The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France's Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando, Kix - B

                                                      In 1940, Robert de La Rochefoucald was the 16 year old son of a count in Soissons, north and east of Paris. The family estate was partially occupied by the Germans, with whom they now lived in an uneasy truce. In late 1942, Robert decided to try to go to London and join de Gaulle. He received help from the underground, travelled through Vichy, and crossed into Spain, where he was imprisoned. Because he had acted as an interpreter for some downed RAF pilots, the British helped him travel from Madrid to London. He was recruited by and joined Special Operations Executive, the first institution to adopt, teach and sponsor guerrilla warfare on a large scale. In the summer of 1943, he parachuted into France. He  trained local 'resistants' in the use of  explosives and led two successful missions, before a double agent's betrayal led to hundreds of arrests in central France. In December, he was awakened in a barn and captured by the Gestapo. He was interrogated and tortured for four months, escaping on the morning of his scheduled execution when he jumped from a moving truck and hijacked a Gestapo car. After weeks of recuperation in and around Paris, Robert was able to return to Britain and a month before D-Day, he was sent on a mission to Bordeaux. Sabotage was the order of the day and the French severely crimped the German's ability to reinforce Normandy. He spent seven days posing as a worker and cased a factory before setting the explosives that blew it up. In late July, he was imprisoned for a second time by the occupiers. On his second night in prison, he killed three guards, stole a key ring and walked out the front gate of one of the most notorious prisons in the country. Liberation came in August and along with 200,000 'resistants', he joined the French Army. In April of 1945, Robert led his final commando action against the German submarine pens on the Atlantic coast of France. He was in a hospital at the war's end and returned to the family estate later that summer. He received every medal France gave, and was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1997. He died on VE Day in 2012.