It is not well known that Bruce Dowding, a young Australian, in the prime of his life, who happened to be in Paris when the Nazis invaded France, joined the French Resistance involved in spiriting British airmen and hundreds of prominent Jewish refugees, to safety.
It prompted Peter Dowding, his nephew, a retired high profiled lawyer and West Australian politician, to give his uncle the recognitions that are due and who with his sharp legal mind, gives colour to detail in this extraordinary true story of faith, courage and resilience.
Whilst movies have been made about the French underground in the south of France, as early as 1944, featuring Humphrey Bogart (Passage to Marseille) and more recently in a more authentic version – Translantic (2023), this book offers an authentic and raw version of events. It brings into focus the actual players of diverse national origins, who united in the will to resist Nazi evil and in full knowledge of risking their for most young lives, to mortal danger. Their underground network, supported by British Intelligence, enabled Jewish refugees, particularly high profiled artists, composers and writers from across occupied Europe, to escape Nazi terror. It is sheer faith in principle and sense of justice that appear to unite the volunteer Marseille born underground and carry them through, including Bruce Dowding who in the vast number through betrayal, pay the ultimate price, with their lives.
This book honours them all. A well-researched trove by sheer luck of surviving correspondence, informs this story. It reveals a common decency of actors in a cruel drama. It exposes the banality of evil when codified into law. It is also a cautionary tale, as to how a highly civilised society on both sides of an armed conflict, in this instance France and Germany, in a short span of time, can descend into the abyss of cruelty and legalised murder.
SECRET AGENT, UNSUNG HERO Authors Peter Dowding and Ken Spillman.
Published in 2023 by Pen and Sword books
Reviewer Sasha Ivanovich FAIA
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