Reviewed Volume 1
Operation Jedburgh: D-Day and America’s First Shadow War
By Colin Beavan
Jedburgh is an interesting and smoothly written narrative of modern America’s first foray into covert military operations. Composed in a prose/novel style, Beavan’s work has chosen to focus on the actions, using poignant anecdotes and firsthand accounts to propel the story forward. The lengthy bibliography and the author’s own introduction highlight the research, supporting documents and interviews that were pored over, but I can’t help but find elements of the story wanting for detail or substance. Beavan acknowledges that he has pruned certain elements, spared the reader of analysis of official documents and the like, but I fear he’s strayed too far in the opposite direction. Still, a very compelling read is there for the taking, and I found myself anticipating many a lunch hour for the chance to pour over the efforts of the little-experienced Americans as they attempt to bond with their English and French co-conspirators.
The first third of the story deals extensively with the gathering of the Jedburghs’ forces, their training, a bit of background and explanation of the need for such a force.
The Jedburghs were formed out of a need for a behind-enemy-lines force that could train, consult, arm and ultimately lead a partisan resistance force in sabotage, intelligence and counter-, and ultimately a general uprising against the Axis forces. Working jointly with the British SOE, (Britain’s cloak-and-dagger unit) the Americans gathered French-speaking officers and radiomen from across the Army to be parachuted into France to coincide with the D-Day invasion of mainland Europe. The reader is given a back story for a number of characters, whom we will follow throughout the novel to either their victory or an untimely demise. The reader is likewise treated to a number of sub-plots that illustrate the struggle of the French resistance, most tellingly through the sordid treatment of one Odette Sansome, a member of the underground that was brutally tortured by the Nazis.
The Jedburgh teams, small units (3-4 men) were charged with making contact with the resistance, establishing hidden drop zones for the gathering of airdropped supplies and munitions, and arming and training the local resistance force. They were then to harass select Nazi patrols, destroy rail lines and clog up supply routes with ambushes, traps and roadblocks. For valid fear of reprisals against the local populace, the troops and resistance were instructed to avoid direct confrontation with the Germans, and likewise had to avoid pro-Vichy French as well, who sided with the Axis forces and worked to route Allied-sponsored resistance. As time passed and the main invasion force gained momentum, the Jed teams worked quickly to halt German reinforcement and otherwise assist the general army.
The book does a great service to the tradition of the secret warriors, sharing their story and in no way minimizing their impact on the invasion as a whole and the war in western Europe from 1944 on. One could almost ask for more character development, more day-to-day effort, but Beavan has shed a great light on the subject as is. The French forces are left with a certain anonymity, serving as a faceless rabble to be spurned into action by the Americans, but this seems to have been much the case. A humorous, if tragic side note is the divisions within the French resistance that existed, and between De Gaulle’s Free French, the many isolated underground units and those loyal to Petain, figurehead leader of France throughout German occupation that favored a wait-and-see attitude over aggressive resistance.
Though Beavan frames the Jedburghs’ story as the basis of the CIA of the 1960s and today, the men, units and agenda seem a far cry from the Watergate era, the Howard Hunts and Gordon Liddys we are more familiar with. Here we see armed fighters sharing the struggle with the locals, as much advisors as the Marine and Army units training the Vietnamese populace between 1963 and ‘67. With their diversionary tactics, arming the local populace and disconnect from the command structure, the seeds of the modern intelligence community are there, but it is refreshing to see a tale of bravery and triumph rather then one mired in scandal and ambiguous morality.
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