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THE MASSACRE
AT TULLE
90>
9
770306 154103
No. 190
£5
NUMBER 190
© Copyright
After the Battle
2021
Editor: Karel Margry
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Published by
Battle of Britain International Ltd.,
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SOUS-SECTEUR ‘A’
SOUS-SECTEUR ‘B’
TULLE
SOUS-SECTEUR ‘C’
THE MASSACRE AT TULLE
UNITED STATES
The Pearl Harbor Medals of Honor
IT HAPPENED HERE
Revolt at Featherston POW Camp
2
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40
Front Cover:
At the French town of Tulle, a
souvenir march is held every year on June 9 to
commemorate the massacre of June 9, 1944,
in which 99 of its citizens were hanged by the
SS. It starts at 5 p.m. from the railway station
and proceeds to the memorial at Cueille on the
outskirts of town. This photo was taken during
the 2018 march. (Frank Barrat-Arnal)
Back Cover:
The shooting incident at Featherston
POW Camp in New Zealand on February 25,
1943, in which 48 Japanese prisoners of war and
one New Zealand guard were killed, is nowadays
annually commemorated at the town’s memorial
garden. Here Viv Napier, Mayor of South
Wairarapa (of which Featherston forms part) and
Japanese Ambassador Toshihisa Takata pay
their resprects at the monument to the fallen
Japanese POWs during the 75th anniversary
commemoration on February 25, 2018. (Don
Staples)
Acknowledgements:
For help with the Tulle
story, the Editor and Jean Paul Pallud would like
to thank Michel Trésallet, the president at Tulle of
the Association Nationale des Anciens Combat-
tants et Ami(e)s de la Résistance (ANACR,
National Association of former Resistance
Fighters and Friends of the Resistance). He is the
son of Louis Trésallet, a Resistance fighter
deported in June 1944 from Tulle to Germany
where he died in November. They would also like
to thank Frank Barrat-Arnal, Gilbert Beaubatie,
Nicolas Giner and Pierre Tiquet. For help with the
Featherston story, the Editor thanks Jeff
Plowman, Elsa Kelly of the Featherston Heritage
Museum, and Florence Cater.
Photo Credit Abbreviations:
ATL — Alexander
Turnbull Library. NHHC — Naval History and
Heritage Command. Unless specified otherwise,
all illustrations are from the After the Battle
archive or The Society for the Studies of the ETO.
On April 17, 1944, the command staff of the
Francs Tireurs et Partisans for the ‘B’ Region
encompassing six departments in central
France met together in Limoges. (The FTP
was the armed resistance organisation created
by the French Communist Party after Ger-
many attacked the USSR in June 1941 — see
After the Battle
No. 105.) The FTP staff
decided to launch a major offensive on the
symbolic first day of May with attacks on
Gendarmeries and German security posts to
appropriate their weapons and equipment; to
increase the number of sabotage missions, and
to set up ambushes and eliminate informers.
Depending on the success of these opera-
tions, an even more-ambitious insurrec-
tionary day was planned for June 1 with a
major attack on Tulle, 75 kilometres south-
east of Limoges.
When the Germans only reacted on a
small scale to the May operations, basically
just consolidating their positions, the attack
on Tulle was given the go-ahead for the
beginning of June. (Although it might appear
that it was timed to support the Allied land-
ings in Normandy, it was in fact planned
without any connection with D-Day, a date
then unknown to the French Resistance.)
The commander of the FTP for the Cor-
rèze department, Jacques Chapou, nom de
guerre ‘Kléber’, planned the operation with
PÔLE MUSÉES DE TULLE 1PH898
CONTENTS
Nestling along the narrow valley of the
River Corrèze, the city of Tulle had some
20,000 inhabitants in 1939. A plan drawn up
by the Francs Tireurs et Partisans (FTP)
organisation in June 1944 aimed at dis-
abling and, if possible, annihilating the Ger-
man garrison there, disarming the Vichy
security forces and appropriating their
weapons and vehicles. The occupation of
Tulle, which was the seat of the Préfecture
of the Corrèze department, was also meant
to be a major snub to the Vichy govern-
ment as well as the German occupying
forces.
Above:
From the spring of 1944, the
FTP forces of the Corrèze department were
organised into three sub-sectors: Sous-
Secteur ‘A’, north-east of Tulle, was com-
manded by Léon Lanot (‘Lieutenant Louis’);
Sous-Secteur ‘B’, west of Tulle, by Fernand
Taurisson (‘Jérôme’), and Sous-Secteur ‘C’,
south-east of Tulle, by Raymond Bastié
(‘Alfred’). The operation was planned by
Jacques Chapou
(left),
nom de guerre
‘Kléber’, the commander of the FTP for the
Corrèze department. He was to be killed in
action soon after the Tulle operation when
he came across a German ambush near
Bourganeuf, some 45 kilometres east of
Limoges, on July 16.
several objectives: to disarm and, if possible,
to annihilate the German garrison; to disarm
the Vichy security forces and appropriate
their weapons and vehicles, and to eliminate
the para-military Milice and known collabo-
rators. The intention was also to try to con-
vince the German command that it was safer
to keep their security forces in their barracks
rather than to embark on large-scale expedi-
tions against the Maquis. The command of
the Armée Secrète (the Gaullist resistance
movement) was informed of the plan in late
May but refused to participate, judging the
operation against such a large urban centre
as far too risky.
On June 6, following a reassuring report
from Sous-Secteur ‘A’ which had been
harassed for some days by German security
operations, and the welcome news of the
Allied landings in Normandy, the FTP com-
mand decided to launch the attack on Tulle
the following day.
Forces of all three sub-sectors were
employed in the operation on June 7 and
although precise numbers are not available,
it is believed that around 500 to 600 men
were committed to Tulle. The operation
appears to have been launched by at least
400 men, who were joined by another 120
from mid-afternoon of June 7 and during the
morning of June 8.
2
On June 7, FTP Resistance fighters began the assault to clear
the city of German and Vichy security forces. At first they man-
aged to defeat part of the German garrison, trapping other men
in odd strong points, but then the 2. SS-Panzer-Division arrived
late on June 8. On the following day the Waffen-SS rounded up
all men between the ages of 16 to 60 and decided to execute
120 of them, of whom they actually hanged 99. In the days that
followed, the Germans sent another 154 men to concentration
camps where 107 lost their lives. For many years this sketch of
the hangings was believed to have been made by a German
eyewitness, but the original, or the draughtsman, has never
surfaced, and many now express doubts as to its authenticity. It
is quite probable that it was drawn after the war by a French-
man wanting to portray the drama enacted in his city.
THE MASSACRE AT TULLE
By Jean Paul Pallud
The German garrison at Tulle comprised
the III. Bataillon of Sicherungs-Regiment 95,
with the battalion staff, the 8. Kompanie and
the 13. Kompanie. A report of May 1944
gives a total force of 289 officers and men.
The battalion staff was stationed at the Hôtel
Dufayet (also known as Hôtel de la Gare). The
13. Kompanie was split between the Souilhac
School, the Manufacture d’Armes (arms fac-
tory), and the railway station in the southern
sector of the city, with some outposts on the
heights south of the city. The 8. Kompanie was
mainly stationed at the École Normale d’Insti-
tutrices (a female teacher training school) in the
northern sector and had some elements distrib-
uted with those elements of the 13. Kompanie
in the various outposts south of the city.
Verbindungsstab 739, the occupation com-
mand staff for the Corrèze Departement, was
initially stationed in Brive but it had been
relocated to Tulle where it was quartered at
the Hôtel Moderne, while the 15 men of
Feldgendarmerie-Trupp 1115 that was subor-
dinated to it were based at the Hôtel La Tré-
molière. A 15-strong team from the Sipo-SD
had arrived at Tulle in March 1944 and had
taken quarters at the Hôtel Saint Martin. The
total strength of the German forces in Tulle
was between 320 to 350 men.
The ‘massacre’ street at Tulle, looking eastwards along the Pont-Neuf bridge. The
whole southern side of the street (on the right as seen from the photographer’s
position) remained unchanged but those on the northern side were demolished to
make room for the construction of a ten-storey building.
3
ATB
PÔLE MUSÉES DE TULLE 1PH1921
The local Gendarmes were prone to look for a modus vivendi
with the local Resistance fighters so Vichy had to commit
reinforcements from its Groupe Mobile de Réserve (GMR).
1
2
3
ATB
4
5
The old Gendarmerie has since been replaced by a car park.
2ème Bataillon
Sous-Secteur ‘C’
The Germans had already reinforced their security forces in
Tulle, and in March 1944 a Sipo-SD team occupied the Hôtel
Saint Martin on the southern bank of the Corrèze river.
The same building now houses the departmental agency
responsible for developing tourism in the area.
4
This was the FTP plan to take over Tulle. In the southern sector
of the city, the 2ème Bataillon of Sous-Secteur ‘C’ committed
two companies. One attacked the Manufacture d’Armes [1] and
the Souilhac School [2], the aim being to trap and isolate the
elements of the 13. Kompanie stationed there, while the sec-
ond company was to take control of the Hôtel Dufayet [3]
where the staff of the III. Bataillon of Sicherungs-Regiment 95
was stationed; the Hôtel La Trémolière [4], the seat of
Feldgendarmerie-Trupp 1115, and the railway station [5].
ATB
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12
11
10
9
7
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8
1er Bataillon
Sous-Secteur ‘C’
In the centre, the 1er Bataillon of Sous-Secteur ‘C’ was to
attack from the south, one company aiming at trapping the
Vichy GMR forces quartered at the Champ de Mars barracks
[6], while a second company was to push along the bank of
the river to capture the Hôtel Moderne [7], the seat of the
Ortskommandantur, and gain control of the northern side of
the barracks and also of the Town Hall [8], where ‘Kléber’
was to establish his command post. In the northern part of
the city, the 2ème Bataillon of Sous-Secteur ‘B’, with two
companies, was to attack the École Normale [11] where the
8. Kompanie of Sicherungs-Regiment 95 was based. Mean-
while, the 1er Bataillon of Sous-Secteur ‘A’, also with two
companies, was to take out the Sipo-SD in the Hôtel Saint
Martin [9]; the Gendarmerie [10], and the Maison Pradoux
[12] which was the headquarters of the Vichy forces and
some elements of the para-military Milice. The battalion was
also to take over the Trech sector to block the eastern side of
the École Normale.
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