For a while the Paris branch of Comet continued to function until that, too, was hit by a terrible blow. This time the traitor was identified. He was a new courier by the name of Jean Masson. It was an assumed name, as were all the names he used in his long and terrible career.
His real name was Jacques Desoubrie.
Later Desoubrie penetrated another escape line, further to the west. As a result of this treachery seventy British and sixty American evaders were caught and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.
There is evidence that, on the orders of his masters, the Gestapo, Desoubrie penetrated at least two other lines …
The French Resistance was at its strongest in Brittany.
However, early attempts to establish an escape line through Brittany met with difficulties, mainly organisational. Later in the war properly trained agents were sent in, and the Shelburne line was born. Motor gunboats, crewed with great bravery and daring by officers and men of the Royal Navy, made regular runs from Dartmouth across the Channel to rock-strewn beaches on the Brittany coast, right under the noses of the Germans. Knowing that coast as I do, I can only marvel at the incredible feats of navigation they displayed.
The Shelburne line was very successful; it transported 307 servicemen and agents to England in a single year.
Incidentally, when the Germans came sniffing round, the gunboats sometimes had to depart in rather a hurry. On more than one occasion some members of the gunboat’s crew
did
get left on the beach.
The traitor Desoubrie continued his career of betrayal and treachery until the end of the war.
Then his luck ran out. He was, in fact, brought to justice and executed in Lille.
But it might have been different …