Biography
The Actions of the Francs-Tireurs (1942 - 1944)
In May 1942, Roucaute sought to stop the actions of the Limousin Francs-Tireurs, as he considered that Communist led resistance action should have been primarily carried out in the urban centres.
Given Guingouin's refusal to follow the party line, a situation arose where the party began planning to have Guingouin removed to London. However, Guingouin would not give up on the men whom he had help organize into combat-groups, and who as their leader he would lead in acts of sabotage. These included destroying the rail bridge at Bussy-Varache on the Limoges-Ussel line in March 1943, the attack on the Wattelez rubber-processing factory near Limoges on May 8, 1943, during which Guingouin and one other colleague destroyed the two boilers in the factory and the sabotage of German communications through the destruction of the underground telephone cable connecting the submarine base at Bordeaux to the Staff of Kriegsmarine in Berlin on July 12, 1943.
The area of the "High" Limousin, with dense woods, valleys and scarce population was ideal as a training ground for the Maquis. However, and given the prevailing weather conditions of the area, winter was particularly difficult as tracks were left for the local Milice and Vichy collaborators to identify Maquis strongholds. Fortunately Guingouin's popularity in the area ensured that fighters were safe in the villages, most notably around Eymoutiers, and vacated houses and farms such as the Chateau de la Ribeyrie and the Dujacques Farm, were utilised in training throughout the year.
However the local support was not total and some of the population were content to betray the Maquis to the Vichy authorities or even to the German occupiers. A Maquis training group, based in the Chateau de Farsac at Eymoutiers were betrayed by the owner of the house. On 5th February 1944, the house was surrounded by SS troops from Limoges. The ensuing stand-off resulted in three Maquis deaths and many injuries. The group who had been provisioned by the Perigaud family, tenants of the Chateau owner, was totally destroyed with Marcel Perigaud and his mother both being deported.
Nevertheless, the level of support for the Maquis was indicated at the funerals of the dead fighters as almost all the population of Eymoutiers attended thereby affirming their complicity in the resistance against the German occupation.
Guingouin and his men had become such a nuisance that the Vichy government in October 1943 made a determined effort, without success, to locate and destroy them, employing their own men and not German forces.
Essentially, the area of Haute-Vienne, nicknamed by the Germans "small Russia", had become a highland of resistance. Not only was the resistance action aimed at the German oppressers and the Vichy collaborators but the men of the maquis had also joined the defense of the immediate interests of the local peasants, most notably in terms of food.
For example, in December 1942, the majority of local farmers were able to keep their own cattle fodder because the sheaf-binding machines used to bundle the fodder for transportion to the German Central Supply were destroyed by the Maquis. Similarly, in 1943, threshing machines suffered the same fate, thereby ensuring that local corn could not be easily transported. Guingouin, also, openly opposed the authority of Vichy by forcibly imposing a remunerative scale for agricultural produce and forcing millers to sell their products at a standardised rate. Bread returned to the tables of the Limousin thus creating local support for Guingouin and the resistance fighters. Producers who did not comply with the Maquis controlled price regime were fined and the funds raised by these measures were used by the Maquis to continue the fight against the German oppressors.
By early 1944, Guingouin and his men had become such an irritant, that no less a force that Das Reich, which was quartered around Montauban, was ordered to assist in the location and destruction of the Francs-Tireurs Resistance, or "Gangs" as the Germans called them. At first sight a group less suited to anti-partisan warfare than a Panzer Division would be hard to imagine, yet in this case there was some logic to it.
During their time on the Eastern Front in Russia, for example, Das Reich had taken part in anti-partisan activities and many of its veterans had experience of fighting irregular forces and of "dealing" with civilian populations.
Therefore, by June 1944, Das Reich moved into the Limousin and wanting to terrorize the population, instigated the Tulle hangings and the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane where unarmed men were shot, and women and children were burnt alive in the church.
After the D-Day landings were seen to be serious and not a diversionary feint, Das Reich's orders changed rapidly to send them north to Normandy. However, on June 9th, Das Reich suffered the loss of its talismanic "hero" Sturmbannführer Kämpfe, captured by Jean Canou's detachment of the 1st Brigade of Colonel Guingouin. After a vain search for Kämpfe and the slaughter at Oradour-sur-Glane, the division was finally mobilized towards Normandy with 48 hours delay. General Eisenhower was first to recognize that this delay saved the allied bridgehead because, as German historian Hans Luther wrote, "this elite division could not be in place in time for Normandy".
Even with the German army on the defensive and in retreat, the Francs-Tireurs came under attack. In a sustained battle on Mont Gargan, from the 17th July 1944 to 24th July 1944, the 1st Brigade of Colonel Guingouin lost 97 resistance fighters either killed or wounded but inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, that is to say 342 killed and wounded soldiers.
Despite the losses within his own Brigade, on August 3rd 1944, Guingouin became departmental head of 4th Brigade of the FFI and began preparing the operation to liberate Limoges from Nazi control.