Remembering an Anglo-French spy and hero of the French resistance

A reader from Brittany has written to The Connexion to share the story of a Anglo-French man who played a key role in the Resistance during the liberation of northern France in 1944.

André Hue helped coordinate the Resistance to fight the Nazis in Brittany, keeping them occupied there as the battle for Normandy raged.

Reader Alan Monks, from Malestroit (Morbihan), has researched the tumultuous events and even spoken to Mr Hue’s daughter, Nikki Bennett, who is translating his autobiography, The Next Moon, into French. It was published in English by Penguin shortly before he died in 2005.

Mr Monks told The Connexion he thinks “there is a great need for his history to be told”.

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Shipwrecked in Nazi occupied France 

Born in Wales to a French father and Welsh mother, André Hue spent his schooldays in Le Havre and joined the French merchant navy as a teenager. In June 1940, his ship was sunk off La Rochelle by a mine and he swam ashore. He ended up working at a railway station in Brittany, where he joined the Resistance.

Mr Monks said: “Early in the war, Hue – who the French called Captain Bob – was working at a train station in Guer (Morbihan) organising the wagons. The Germans were loading their equipment onto trains there, and he sent information so the RAF could bomb the trains.”

He added: “There was a farmhouse at nearby Saint-Marcel called La Nouette, and the owner and his family allowed the Resistance on their land. André Hue found a strip of land that the UK was able to use as a drop zone, which was known as la Baleine [the whale].”

His fluent French was essential to his work. However, in his book he says he worried that his Normandy accent might be noticed by the collaborationist French Milice in Brittany.

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Bravery awards

Mr Hue crossed to the UK to join the Special Operations Executive and he parachuted back into Brittany before D-Day along with French members of the UK’s Special Air Service regiment. He was later awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Croix de Guerre for his bravery.

He joined Pierre Marienne, who was heading the Resistance fighters in the area, Mr Monks said. “He was there when there was a shooting of heads of the Resistance – including Marienne. 

“André Hue had to get all the Resistance members together to reform and carry the battle on, which was drawing the German soldiers away from the north coast. I understand they brought 3,000 troops here to Malestroit, to try to flatten the Resistance who were causing so many problems for them.”

He added: “At one point they cut up a railway to stop trains running, and used pieces of track to make anti-tank barriers to stop tanks coming through.”

Mr Hue survived the war, and went on to fight in other conflicts for the British army.

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Amazing life story

Mr Monks, 72, who has lived in Brittany since the early 2000s and previously ran a B&B, heard stories of the war from his neighbours after moving. He then obtained Mr Hue’s autobiography.

“The accounts in the book involve all the villages around us in the area where we live,” he said. “I shared it with a neighbour who is on the committee of the Musée de la Résistance en Bretagne in Saint-Marcel and its director told him it was the most accurate description that exists about what had gone on.

“They had some of André Hue’s paperwork on display, such as the false ID card that he used to go around with.

“They then asked if it could be translated into French, as we were coming up to the 80th anniversary. I got in touch with its publishers, who put me in touch with André’s ghostwriter, who said I should speak to Nikki.

“She rang me – and I found myself talking to the daughter of this man whose story I had read with enjoyment and trepidation – and she’s now translating the book."