Maquis (World War II) du travail obligatoire, STO") in France at the beginning of 1943, thousands of young men fled and joined the Maquis. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) helped the Maquis with supplies and agents. The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also began to send its own agents to France in cooperation with the SOE and the French BCRA agents, as part of Operation Jedburgh. The British government provided supplies and support to assist Charles de Gaulle to unify the Free French resistance movement. Prior to the inception of the maquis, small resistance groups were created in the occupied and unoccupied
Maquis (World War II) in the rural areas of France, resistance had a role and justification in the lives of many people "who had no ambition to hold a gun, or memorize a coded message, though as the occupation grew in its violence the pressure on the French people to defend themselves by force intensified, and the military nature of resistance came to predominate". The connection between the Vichy government and armed resistance paved the way for the eventual formation of the Maquis. The "Service du Travail Obligatoire" (S.T.O.) was enacted on 16 February 1943 but underwent various refinements and classifications. It required young