Paul Cyr: OSS Operations in Occupied France in 1944 and China in 1945.
Paul Cyr not only lived the life of a secret agent and saboteur during World War II but lived to tell the tale — twice. A member of the Office of Strategic Services or OSS — America's wartime intelligence agency — Cyr parachuted into Occupied France in 1944 with orders to arm members of the Resistance. Having outwitted the Germans and the Gestapo, a year later Cyr found himself in China where he led an OSS team that blew up a railway bridge over the Yellow River.
HIGHLIGHT:
They rested in a wheat field, digging in frantically when they saw White Russian Cossacks beating the neighboring field.? They evaded the Cossacks and after several hours of alternately running and digging in, achieved their destination....
They continually ran into White Russian patrols and for sheer cruelty the Captain believes these troops surpassed even the Gestapo.?? They had a habit of riding into a village and shooting it up indiscriminately.? They caught one of the Maquis girl couriers, roped her to a saddle and dragged her through the village until she was dead.? All this, the captain believes, was to take out some of their chagrin at failing to capture the Jed team.
OSS Debriefing:
OSS/Washington makes a practice of interviewing returnees regarding their experiences in the field for the purpose of taking advantage of such experiences in future operations.? The following is an interview with Major (then Captain) Paul Cyr, of 817 Grant Avenue, Gary, Indiana.
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Captain Paul Cyr is very young in appearance, a Vermonter with a background of an old and famous French military family.? He is young enough, for example, to get excited as he talks.? The cynicism and reserve generally attributed to older men are not for him.? He calls a spade a spade and in describing it calls attention to the fact that it is a bloody spade.? In telling of his experienced his voice takes on a dramatic quality and he acts out the incidents as he goes along.?
He is 23.
Paul Cyr went into France twice.? The first time into Brittany immediately after D-Day until the 24th of August.? The second time he went back on the 7th of September to stay until the end of November.? He, ?his team of two, and a British team set off in a Stirling bomber, pinpointed on a perfect signal, and landed among 200 members of a reception committee whose chief armament appeared to be, according to the Captain, jackknives and slingshots.?
On his way down he was a little worried by a group of fifteen men running toward him.? They hit him as he landed, swarming all over him, tearing at his harness and waving knives.? His fears were dissipated, however, when he realized that they were enthusiastic friends, rather than ferocious enemies.? They were merely seeking to get him free of his chute.
One of the first things to strike the Captain, outside of his overly-cordial reception committee, was the fact that the whole thing seemed to be so informal and casual.? Members of the committee would yell to their friends on the outskirts of the field and generally make no effort to conceal their presence. The rejoicing at times reminded him of a football celebration.? Amid cheers, the operatives were chaired by the French and born triumphantly off to a farmhouse which was used as Headquarters.
“But what about security?” the Captain wanted to know.? “Where are the Germans?”? To which the French, pausing in their business of firing off a volley by way of celebration, replied “Oh, they’re almost a mile away!”? This kind of thing scared the Captain to death, he says.
Another instance of the inherent childishness and enthusiasm of the Maquis came when supplies were dropped by the planes.? The discovery of each container prompted the French to start right away a punitive expedition against the Nazis.? The OSS men, trying desperately to build up a backlog of supplies, were greatly tried by this over-eagerness.
The Captain and his team were to form. Train and supply commando units and lead them into harassing actions against the Germans.? Problems beset them at once.? Apparently no radio had been dropped.? Word was sent out to scour the area cautiously for the sets.? Next morning French farmers came in driving their wagons bearing radios.? Seems they had been dropped and scattered over a radius of five miles by misdirection.? Later the Captain discovered that the pilot had completely forgotten about dropping the radios, had flown almost back to London, then turned around and came all the way back.? Due to lack of signals, however, he got the equipment scattered all over the place.
Cyr’s first contact with a German came the following day.? He (the German) was brought in by a Frenchman driving the bakery cart, and he was quite dead.
As soon as word of the successful drop got out, recruits began to swarm in to the Farmhouse.? Hundreds and hundreds of Maquis came to get their guns, their ammunition, and their training.
Word would come in to the Headquarters that a truck loaded with Nazis was a mile down the road and right away a squad would set off to wipe them out.? Trouble with this behavior was that it could not help but call attention to the fact that a formidable store of munitions and men were in the vicinity.? The SAS men, who had come in with specific demolition objectives, also went into action.? They blew bridges and ambushed Germans with abandon.? It would only be a question of time before the Germans mounted their own punitive expedition.
Meanwhile, the Captain, besides trying to restrain with reason the enthusiasm of the Maquis and the SAS, was contacting local Maqui chiefs and trying to repair the radios so that a signal could be put through to London.
In fifteen days of comparative quiet the team was able to arm and equip 5000 Maquis with Bren guns, Bazookas, Stens, grenades and pistols.? It was now the 19th of June … the continent had been invaded and all hell was starting with the Germans.
But some training had been affected.? It was limited and it was not always successful.? The French in their eagerness to learn would cause a gun to go off accidentally or would pull a pen [from] the grenade and let go, tossing it over their shoulders.? There were more French killed by French in that fortnight than by the Germans, according to Paul Cyr.
The Captain saw that security regulations were tightened up for the area, but occasional skirmishes indicated that the Nazis were suspicious and constantly probing in larger patrols to get information.
In addition it could not be concealed that large numbers of planes were flying ove r the area dropping supplies.? One night, for example, thirty planes came over dropping six jeeps all completely armed with machine guns.
The arrival of the jeeps seemed to set off the main fireworks and at 6 a.m., the next morning, what proved to be a fateful day, began.
A jeep with SAS men in it ran into a German armored patrol (Feldgendarmerie).? The jeep reacting on the SAS men like Benzadrine prompted them to challenge the patrol and capture it.? Accordingly one of tehm hopped out and walked right up to the enemy, threatening them with his pistols and demanding that they get their hands up.? Much to everybody’s surprise the Germans did just that.? All except one, who made a move for his gun. The SAS man fired his pistol and discovered that he had forgotten to load it.? Just one of those things, says the Captain.? The damndest things happen in the heat of the moment!
In a second the Germans were in a ditch firing madly.? And another party of Maquis coming up the road opened up with one of the newly arrived Bren guns, firing indiscriminately. Killing many of the Jeep party as well as the Germans.
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Eventually the German patrol was decimated except for one man.? He escaped.? Trouble started.
At 9 a.m. 200 Nazis returned to march through the local village and pick hostages. These hostages were carefully marched ahead of their column as they came down the road.
The Maquis laid in wait along the road and opened fire on the flanks.? In this way the column was stopped and the hostages unharmed. The Nazis began a retreat and there was a brisk battle for an hour during which they were surrounded.? By setting the fields afire with tracer bullets, they managed to retreat back to the village escaping in the smoke, calling promptly for reinforcements.
At 2 p.m., several battalions of Nazi Paratroopers appeared.? They were crack troops, says the Captain.? They were wild men, fighting without regard for losses.? One position after another our men were wiped out.? The Maquis held well, much better than had been expected for men fighting with new equipment and with little training.? They were chiefly equipped with enthusiasm, unfortunately, and the Nazis not only matched this but threw the best of years of training to supplement it.
By 3:30 p.m., the Nazi battalions had surrounded our farmhouse Headquarters on all sides and the Jed team operator sent an urgent appeal to London for planes.
In less that two hours 35 fighter-bombers appeared in response to this appeal, bombing and strafing enemy lines.? It was an action better calculated to raise morale than help strategically, however.? The German advance was held up, but they holed in and set it out until the planes were through.
Then they resumed the advance.? They were not within 400 years of our main force defending the supplies at Headquarters.? And they had completely sealed off the area.
An inferno broke out, according to the Captain.? All equipment, including field guns, was brought to bear on the Nazis.? IN the next hour and a half 700 Maquis were wiped out.? The Nazis fought like maniacs says the Captain, but at nightfall they were still 400 yards from the Headquarters.
That night the leaders reviewed the situation. They were defending an immense amount of supplies, including 5 tons of high explosive.? It was worth fighting for but it was equally apparent that the Nazis were determined to wipe out the sector.? It was decided to abandon the supplies.? The Captain pointed out that the FFI {Free French of the Interior] were not “holding” troops, functioning at their best in hit and run raids.? This was a factor which determined their decision to fight their way out.? The Jed team packed their emergency kits for escape.
The explosives and supplies were piled together and wired for explosion so that nothing of value would fall into enemy hands. The SAS and Jed teas were divided into groups of five men and a rendezvous arranged in another area for the leaders.
It was early morning now and the breakthrough was to be made by truck but according to Cyr, there was considerable trouble in loading the truck.? Everybody fighting to get on and before serious trouble could start the Captain ordered his team to fight it out on foot.
They left for the front lines and with them went a group of British visitors, who had been forced down and were attempting to get back to England, and an English staff officer.? Where he came from, the Captain never found out.? Things were like that in this terrified moment, says the Captain.
Incidentally, the Captain paid tribute to his compass training at this time.? Had to take an azimuth reading on the pre-arranged rendezvous and then march on the azimuth, to the destination, with many deviations and detours.
Bit by bit the party edged its way out of the firing zone and through the enemy line.? Extreme tenseness led to the men firing at anything that moved, friend or foe, cows and horses.
They rested in a wheat field, digging in frantically when they saw White Russian Cossacks beating the neighboring field.? They evaded the Cossacks and after several hours of alternately running and digging in, achieved their destination.
They had their first meal in a “Safe-house” only to be interrupted by one of our parachutists who warned that the Nazis had picked up the trail and were in the vicinity looking for the party. ?The old lady, who with her husband ran the farm, guided them to the river (the old man, a less hardy character, remained behind to clean up evidences of our occupation.)
According to Cyr, the “old lady”, (about 45), not only showed the way along the river and urged the team to follow it, but at a later rendezvous even swam across the river to put them on the right track and hide them in an old mill.
Ten miles away a tremendous explosion shook them up.? It was the arsenal at Headquarters.? Apparently the Nazis had wiped out the sector but never reached the supplies.
The old lady knew the ground and guided them safely out of danger.
They had to skirt the area in a wide circle because remnants of our original force of 5000 were still fighting.? It was exhausting work and the Captain recalls that they were taking benzadrine every six hours.? Which worked fine except for the let down when the effects wore off.
And still the Germans, frequently using vicious dogs, kept picking up their trail.? Heading south the party was forced at one time to hide out 5 days and nights in a charcoal cellar.? During all this period they didn’t know if it was daylight or dark, whether the footsteps they heard overhead were friend or foe.
All they knew for certain was that they were closely pursued by an inexorable enemy bent on wiping them out.
They left the cellar and headed south, passing from hand to hand.? From one farmer, days later, they learned that the Gestapo had found parachute equipment in one of the houses they had used for refuge.? The Gestapo had dealt out their customary punishment to the family … the father’s head was cut off … the mother was raped and tortured, the children were killed.
Once the party passed through a village, too late they spotted a German patrol at the end of one street.? They were in nondescript uniform and bold as brass walked right past the patrol, reached the corner and … ran like hell.
They continually ran into White Russian patrols and for sheer cruelty the Captain believes these troops surpassed even the Gestapo.?? They had a habit of riding into a village and shooting it up indiscriminately.? They caught one of the Maquis girl couriers, roped her to a saddle and dragged her through the village until she was dead.? All this, the captain believes, was to take out some of their chagrin at failing to capture the Jed team.
All contact with any liaison was lost.? The team plodded south, grateful to keep one step ahead of capture.? They planned to organize in the next Department, the Loire Inferiure.
?HIA-R William Casey J-5E-137-5.pdf