With the Paris Olympics about to start, here is a short thread on just some of the 403 known Olympians who lost their lives during the Second World War. 1/9 🇫🇷 Géo André was a French track and field star whose first Olympics were those of London in 1908 and who, despite being badly wounded in the Great War, went on to shine at the 1920 and 1924 games. He enlisted again in North Africa and was killed in action aged 53 during the fighting for Tunis on 4 May 1943. 2/9

🇫🇷 Occupied Paris - 23 July 1944
19-year old Madeleine Riffaud cycles along the Parisian cobblestone streets. She has a gun and has been ordered to take the war to the enemy. She stops on the Pont de Solferino. There is a German soldier there, watching the Seine. Madeleine waits until he turns towards her, and then shoots him twice in the head.... 1/10
Madeleine was born on 23 August 1924 at Arvillers in the Somme department. Her parents were school teachers and her father had been badly wounded during the Great War. Family holidays are spent in the Haute-Vienne with family friends near a village called Oradour-sur-Glane. 2/ 10

🇫🇷 Toulouse - Saturday, 22 July 1944
Ariadna Scriabina (Knout) and two other French Resistance members go to an appartment used as a dead drop at 11 rue de la Pomme in the city of Toulouse. She is carrying false identification papers for other Resistance members. What they do not know is that French Milice are waiting inside... 1/9 Born in Bogliasco, Italy 26 October 1905, her Russian composer father Alexander Scriabin, moved around Europe and when her parents divorced, Ariadna continued to lead a bohemian existence in various countries, such as Switzerland and Holland where she is seen here aged three. 2/9

🇫🇷 Occupied Paris - 20 July 1943
Geneviève de Gaulle, niece of Charles, enters a Parisian bookshop that is used as a dead drop by her Resistance network. Unknown to her, the Gestapo are watching and this will be her last day of freedom and the start of almost two years of misery... 1/9 Geneviève was born on 25 October 1920 in Saint-Jean-de-Valériscle (Gard) southern France. Her father, Xavier, was the eldest brother of Charles and they both saw action in the Great War. When a second war came along in 39, she was in Brittany where her father was moblized as a reserve officer. Charles is on the left in the photo and Xavier second from the right. 2/9

🇫🇷 From flying pioneer to speed records, and finally death at the hands of the Gestapo - the story of Joseph Sadi-Lecointe who died 80 years ago this day after weeks of torture. 1/8 Born in the Somme village of Saint-Germain-sur-Bresle (80703) on 11 July 1891, Joseph later went to school in Amiens before going on to finding work as a mechanic and welder in the Minet factory near Paris. It was there, in 1910, that he took a prototype 'Zenith' aircraft for a spin without ever having had a flying lesson and thus became one of those magnificent men in their flying machines, and going on to flying Blériots. 2/8

The last of the few - from the Battle of Britain to Normandy

84 years ago saw the start of a sustained Luftwaffe air campaign against the British Isles that would become known as "The Battle of Britain". One of the fighter pilots, John 'Paddy' Hemingway is still with us and in a week's time will celebrate his 105th birthday. 1/4
Born in Dublin in 1919, he flew with No. 85 Squadron during the Battle of Britain, and had to bail out of his Hurricane over the Thames Estuary the day after his 21st birthday. Burned out by the end of the Battle of Britain, as many of the young fighter pilots were, he was put on light duties and by the time of the Normandy landings held the rank of Squadron Leader. 2/4

🇺🇸 From a Mustang cockpit to execution alongside SAS soldiers.
On 10 June 1944, 2 Lt Lincoln Bundy was flying a mission with his 486th Fighter Squadron over Normandy and had just finished strafing German vehicles near Crulai (61300) when he was bounced by an Me 109 flown by Luftwaffe ace Staffelkapitän Lutz-Wilhelm Burkhardt. Bundy bailed out of his stricken P-51 and came down near Les Apres (61270) where he was hidden away by a local man. 1/8 The following day Bundy decided to head south and cross the border into Spain - he now had a set of civilian clothes and only had a silk map and button evasion compass to find his way, moving by night and sleeping by day. After around two weeks, he had made it as far as the hamlet of Anzec some six miles from Poitiers and he was found filling his water bottle there by a young boy name Serge who, as luck would have it, had a father in the Resistance. 2/8

🇫🇷 A Companion of the Liberation
27 June 1944 - 21-year old Jacques Voyer is taken to this clearing north of the village of Chavannes (Chartres). Barely able to stand after weeks of torture, he is tied to a wooden post and shot. Here is his story. 1/11

Jacques was born on 27 December 1922 in Marseille and lived with his parents and sister in Toulon where he went to school and observed helplessly as his beloved France was defeated by the Germans in June 1940. He was 17 years old. 2/11

🇫🇷 She chose the storm... and love
In the early hours of 18 June 1944 a further twelve French SAS soldiers are dropped into Saint-Marcel, Brittany as part of Operation Dingson that had begun during the night of 5/6 June to bolster the local Resistance groups and spread chaos behind enemy lines. 160 French 4th SAS have now been dropped into the sector. Among the local Resistance is a young woman named Marie... 1/6 21-year old Marie Krebs is the daughter of Louis Krebs, a ship owner at Concarneau and also a Resistance leader. Marie has already been active in a Paris group but has returned to her native Brittany and uses her bicycle to ride around delivering messages to maquis groups. 2/6

"I have loved the truth"
On the evening of 16 June 1944, keys turned in the cell doors at the notorious Montluc prison in Lyon. Thirty French Resistance prisoners are led away to waiting trucks - among them is 57-year old historian Marc Bloch. 1/6 Bloch was born in Lyon on 6 July 1886 into a Jewish-Alsatian family and was working as a high school teacher in Amiens when the Great War broke out. Having already done his two years obligatory military service, he was mobilised as a sergeant into the 272nd Infantry Regiment and saw action during the bloody Battle of the Frontier and on the Marne, then later the Somme and other battles right up to the end of the war. 2/6

🇫🇷 The French spy and Hitler's V-weapons
On this eve of the V1 flying bomb onslaught against London (the first 5 were launched on 13 June 1944 as a test), it is a good time to tell the story of a young French woman without whom the terrifying weapons may have indeed been launched in late 1943. 1/7
Jeannie Rousseau was born on 1 April 1919 in St Brieuc, Brittany. Her father, a Great War veteran, later became mayor of the chic 17th district in Paris and it was there that on the eve of WW2 that she attended the prestigious Sciences Politiques school.
In June 1940, with the Germans closing in on Paris, her father decided to move back to Brittany in the belief that they would be safe there, but before long Wehrmacht troops flowed into the strategically important coastal area. 2/7

The day after
On the evening of June 10, Limoges is awash with rumours of a terrible catastrophe that has happed at Oradour-sur-Glane, just over 13 miles to the west. These rumours are backed up with the smell of smoke that wafts across the city. The following day, two men take the tram and stop at the edge of the village... 1/4 Working for the Red Cross, Doctor Bapt and Canon Philippe Schneider come across an apocalyptic scene - buildings are still burning and they see a body in the river. The heat is unbearable and an acrid smell lays heavy over the ruins. The church is the worst place, it is here that hundreds of women and children have been reduced to ash - it is knee deep in places. 2/4

Before Oradour - 9 June 1944
At approximately 8 p.m. French time, a civilian car, requisitioned the day before in Limoges, drives up through the village of Sauviat-sur-Vige and begins the long descent towards St Léonard de Noblat. The man at the wheel is SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe of the Das Reich division. 1/8 Kämpfe is commander of III. Bataillon, SS-Panzergrenadierregiment 4 "Der Führer" of the Das Reich division that has been making its way north towards Normandy since the evening of 6 June. The previous evening his men were billeted in the school at St Léonard and were ordered to head towards Guéret to assist in freeing the town from maquis fighters. 2/8

🇫🇷 8 June 1944
Violette Szabo wakes up in Madame Rebière's store in the small village of Sussac (87194) near Limoges. It has been a short night after being parachuted in during the early hours of the morning with her other SOE colleagues. After a welcome breakfast, the team leader, Philippe Liewer makes plans... 1/5 Liewer is keen to make contact with local maquis chief Georges Guingouin (photo), but the notoriously prudent resister has yet to be seen. Time is of the essence as Liewer's SOE Salesman II team need to organize cohesive actions to stem the passage of German reinforcements moving north towards Normandy. 2/5

🇫🇷 🇺🇸 22.26 hrs, 7 June 1944.
A B-24 flown by Capt Marvin Fenster (far left top row) takes off from Harrington USAAF Station 179. On board is the Special Operations Executive Salesman II team. 1/5

This is the second attempt to infiltrate the team after the previous evening when there were no identification lights over the DZ - for the team's courier, Violette Szabo, this is her second mission in occupied France. Tomorrow will be her daughter Tania's second birthday. 2/5

The man who refused to raise his right arm...
August Landmesser was born on 24 May 1910 at Moorege near Hamburg, the only child of August (snr) and Wilhelmine. In the chaotic economic times of the early 30s, he joined the Nazi Party in 31, hoping that it would open the doors to a job. 1/8 However, August fell in love with a German Jewish woman, Irma Eckler, and in 1935 they became engaged, but the marriage was forbidden shortly after due to the introduction of the Nuremburg race laws. On 29 October 1935, the couple's first daughter, Ingrid, was born. 2/8

The day the soldiers came... 21 May 1944
It is 5 p.m. in the sleepy village of Frayssinet-le-Gélat (46114 Lot) when two columns of SS Das-Reich division vehicles breaks the calm. The vehicles continue on a little further then halt on the road to Cahors. 90 minutes later, more SS arrive from south west and this time halt in the centre of the village. All roads in and out are now blocked. 1/5 Soldiers jump out of the trucks and begin searching the houses - all the men are gathered and telephone lines cut. A shot rings out from the home of the Lugan family. Inside are three women, they are dragged out and hanged from an electricity pole on the front of the what is the village hall today. The eldest is 80-year old Agathe Paillé and she dies along with her nieces Juliette and Marguerite. 2/5

"My dearest parents, forgive me for having put my country before you." 🇫🇷
On 23 April 1945, Paulette Duhalde died of illness and exhaustion in the Ravensbrück concentration camp - she was 24 years old. 1/8 Paulette was born and raised in the Normandy town of Flers where her parents had a café on the market square. In the early days of the occupation, she lost her job at the Banque de France in Flers and found work as a secretary in the Warein textile factory in the town. 2/8

Crowdfunding - 1941
On 15 April 1941, British journalist William Mundy wrote about a recent visit to the Air Ministry where he had seen with his own eyes the public's response to the Spitfire Fund. 1/8 The drive to buy Spitfires had started in May 1940, based on an idea by the Anglo-Canadian media tycoon Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) and before long, towns, businesses and people were raising money to buy their own Spitfire, costed at a theoretical 5,000 pounds. 2/8

In the early hours of 9 June 1944, Algerian-born Free French secret agent and wireless operator Eugénie Djendi parachutes into occupied France along with George Penchenier and Marcel Corbusier. Arriving at Pierrefitte farm near Sully-sur-Loire ( Loiret 45600), they are unaware that they have been betrayed and that the Gestapo are waiting. 1/4
Eugénie had turned 21 the day before. She had trained in Algeria as a "Merlinette" transmissions expert before being transferred to England in March 43 and joining the SSMF-TR (Sécurité militaire en France - Travaux ruraux) intelligence branch. 2/4

🇫🇷 A Rose... and a thorn in the side of Nazi plunderers... Rose Valland was born in 1898 near Grenoble with a father who worked as a blacksmith and a housewife mother. Thanks to scholarships, her talent for art led her to the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. 1/8 By the time that jackboots sounded on the cobbles of the Champs Elysées, she was working as a volunteer at the Musée Jeu de Paume, Place de la Concorde where she had organised exhibitions on foreign contemporary art. 2/8