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"One of the outstanding surveys of the real life of a secret agent."
--Professor M R D Foot (from the Foreword of Moondrop to Gascony).
--Professor M R D Foot (from the Foreword of Moondrop to Gascony).
Product Description
On a cold, moonlit night in January 1944, Anne-Marie Walters, just 20 years old, parachuted into southwest France to work with the Resistance in preparation for the long-awaited Allied invasion. The daughter of a British father and a French mother, she was to act as a courier for George Starr, head of the WHEELWRIGHT circuit of SOE. Over the next seven months Anne-Marie criss-crossed the region, carrying messages, delivering explosives, arranging the escape of downed airmen and receiving parachute drops of arms and personnel at dead of night - living in constant fear of capture and torture by the Gestapo. Then, on the very eve of liberation, she was sent off on foot over the Pyrenees to Spain, carrying urgent despatches for London.
Anne-Marie Walters wrote Moondrop to Gascony immediately after the war, while the events were still vivid in her mind. It is a tale of high adventure, comradeship and kindness, of betrayals and appalling atrocities, and of the often unremarked courage of many ordinary French men and women who risked their lives to help drive German armies from French soil. And through it all shines Anne-Marie's quiet courage, a keen sense humour and, above all, her pure zest for life.
For this new edition, David Hewson, a former Regular Army Officer and much interested in military history, adds biographical details for the main characters, identifies the real people behind the pseudonyms and provides background notes. He also reveals what happened to Anne-Marie at the end of the war.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reliving the clandestine life,
By
This review is from: Moondrop to Gascony (Paperback)
This is a wonderful book, fully deserving both of the prize it won in 1947 and of this reissue. Writing with an elegant, light touch, Anne-Marie Walters gives one of the first and most candid accounts of the clandestine life of an SOE agent in occupied France during the Second World War. A mere twenty when she was parachuted into the South West to join the WHEELWRIGHT circuit, she was only twenty-three when the book was first published in 1946, yet throughout her narrative she tempers a young woman's élan and brilliance with a mature, objective honesty. The editor of this new edition, David Hewson, demonstrates exactly how accurate the author's account is by giving details of the real people hidden behind the pseudonyms of the original publication, as well as some useful contemporary photographs. In a postscript he outlines Walters' life after the war and also attempts to address the issue of exactly why, in August 1944, she was ordered back to Britain as 'undisciplined' by the head of her circuit, Lt. Col. George Starr. Motives in the whole affair seem very mixed. Politics definitely come into it, along with accusations of sexual misconduct, but now that the principal actors in this little wartime drama are all dead we will probably never know the full truth. What is certain is that the ebullience and courage of Anne-Marie Walters and of her fellow résistants will live on for many years yet in the pages of this marvellous memoir.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A most remarkable woman,
By
This review is from: Moondrop to Gascony (Paperback)
Some years ago I managed to obtain a second-hand copy of this book which I reckoned to be one of the classics of French resistance literature. It not only gives a graphic and authentic account of what it was like to be working with the resistance but also brilliant portraits of the author and the principal people she worked with. The tension at certain points equals or surpasses that of the best writers of thrillers. Now David Hewson has produced an annotated edition which fills in the gaps which the first edition, of neccesity, left unanswered together with a background of Anne-Marie Walters life. She was a most remarkable woman. I hope that new edition will introduce her to a new generation of readers.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This would make a great film,
This review is from: Moondrop to Gascony
I bought this book as it was written about the area in France I now live. It's a beautifully written account without any romancing of the subject; the experience of a twenty-year-old woman parachuted into occupied France. It has left left wanting to know more about her and her whole life.
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