Robert Jean Marie de La Rochefoucauld fled France in 1940 to escape the relentless Gestapo forces.
He returned three years later, but the 19-year-old had become
a cunning and lethal French resistance operative trained by British commandos
to conduct sabotage and reconnaissance missions deep within enemy territory.
After dropping from a warplane in the wilderness near the town of
Bordeaux and concealing his parachute, La Rochefoucauld immediately began to work.
The young man first acquired a local worker's uniform, allowing him to pass unnoticed in the
German-occupied city. He then infiltrated a German munitions plant and, little by little,
smuggled 40 kilograms of explosives concealed in hollowed-out baguettes and
specially designed shoes. After four days, he set off the payload and rushed from the scene.
The story, however, would be a mere afterthought compared to the daring
adventures the man considered the greatest French saboteur was destined to lead…
Escaping France
La Rochefoucauld was an outrageously shrewd and ingenious boy. He was one of ten children of a
rich and influential family which lived just a few yards from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
But his prosperous life was soon shattered by the rolling drums of war. After France fell in 1940,
the Gestapo took his father due to his close ties with the anti-Hitler Charles de Gaulle government.
The family’s status as French nobles did not spare them from the horrors of war.
Once taken by the Gestapo, the young La Rochefoucauld was secretly contacted by
the French resistance movement in 1942.
With the help of the resistance, the young aristocrat managed to escape to Spain,
where he assumed a new identity and hoped that the Nazis would finally lose his trial.
As he came of age, it became clear that he was meant to fight for his home and family
and he hatched a plan to reach an Allied country. Using his contacts in the French resistance, La
Rochefoucauld rendezvoused with two downed British airmen who were attempting to go back to Britain.
The three men were eventually captured by General Francisco Franco's soldiers and taken
to camp Miranda de Ebro. When the British embassy in Spain interceded for their men,
the young man used his formidable education as part of the French Gentry to fool the
Spanish authorities into believing he was actually an English citizen.
Soon, he was delivered to the British embassy along with the pilots. The British authorities
were so blown away by the man's resourcefulness, ingenuity, and will to fight that they offered him
the opportunity to join the Special Operations Executive or SOE, the clandestine special force
that Prime Minister Winston Churchill established in 1940 to: (QUOTE) "Set Europe ablaze."
Right there, a noble boy was suddenly turned into a resistance saboteur…
Sentenced to Execution
After joining the SOE, La Rochefoucauld received brutal and expedited training as
a covert operative. He was trained in sabotage, interrogation, intelligence gathering, languages,
and tactics, and acquired a whole range of practical skills such as parachuting out of
airplanes, setting off explosives, and taking a man's life in mere seconds using only his hands.
By 1943, the young French operative was ready for his
first mission deep inside Nazi-occupied France.
La Rochefoucauld’s first operation involved gathering intelligence and resources to wreak
havoc on the railroad assets in the area. Everything appeared to be going according to
plan after he managed to rig the railroad tracks at Avalon and completely obliterate them. However,
he was soon captured in a nearby city and condemned to execution on the spot.
As he was thrown into the back of a German truck to be taken out of the city for execution,
La Rochefoucauld took advantage of the guards’ distraction to
spring to his feet and jump off the moving truck.
The pursuers hunted him fiercely and alerted all units in the area while he
dodged bullets and clambered across city streets and narrow alleyways.
Panting and exhausted beyond belief, the young operative then emerged on
the other side of an alley just to run straight into a German military post.
However, where others saw misfortune, he saw hidden opportunities.
Outside the complex, he spotted a lavish limousine flying a Nazi banner. After peeking inside,
he realized the driver had left the key in the ignition and was nowhere to be seen.
The saboteur drove the limousine out of the city and boarded a train to Paris as soon as he could.
He then hid under the restroom's sink and stayed there for the duration of the trip.
La Rochefoucauld would later tell The Daily Telegraph that:
(QUOTE) "When we arrived in Paris, I felt drunk with freedom."
Path of Destruction
After making it to Paris, La Rochefoucauld was immediately extracted from France and
taken back to Britain, as he was a high-priority target.
After the situation cooled down months later,
he was dropped into the heart of Nazi-occupied France again.
This time, his objective was the destruction of the Saint-Médard-en-Jalles munitions plant,
which was being used by the Germans to supply their troops with ammunition.
Using the ingenuity that had served him so well before,
La Rochefoucauld decided to use a rather unorthodox approach to the sabotage operation.
The young man infiltrated the local worker population and managed to get a uniform.
He then hollowed out the sole of a pair of working boots and began smuggling explosives
into the plant little by little. When he realized the process would be too slow
and risky, he decided to smuggle the explosives inside decanted baguettes.
The plan worked brilliantly, as he could easily justify the bread as part of the
workers' meals and carry a much larger load of explosives this way. After four days,
the 40-kilogram payload had been set, and all that was left was to trigger the explosion.
As he finally set it off, the young operative barely escaped the conflagration,
and the whole plant was engulfed in fire. He then climbed over a wall and fled on a bicycle.
After informing Britain of his success,
he received a single word in response: (QUOTE) "Félicitations.”
Donning The Habit
Despite his significant success, La Rochefoucauld was identified and captured a few days later.
The young saboteur was taken to Fort du Hâ in Bordeaux to await execution,
but he quickly feigned an epileptic seizure. When a guard opened the door and rushed in,
the Frenchman hit him over the head with a table leg and took the guard's uniform
and pistol, neutralized other guards, and escaped.
Once outside, La Rochefoucauld realized that every German soldier in the vicinity
was hunting him down. He would definitely be shot in the spot if he was captured.
The saboteur then approached the only man in the region that could help him:
a French underground worker who was also a resistance fighter.
Together, the two men schemed a ludicrous idea that was so crazy it might just work.
The worker's sister was a nun at a local monastery and let La Rochefoucauld have
her habit so he could sneak out of the contested area. The saboteur donned the habit and calmly
walked out in the open, traveling for hours right in front of countless Nazi agents.
After traveling for miles, La Rochefoucauld reached the home of
a high-ranking member of the French Resistance who offered to hide him.
By now, the Normandy landings were around the corner,
and Britain decided to use him for the large-scale operation.
As the operation started, La Rochefoucauld conducted dozens of sabotage and espionage
missions helping the advance of the Allies from within enemy territory.
Unfortunately, his luck ran out again, and he was captured by the SS while carrying out a mission.
The Germans would not risk another prison escape,
so they immediately dragged him to a field to be executed by a firing squad.
As the German soldiers prepared to carry out the deed, a group of French partisans managed to seize
a series of machine gun posts on the other side of the field. The sudden attack on the Germans
gave a euphoric La Rochefoucauld just enough time to escape and cheat fate one more time…
The Big Job
By 1945, France had already been liberated by the Allies except for a handful of small but fierce
pockets of German fighters that continued to hold control of specific regions in the country.
In addition, a new Allied weapon capable of
unleashing untold devastation had recently been introduced: napalm.
Several menacing, cement-fortified anti-aircraft artillery complexes armed with 280-millimeter
guns were everywhere along the beaches, and the diehard Germans holding them had no intention of
surrendering. One of these fortresses stood in La Rochefoucauld's path to complete his
most recent mission, and he was forced to hatch an elaborate plan to conquer the fort.
The casemate sat near the water's edge, and La Rochefoucauld suggested using an
inflatable raft to slip a demolition team behind it under cover of night.
The demolition team could then plant explosives on the fortification's outer wall,
and La Rochefoucauld volunteered to lead the team personally.
The night was quiet and cold, and the skies were covered by a thick blanket
of gray clouds that drizzled rainwater lazily over the French landscape. La Rochefoucauld and
three other commandos paddled in solemn silence for several
hours with a single flashlight guiding their path through the murky waters.
Once at the foot of the towering casemate, the men disembarked onto the narrow beach carrying rope,
munitions, and enough explosives to awake the entire French countryside.
They then approached the fortification in a single line, but when they finally made
it to the outer perimeter of the complex, they were met with an unexpected surprise…
Infiltration
The men quickly realized that an additional outer wall completely surrounded the casemate. As such,
they would need to surpass the outer rampart and rig the explosives into the inner main wall.
The wall was mostly covered by camouflage netting, making it hard to spot from a distance. Again,
La Rochefoucauld's nature immediately kicked in: someone had to climb over
the wall and mesh while the rest of the team guarded the position by the raft.
The experienced saboteur spearheaded the risky operation,
carefully climbing the slippery surfaces of the outer wall under the constant drizzling.
The rain made his job more difficult, but it also masked the sound of his movements.
As long as he didn't slip, everything would be under control.
Between the wall and the main casemate was an 8-foot gap constantly patrolled
by a German guard, and La Rochefoucauld used
the camouflage net to silently position himself above the guard's patrol path.
The rain, the cold, and the darkness helped the saboteur move undetected. La Rochefoucauld
then used his knife to make a hole in the netting, but the process was long and tedious,
and the guard below made several rounds before the Frenchman could cut a big enough gap to fit in.
Finally, the moment came, and as the guard stood below the hole, La Rochefoucauld plummeted into
him, knocking him to the ground and denying him the chance to make even the slightest noise.
He then signaled his cohort to pass him the explosive charges.
As he placed the charges on the inner wall and set the timer to go off in seven minutes,
his teammate helped him get back over the outer wall,
and the team slipped into the night aboard their inflatable raft…
Absolute Sabotage
The explosion went off a few hundred yards from the casemate. A loud blast rang throughout the
war-torn province, and the French resistance fighter felt a solid urge to celebrate.
Even so, they had to be quiet because the whole area was swarmed by German
patrols looking for them, and they waited to celebrate until they got back to base.
The mission results were then passed down to the Allied military forces, and an operation
was immediately planned to capture the casemate the following day. However, La Rochefoucauld
was plagued by doubts and wondered if his plastic explosives had worked as intended.
The next day, a French formation marched towards the casemate. The assault was
initiated by an artillery barrage, and the infantrymen were led by French tanks.
Even so, La Rochefoucauld kept expecting the casemate's massive
guns to begin shredding through the invading force, but it never happened.
The men then made it to the fortification and found the casemate mostly abandoned.
Their midnight covert operation had been a massive success. Once again,
the bravery and resourcefulness of La Rochefoucauld were cemented for posterity.
Like many of the most daring and influential war heroes of World War 2, La Rochefoucauld survived
the war and led a peaceful life in France until the age of 88. In his later years,
he was again called by his noble title and known as Count Robert De La Rochefoucauld.
He would be remembered as the greatest French saboteur of all time…
Thank you for watching Dark Docs!
To discover the lives of more legendary war heroes forgotten by time, subscribe to our channel and
check out the rest of our other Dark Documentaries channels, where we publish regularly. Stay tuned!