Maquis (World War II) advanced, the French Resistance rose against the Nazi occupation forces and their garrisons en masse. For example, Nancy Wake's group of 7,000 maquisards was involved in a pitched battle with 22,000 Germans on June 20, 1944. Some Maquis groups took no prisoners so some German soldiers preferred to surrender to Allied soldiers instead of facing maquisards. The Allied offensive was slowed and the Germans were able to counterattack in southeast France. On the Vercors Massif, the Maquis du Vercors rose up with some 4000 soldiers against the German occupiers, but was defeated with 600 casualties. When General De Gaulle dismissed
German searchlights of World War II German searchlights of World War II German searchlights of the Second World War were used to detect and track enemy aircraft at night. They were used in three main sizes, 60, 150 and 200 centimetres. After the end of the First World War, German development of searchlights was effectively stopped by the Treaty of Versailles, it resumed in 1927. At the outset of the war, searchlights were combined with acoustic direction-finders, with the direction-finders guiding the searchlights to the right part of the sky, where they swept until they found the target. Later in the war, the searchlights were radar-directed.