Haven't heard of this one. "Two black Citroen saloon cars – typical Gestapo vehicles – crawled through the narrow Brittany lanes, the drivers clearly lost. Moment later their occupants – all Gestapo agents – were dead or running for their lives. A flaming projectile tore apart the first vehicle, turning it into a ball of searing fire, and bullets raked the second. Four men bailed out and ran. Three were captured by their assailants, but the last managed to slip away. This did not bode well for the ambushers – the men of the SAS, who here in Brittany were fighting alongside their French Resistance comrades. These 36 SAS had been the first Allied troops to land on French soil, as the vanguard for Operation Overlord they had parachuted behind the lines into Brittany. Landing at 23:40 hours on the night of the June 5, 1944, they hit the ground before the main Allied troops made the Normandy beaches. Theirs was a top secret and vital mission. Led by the one-armed Pierre-Louis Bourgoin, a French SAS colonel, and a former British Secret Intelligence Service agent, they were charged with 'attacking railways, cutting telecoms, striking opportunity targets e.g. attacks on soft vehicles, sentries...' Their aim was to cut off Brittany from the Normandy Beaches, so preventing the mass of German troops stationed there from attacking the Allied forces spearheading the D-Day landings. But the SAS also had another, ultra-secret role. They were to gather intelligence on the port of Saint-Malo, on the northern Brittany coastline, and to secure maps and plans of the enemy's defences. A second D-Day landing operation was being planned, one that would involve sailing British and American warships directly into Saint-Malo, to land troops. If that could be done, the Allies would have outflanked the enemy, easing pressure on the Normandy beachheads." The secret plan for 'D-Day Two' if Normandy landings had failed: SAS team led by one-armed Frenchman parachuted into Nazi-held Brittany night before June 6, 1944 to seize port and enable Allies to invade, reveals historian DAMIEN LEWIS | Daily Mail Online
