffle replacement for a long time, if ever. This one, so far as known (though would it be?) was used exclusively by British forces. It was found unsatisfactory in 9mm., presumably because of either higher terminal pressure or supersonic velocity. But it worked extremely well with .45ACP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lisle_carbine

Incidentally modern copies of the de Lisle are or recently were ownable in the UK with the same kind of licence as any other rifle. Fitting a suppressor required special authorisation - previously cheap but difficult to argue for, until the grim spectre of being sued for hearing loss occurred to them, and now they will practically press them into our hands. But they had never thought about integral suppression.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

“The long, low sobbing of the violins of August

Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor.”

You bet they helped the invasion, and made the German occupation as uncomfortable for the occupying army as possible. The question is, would “we” be able to rise to the occasion like they did, under similar circumstances.

The Polish Resistance got even less credit than the French Resistance did. They had just finished collecting enough bits and pieces from crashed experiments so the Allies could reverse engineer a V-2 rocket when a whole one landed in Sweden, a gift on a silver platter. But the point back then was to get the mission accomplished, not how much self-esteem could be garnered.


Polish military cryptanalysts were also the first to make useful progress in breaking the Enigma codes, and it is difficult to overestimate the effect of their sharing their information with the British and the French before the war. Even in my quiet little corner of Scotland there is a row of war graves in the local cemeteries, and several are Polish, probably from flying accidents. My Polish uncle was never really my uncle, just someone billeted on the farm, although there may have been a tale my aunt never told.

He had two odd pieces of luck. One was rejecting advice to play it safe by staying in Poland and making his peace with the Russians, which would probably have meant his last sight in life being General Vasily Blokhin, with his leather apron and briefcase of .25ACP Walthers, who probably holds the record for 7000 personal executions in a month, and with luck will keep it. Peter's second was to have an instructor crash and kill himself while landing a Stirling, one of the first of the four-engine bombers, due to equipment failure in bad weather. Almost nobody survived a tour in Stirlings, which flew lower and slower than the later ones, but the crash got Peter a relatively safe target-towing job.

Today I got a copy of Jack London's "Michael, brother of Jerry", which I bought through my life support system, www.bookfinder.com . It is one of the great dog stories of the world and a searing indictment of cruelty in animal training. Forgive me if I cater for a small minority by saying that it is what is known as a book, like people used to have before game consoles and prejudice-massaging websites were invented. I like old hardbacks, don't care much about first editions, but this one did turn out to be the Macmillan American first edition, in the UK, for £3.48 when it is commonly offered at over a hundred.

But there was more, and some of it as complex as decoding mixed markings on an old gun. It bears a New York bookseller's sticker, a bookplate for the American Library in Paris, and (more recent, because overlapping it), the rubber stamp of the American University of Paris. It does seem like education is a dangerous thing, eroding the contempt some naturally (for them) feel towards the French. As Oscar Wilde said, "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Library_in_Paris#During_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_of_Paris

It also has a most unusual bookplate, with a portrait of a young man, but it can't be just identifying a book of his as they usually do, for it gives the date of his death. I think it identifies a gift of books to the American Library in his memory, possibly by the Phi Beta Memorial at Amherst, whose name appears in very small print. It is, in fact, a picture of his memorial there.

He was Guy Levy-Despas, a Frenchman and very possibly a Jew, who studied briefly at Amherst then enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in July 1941, using the name Guy Carlet to protect his family under occupation - just as my Uncle Peter did, resulting in a small sprinkling of Scottish Slavs today with the name of a village in eastern Poland. Levy-Despas had a pretty fair excuse for waiting that long, as he was eighteen.

His flying career was unexceptional, but he earned his keep. He flew one of the 31 Spitfires which reached Malta at the height of its 1942 siege, and shot down two bombers and an Italian fighter on the 9th June. On the 12th he was killed. Here he is, and if you have Google Toolbar it should offer to translate:

http://www.cieldegloire.com/004_levy_despas_g.php

Here is a narrative of events in Malta, which includes a picture of the memorial itself:

https://maltagc70.wordpress.com/tag/carlet/

"LOSS OF A VOLUNTEER

Malta’s Spitfire forces lost a remarkable volunteer today when Flying Officer Guy Carlet was killed during an operation to intercept enemy raiders over Malta. Guy was one of eight Spitfire pilots of 603 Squadron attacking a formation of German JU 88 bombers at around 1 o’clock this afternoon. Messerschmitt fighters launched a counter attack, dividing the Spitfire force and F/O Carlet was shot down.

The son of the wealthy owner of a French chain of department stores Guy – real name Guy Andre Levy-Despas – was sent to the United States by his parents when war broke out. He was studying at Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA, when France fell in 1940. Guy immediately volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force, saying “A life without the idea of sacrifice is not worth living.” He has been awarded the Legion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre (France)."

Nobody in the North African campaign, or perhaps anywhere, fought a better action than the Free French at Bir Hakeim. This played its part in preventing a German invasion of Malta (the key to strangling Rommel's supply lines), and in the campaign which first brought about a German army broken and in full retreat. Around the same time Major Vladimir Peniakoff, a Belgian of Russian parentage who, despite an exceptional instinct for land piracy had initially been rejected for service due to his age, waistline, blood pressure and neutrality, was watching German airfields in Libya and reporting on air transport movements. Free French airmen died infiltrating and extracting other agents, using formerly Norwegian Heinkel seaplanes with false markings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bir_Hakeim

Of course France endured a disastrous and unnecessary failure in 1940. But if anybody was to say the same about America in SE Asia, you would say "It wasn't as simple as that" and "It wasn't the fault of most who were there." Those who lived through the following years remember them as an inclusive time, when valuable service was given by often terrified people of innumerable odd nations, women, fashion designers, borderline lunatics, career criminals, the aged, the sexually unusual, Spanish Civil War communists, former fascists etc.

[richhodg66]

The liberator pistol was intended as a stepping stone in the acquisition of other weapons.

Shoot your opponent in the head, take his weapon. Repeat as necessary.

This was the intent of them and certainly valid, but just think of the psychological effect it would have on the occupying Germans to worry that anybody you saw could have a pistol concealed on them just looking for a chance to kill you. The ones that fell into German hands may have had more of an effect on the effort than those that actually got into the hands of the good guys.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That was precisely the intention - even if none were ever used. Imagine the effect on German logistics the day after the invasion, if they knew that hundreds of thousands of those things were still out there.

Another little-known item which was dropped to the resistance was reamers to do the very slight rechambering job that would be necessary to fire .45ACP cartridges in the 1873 French ordnance revolver. It is actually an excellent double-action revolver, far ahead of anything the heirs of Col. Colt did at the time, except for a heel-obullet cartridge which was usually very weakly loaded in its service version, but needn't have been. I have seen them with the smaller springs broken, but never a mainspring or any other part impaired in any way, and you can dismantle them by undoing one large screw, without any part falling out till you want it out.

207130


It is basically a strong pistol, but does have a record of breaking its topstrap when GI .45ACP was used. I have seen a French engineer's calculations which suggest that the load ought to have left a satisfactory margin of safety, but the abrupt impact of the hardball jacket was the cause of the problem. Powerful handloads should have worked well, and perhaps did on the turn of the century civilian market. What could the Germans have done if they caught someone using non-Hague Convention lead bullets? Shoot him twice over?

[10-x]

No one has mentioned the Mills Bombs, deactivated in this condition are worth about $100. Fix them and put them on the market!
Yea, some guys need to research SOE and OSS history and the resistance in any occupied country in WWII. Good and bad in everything, we joke about the " Frogs" but they were some tough guys and gals. Read the right books.

[HangFireW8]

That had to come up sometime in this thread. The French resistance was an almost miraculous organisation, such as no other nation has ever produced.
....

The biggest liability in intelligence work is the tendency of so many people to shoot their mouths off as soon as they think of something that will make them sound big. I don't know what made me think of that right now.

"French Resistance", what headed up by the famous war heros/collaborators?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/02/24/who-did-not-collaborate/
-President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire."

Or this one?
http://observer.com/1999/02/everybody-loves-picasso-even-critics-and-nazis/

Declared a "hero" after the war, ha!

1/2 the "French Resistance" was run by England. The other half by Nazi Germany, heh. The other 400% is post-WWII "history" trying to hide the shame. The best the British-run French agents did is smuggle back a few fliers, before getting betrayed by countrymen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7861604/List-of-French-who-collaborated-with-Nazis-to-be-published-online.html

If you want to talk about a REAL occupation resistance, that tied up enemy forces, dealt death and absorbed huge civilian punishment for it, BEFORE the Allies landed, let's talk Philippines. NO COMPARISON.

[Thumbcocker]

The Dutch and Poles weren't slouches either. There is footage of a Philippine woman running under Japanese fire to fill canteens for U. S. soldiers or Marines during the battle of Manila. She is carrying multiple canteens in each hand. Worth finding.

[texasnative46]

HangFireW9,

According to documents in the Special Ops Museum at Ft Bragg, when GEN McArthur waded ashore there were several UNIFORMED regiments of Filipino patriots & even a brass band awaiting his arrival.

About 25 years ago, I talked at Ft Benning to a retired Del Monte plantation civilian employee, who told me that by the time that McArthur returned that the Filipinos were MAKING numerous firearms, booby traps, incendiary weapons, hand grenades & ammo in "jungle factories". = His most memorable comment (to me at least) was that, "The ingenuity of the Filipino patriot resistance, in preparing to fight the Japanese, was near impossible for me to believe."
(The man that I talked to was a Ham Radio Operator & made some 2-way radios for the guerrillas, from whatever he could find/scrounge/barter for/steal from the enemy. - Like so many WWII heroes, he claimed to have done "nothing special during the war".)

yours, tex

[Ballistics in Scotland]

"French Resistance", what headed up by the famous war heros/collaborators?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/02/24/who-did-not-collaborate/
-President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire."

Or this one?
http://observer.com/1999/02/everybody-loves-picasso-even-critics-and-nazis/

Declared a "hero" after the war, ha!

1/2 the "French Resistance" was run by England. The other half by Nazi Germany, heh. The other 400% is post-WWII "history" trying to hide the shame. The best the British-run French agents did is smuggle back a few fliers, before getting betrayed by countrymen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7861604/List-of-French-who-collaborated-with-Nazis-to-be-published-online.html

If you want to talk about a REAL occupation resistance, that tied up enemy forces, dealt death and absorbed huge civilian punishment for it, BEFORE the Allies landed, let's talk Philippines. NO COMPARISON.

A good many people have been talking about some other country coincidentally also named France. There was indeed a great deal of collaboration and betrayal in the real-life France, which had been subject to deep political divides before the war. This should be understood in the US, the only developed nation where such political hatred is common today. There were some 10,000 deaths after the Liberation, ranging from casual score-settling to trials under the most scrupulous rules of evidence, with every intervening level of legality which we see lusted after on this very board, for imagined treason in the modern USA. Many petty collaborators slipped through unscathed, and a few very major ones made it through to prominent positions in government administration and industry.

There undoubtedly were cases of the Germans penetrating or even running Resistance networks, although nothing like the scale of the Dutch tragedy, or British "turning" of the entire German espionage network in the UK. The system was very much as it was with captured airmen - a couple of nights in a cold and gloomy cell, then rescue by a member of his own kind of service, who wines and dine him just a little too well, surprises him with a few things they already know, and needs him to give a little something to avoid handing him over to... those other people. The Gestapo and a scrupulously legalistic criminal court are remarkably similar when they will both hang you. But on the overall achievement and loyalty of the French resistance, I think I will still go along with Eisenhower, Churchill and the SOE and OSS agents who worked with them.

There were certainly false claimants of Resistance records, just as the US is almost unique in the proliferation of organisations which seek to out false claimants of more conventional military service. But there were 38,288 living and 24,463 posthumous recipients of the Resistance Medal by closure of the lists in 1947, and sound nominations were required for those.

Nobody should belittle the achievements of the Filipino resistance - or of the Vietnamese resistance, on which it should have shed much light. Up to a million Filipinos died during their occupation, most from disease, malnutrition and denial of health care, but around 137,000 murdered in war crimes. There are two important differences, though. One is that the Philippines don't lie adjacent to Japan and don't incorporate what Clausewitz called the decisive point. Germany not only could but had to do whatever it took to hold France down. The other is that all those abuses, from economic to murder, were happening anyway. It didn't take any resistance movement to provoke the Japanese in Nanking.

The British advised their troops, before the invasion, to expect the French impoverished, malnourished and extremely bitter against the Germans, but rarely personally brutalised. Ordinary Germans were told, with Germanic firmness, to keep up good relations, and non-resistants didn't have much to fear besides misery, as long as they were gentiles. The Resistance, the Royal Air Force and the French people accepted that large-scale civilian deaths sometimes had to be accepted. But it was generally reserved for an important contribution to the war effort.

Nobody was under an obligation to work for the resistance, and least of all Picasso, who wasn't French. He worked but refused to exhibit during the occupation, and the resistance supplied him with bronze to make castings, which the Germans had forbidden. You don't arrest a Matisse either. The German attitude towards "degenerate art", like negro jazz, was complex and inconsistent. They would condemn it, but were willing enough to steal it, in either an institutional or private capacity, and the leading Nazis were puzzled by the popularity of exhibitions designed to help Germans know their enemy.

Actually Picasso was a neutral whom General Franco would have been extremely glad to see dead. It has been suggested that he received some protection to annoy Franco, whom Hitler despised in a way far beyond his sometimes exasperated sympathy for Mussolini. For Mussolini generally did his occasionally pitiful best. Picasso was, however, regularly harassed. On one of his house searches a German officer looked at a photographic copy of his "Guernica", which attacks the first deliberate bombing of civilians, and said "Did you really do... that?" Picasso answered "No. You did."