OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE
By Stephen Morris
In August 1944, the German army, which had spread itself over most of Europe, was finally
retreating from the South of France. This followed the Allied landings in Provence. As a part of the campaign to slow down the departing Germans, eight British SOC soldiers, heavily loaded with ammunition landed in Hérault to join forces with the French Underground. The plan was to blow up bridges, block roads and lay ambushes across the area.
It had been reported that there were 8,500 German troops in Hérault, along with 80 tanks and over 100 support vehicles which were moving between Castres and Montpellier. One of the eight British soldiers ordered to land in the area was a certain Captain Peter Fowler, whose role was to assist the French Resistance groups, gather information and organise the escape of any Allied personnel who were in hiding. In addition, he was there to assist the Marquis (the guerrilla army of the French Resistance), whose role was to aid the escape of allied airmen who had been shot down and the many Jews and others being hunted by the Vichy Government.
The Bir-Hakeim cell, as the Resistance fighters were known, were a group of fighters who had taken their name from an historic battle fought in the Libyan Desert in 1942. The movement operated in Hérault with an aim to cause and create as much disruption as possible for the occupying Germans. Captain Fowler was assigned to this cell in order to support and stimulate their objective.
Captain Peter Fowler was born in Godalming, Surrey in 1919. His father was a stockbroker who earned enough money to pay for Peter’s education. He later completed his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge where he read French, German and Law. Little though is on record of Fowler’s early military career except that he was commissioned as an officer into the Royal Fusiliers on March 15th, 1941. It is quite possible that Captain Fowler was involved with the Special Operations Executive, which throughout the early part of the war had operated behind enemy lines. It is known that he served
in Corsica, where he organised escapes for POW’s ; it was therefore highly probable that when he was parachuted into the Midi it was for similar reasons as well as supporting the Resistance fighters.
Over the weekend of August 19th and 20th, in addition to other duties, Captain Fowler had been assigned to organise groups connected with the Bir-Hakeim movement for intelligence gathering purposes. Upon receiving information the resistance fighters would then create disruption and organise ambushes with the aim of killing as many Germans as possible.
On Monday 21st, August 1944, Captain Fowler left with two French resistance fighters, Francois Pradeilles and Maurice Lebiaron. They were to conduct a recognisance mission along the many minor roads in the region. Their main object was to find out if the retreating German tanks could bypass the Dourbie Bridge and if so how could they be halted. In fact, no Germans had been seen in the area on the morning of the fateful day and the three men set off on a motor bike and sidecar to carry out their mission.
There have been many attempts to reconstruct what actually happened on that Monday afternoon in August. It would appear that a group of about twenty young German soldiers had stopped for water in Fontès. They were on bicycles and were heading for Péret. It has been established that most of the group were trainee SS Gestapo troops and were not very experienced with any kind of warfare or conflict. According to the records, on leaving Fontès the group split into two. One half stayed in Fontès and the other headed towards Péret. As the second group approached the junction outside the village, they heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching and naturally took cover. As the motorbike came to where the roads met the young Germans opened fire, mowing down and killing all three men.
The memory of their three lives on however. In May 1945, more than 3,000 people formed a procession to the new Monument erected outside Fontès in their honour. And in August 1994, numerous people gathered outside the Marie of Fontès to pay a special tribute marking the fiftieth anniversary of their deaths. These included representatives from resistance organisations, people from the British Consul in Marseille, the Welsh Guards were represented and many floral tributes were laid in honour the victims. Every Remembrance Sunday the ritual continues... the three young victims are remembered, honoured and thanked.