Ruth made her way through a carriage and sat at a window seat. She looked at Jimmie, who remained standing on the landing. A whistle blew and the train jerked forward. She kissed her fingers and placed them on the glass.
Jimmie smiled and put a hand over his heart.
A tear fell down her cheek. The train chugged over the tracks, and she watched him disappear.
Conflicting emotions surged through her. She was overjoyed that Jimmie was alive, yet gutted to leave him. Our obligation to serve Allied forces comes first, she thought with her vision blurred with tears. Her sense of duty did little to quell her anguish, and she knew, deep down, that the chances of survival for a pilot and intelligence agent—assuming she passed her SOE training—were stacked against them. She resolved to carry on the fight for freedom, regardless of the risk, and return to him after the war. We found our way back to each other once—we will do it again.
Ruth leaned back in her seat and wiped her eyes. She gazed out the window at the skyline of London, scarred with destroyed and damaged buildings. The train chugged away from the city center, leaving the destruction and howls of fire brigades behind.
“Tickets!” a train attendant called.
She straightened her back and smoothed her skirt.
The attendant—wearing a black suit with brass buttons and a cap—examined and punched passenger tickets as he made his way down the aisle of the carriage.
Ruth retrieved her travel bag, reached inside, and froze. A smile formed on her lips, and a warmth of hope enveloped her as she removed a tattered, oil-stained Piglet.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While conducting research for Fleeing France, I became fascinated by Operation Aerial and the tragedy of the RMS Lancastria. The goal of the operation—which took place from June 15 to 25, 1940—was to evacuate Allied troops and civilians from ports in western France, following the collapse of Allied military forces in the Battle of France. The mission was a huge success, rescuing 191,870 soldiers and approximately 40,000 civilians, but it came at a great cost. The Lancastria, a British ocean liner requisitioned for the operation, was sunk by a German air raid off the coast of Saint-Nazaire on June 17, 1940. The ship was loaded far beyond its capacity of 1,300 passengers, and it is estimated that between 4,000 and 7,000 people perished in the sinking of the vessel. The Lancastria is the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history, and more people were killed in the sinking of the Lancastria than the Titanic and Lusitania disasters combined. Due to the enormous loss of life and potential wartime implications, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a D-notice to suppress news of the tragedy from being released to the public. According to the British Official Secrets Act, the government’s report on the Lancastria cannot be released until the year 2040. Also, I was surprised to learn that the French government placed an exclusion zone around the wreck site of the Lancastria, but the United Kingdom has yet to make the site an official maritime war grave because the wreckage lies in French territorial waters. The secrecy surrounding the Lancastria served as inspiration for writing the story, and it is my hope that this book will commemorate the thousands of soldiers and civilians who perished in the disaster.
During my research, I became increasingly captivated by the brave women who volunteered to drive ambulances for France. There was no women’s section in the French Army of 1939–40. However, several hundred women served as civilian volunteers in auxiliary ambulance sections, attached to the army in the field. It is difficult to imagine how dangerous and difficult it was for the drivers to perform their duties under the rampage of the German military. After the fall of France, many of these women drivers served in the French Resistance, and some went on to become spies in Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), including an American named Virginia Hall and a New Zealander named Nancy Wake. Hall and Wake, both of whom accomplished valiant feats of espionage in German-occupied France, provided inspiration for creating Ruth Lacroix’s character. I like to imagine that Ruth’s experience in a French ambulance corps during the Battle of France provided her with the motivation and skills needed to be a stealthy spy.
In addition to the women ambulance drivers, I was intrigued to learn about the No. 73 Squadron RAF, a real group of fighter pilots who were equipped with Hawker Hurricanes and deployed to France at the outbreak of the war. Edgar “Cobber” Kain, Newell “Fanny” Orton, James “Hank” More, and Peter Ayerst were real pilots of the squadron who make appearances in the book. There were multiple leaders of the No. 73 Squadron during the timeline of the novel, and I used Hank as the sole squadron leader for consistency. Cobber was the RAF’s first flying ace of World War II, and he was killed when he crashed his Hurricane while performing low-level aerobatics for his squadron mates, who were gathered at the airfield at Échemines to bid him farewell for his flight back to England. Fanny, another flying ace of the squadron, was wounded in a dogfight in the Battle of France, which is included in the book. Although Fanny survived the timeline of the novel, he was shot down and killed in September of 1941 on the Channel Front. Of the four real pilots of the squadron who appear in the book, Ayerst—who lived to a splendid age of ninety-three—is the only one who survived the war.
There were several Hurricane squadrons in France during the onset of the war, but I chose the No. 73 Squadron because of its ties to the Lancastria. Approximately forty ground crew of the squadron perished in the sinking of the vessel. I used Jimmie’s friendship with Horace, a ground crewman, to provide readers a view of the approximate eight hundred men who were ordered to remain in the hull of the ill-fated ship.
While conducting research on RAF pilots of World War II, I learned that many aviators were quite superstitious and often carried a good luck charm, talisman, family photo, or religious medallion while flying missions. I wanted to give Jimmie a symbol of hope, so I imagined that his sister, Nora, who fought to regain her ability to walk after contracting polio, would gift him something special for inspiration. As a child, I loved the book Winnie-the-Pooh, and I couldn’t resist endearing him with a tiny stuffed Piglet, a timid character who endeavors to be brave and overcome his fears.
Prior to doing research for the book, I knew little about the Phony War, an eight-month period after France and Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. During this phase of the war, there was little military conflict, with the exceptions of air skirmishes and a French invasion of Saarland, Germany, from September 7 to 16, 1939. In the Saar Offensive—a now nearly forgotten invasion—French troops suffered approximately two thousand casualties before retreating amid a German counteroffensive. In the book, Ruth’s cousin, Marceau, was killed during France’s invasion of the Saarland. I used this event to launch Ruth into serving in the war, and I thought that readers might enjoy learning about this little-known event. Who knew that France invaded Germany?
The Battle of France lasted approximately six weeks and, prior to conducting research for the book, I was of the mindset that the French military was far inferior to that of the German Army. While Hitler’s military was superior, especially his Luftwaffe, the French Army was a million strong with five million reservists. Also, France had large and formidable battalions of tanks, and its air force had a sizeable fleet, although many of the aircraft were outdated. My research indicated that most French soldiers fought courageously, and it was catastrophic actions of senior French military leaders—such as poor communication and military tactics, and the assumption that the Ardennes Forest was impassable for German Panzer tanks—that led to the swift fall of France.
It was heart-wrenching to learn about the massive exodus of French civilians during the German invasion. In the summer of 1940, between six and ten million French fled their homes. It was my intent to provide readers with a personal story of the hardships faced by refugees, so I created a subplot with Pierre and his granddaughter, Aline—French Jews who suffered the loss of family members and were determined to never live under German occupation. During my research, I encountered many stories of children who were orphaned during the invasion of France, and I imagined Ruth and Lucette coming to the aid of Aline to provide her a home where she would be loved and cared for. The United States Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM) was a real organization that was established in June of 1940. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was the USCOM’s chairwoman, and the organization rescued more than three hundred refugee children, most of them Jewish, from western Europe.
It was an honor and pleasure to research the rise of Winston Churchill from First Lord of the Admiralty to prime minister. I spent many enjoyable hours reading and listening to his speeches, as well as scouring over reports of his interaction with Prime Minister Chamberlain, members of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council (SWC), and General Hastings “Pug” Ismay—Churchill’s chief military assistant. Although Churchill was a hands-on leader who engaged directly with his Chiefs of Staff, I used his close relationship with Ismay to provide readers a view of the events taking place during the French Campaign. I strived to display Churchill as a confident wartime leader who inspired hope in the darkest of times. Also, it was my endeavor to show Churchill’s reasons for keeping the sinking of the Lancastria a secret.
During my research, I discovered many intriguing historical events, which I labored to accurately weave into the timeline of the book. For example, on June 3, 1940, the German Luftwaffe bombed Paris and its suburbs for the first time. The Luftwaffe’s primary target was the Citroën automobile factory, but a bomb also struck a school. The air raid on Paris killed 254 people, including 195 civilians. The German invasions of Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France are depicted in the story, and I strived to provide accurate dates of unfolding events. I was surprised to learn that Churchill visited France during the conflict, and I included his meetings with the Anglo-French Supreme War Council in the story. In addition to Operation Aerial and the sinking of the Lancastria, I included mention of lesser-known military plans—Operation Wilfred, a British naval plan to mine the sea passage between Norway and its offshore islands; and Operation Royal Marine, a plan to float fluvial mines down rivers that flowed into Germany from France. The No. 73 Squadron RAF moved many times during the Battle of France, and I used the airfields reflected in my research. On November 8, 1939, Cobber Kain shot down a German Dornier Do 17 bomber, the first aerial victory of this war, and I thought it was important to include this event in the story. Also, Ruth is recruited for Britain’s Special Operation Executive in late September of 1940, a few months after the creation of the organization. Although most female agents were recruited later in the war, I accelerated the timeline of Ruth’s enrollment into the SOE to align with Jimmie’s escape to England. I attempted to accurately reflect the timeline and locations of the Germany military invasion, specifically the advancement of Panzer tank divisions through France. Additionally, I strived to precisely depict various types of RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft. Any historical inaccuracies in this book are mine and mine alone.
Numerous historical figures make appearances in this book, most notably Winston Churchill. It is important to emphasize that Fleeing France is a story of fiction, and that I took creative liberties in writing this tale. In addition to Churchill, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, General Ismay, General Weygand, General Gamelin, Marshal Pétain, Cobber Kain, Fanny Orton, Hank More, Peter Ayerst, and Nicolas Bodington appear in the story. Also, the Bal Tabarin was a real cabaret in Paris during the war. I created a fictitious casting director named Fermin to develop tension for Ruth to quit her singing job and join the ambulance corps. In real life, Pierre Sandrini was a producer and co-owner of the Bal Tabarin, and I discovered during my research that he saved the lives of four Jewish employees during the war.
Numerous books, documentaries, and historical archives were crucial for my research. The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson was incredibly helpful with understanding the events that led to the defeat of France, and the exodus of refugees fleeing the country. Operation Aerial: Churchill’s Second Miracle of Deliverance by David Worsfold and The Sinking of the Lancastria: Britain’s Greatest Maritime Disaster and Churchill’s Cover-Up by Jonathan Fenby were exceptional resources for understanding the details of the evacuation operation and the Lancastria disaster. Also, the 1939 newsreel Paris Dances included the actual film footage of Bal Tabarin, which was a tremendous resource for writing the scenes with Ruth working as a cabaret singer.
It was a privilege to write this book. I will forever be inspired by the courageous service of the women of the French ambulance corps, and the RAF pilots who were deployed to France. I will never forget the thousands who died in the sinking of the Lancastria, and I’ll always remember the millions of French citizens who fled their home in the wake of the German military invasion. It is my hope that this book will pay tribute to the men, women, and children who perished in the Battle of France.
Fleeing France would not have been possible without the support of many people. I’m eternally thankful to the following gifted individuals:
I am deeply grateful to my brilliant editor, John Scognamiglio. John’s guidance, encouragement, and enthusiasm were immensely helpful with the writing of this book.
Many thanks to my fabulous agent, Mark Gottlieb, for his support and counsel with my journey as an author. I feel extremely fortunate to have Mark as my agent.
My deepest appreciation to my publicist, Vida Engstrand. I am profoundly grateful for Vida’s tireless efforts to promote my stories to readers.
It takes a team effort to publish a book, and I am forever grateful to everyone at Kensington Publishing for bringing this story to life.
I’m thankful to have Kim Taylor Blakemore, Tonya Mitchell, and Jacqueline Vick as my accountability partners. Our weekly video conferences helped us to finish our manuscripts on time.
My sincere thanks to Akron Writers’ Group: Betty Woodlee, Ken Waters, Dave Rais, John Stein, Rachel Freggiaro, Marcie Blandford, and Corry Novosel. And a special heartfelt thanks to Betty Woodlee, who critiqued an early draft of the manuscript.
This story would not have been possible without the love and support of my wife, Laurie, and our children, Catherine, Philip, Lizzy, Lauren, and Rachel. Laurie, you are—and always will be—meu céu.
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FLEEING FRANCE
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