Radio messages for the resistance
No less than 160 messages broadcast
The 1er June 1944, the first radio messages were sent.
On BBC radio, starting at 13:30 p.m., the French service broadcast the first personal message to the Resistance in France, "The hour of battle will come." This radio message was actually addressed to the resistance fighters in region M, comprising 14 departments in western France.
Among the 160 other personal messages heard that day, the first three lines of Verlaine's poem "The Long Sobs of the Violins of Autumn" were broadcast for the first time. Repeated on June 2, these messages foreshadowed the 210 personal messages broadcast on June 5 for 16 minutes.
"The dice are on the table."
The dissemination of this message signifies the implementation of the Green Plan, that is, the sabotage of the railways by the resistance.
"It's hot in Suez" and "Rock my heart with a monotonous languor."
When these two messages follow one another, they signify the outbreak of guerrilla warfare against the enemy.
These last verses of Verlaine are not addressed to the entire French Resistance, as the Germans who infiltrated certain resistance groups of the British SOE believed, but only to the "Ventriloquist" network operating in Loir-et-Cher.
The Norman resistance immediately took action and dynamited:
- the road from Saint-Lô to Coutances
- the Paris-Cherbourg line above Carentan
- the Paris-Granville rails near Saint-Manvieu
- the Caen-Bayeux and Caen-Vire lines
The telephone cables connecting the PC of the 84e German army corps from Saint-Lô to that of the 91ste The Valognes infantry division was cut. During the night, the resistance cut the cables between Saint-Lô and Jersey and between Brest and Cherbourg.
What was the first message broadcast on the radio?
It is about “the hour of battle will come.”
How many messages were broadcast on the airwaves on June 1?
No fewer than 160 personal messages resonated over the BBC airwaves on June 1, 1944.
Find out more
Have we piqued your curiosity? Find out here how they prepared for the landing.
