Maquis de Saint-Marcel contact without forming a new maquis. Maquis de Saint-Marcel The Maquis de Saint-Marcel was a force of French resistance fighters, 3000 men with 200 Free French SAS (Special Air Service), during World War II operating in Brittany, Morbihan. It was created just before the Normandy landings with the objectives of preventing German army reinforcements from reaching the coast, thus facilitating the task of the allied landing forces. The Maquis de Saint-Marcel lasted only a very short time. It had been infiltrated by German spies, allowing the Germans to attack it in an ambush on 18 June 1944. After it was
Maquis (World War II) In French Indochina, the local resistance fighting the Japanese since 1941 was backed up by a special forces airborne commando unit created by de Gaulle in 1943, and known as the Corps Léger d'Intervention (CLI). They were supplied by airlifts of the British Force 136. Politically, the Maquis were very diverse, including right-wing nationalists, socialists, communists, and anarchists. Some Maquis bands that operated in southwest France, were composed entirely of left-wing Spanish veterans of the Spanish Civil War. Spanish Civil War veteran Carlos Romero Giménez was a center-democratic liberal operating from Bordeaux. When Germany began a forced labor draft ("Service