On Sunday, December 17, 1944, a group of Frenchmen was hunting wild boar in the Saint-Sauvant forest in central France. It was a special occasion for those present—the inaugural hunt of the season and the first since the Liberation. As the men tramped along a forest road with dense thickets on either side, they spotted numerous broken branches. Looking closer, they noticed three large areas of disturbed earth. They scraped away some of the soil, first with their boots and then with their hands—and recoiled at what they saw.
The next morning a party of six gendarmes arrived, bearing spades and accompanied by several officials from the nearby village of Rom. Over the course of several hours, they unearthed 31 badly decomposed bodies. A local physician named Maupetit examined the corpses, compiling detailed notes on what remained of the deceased and estimating the time of death as early July. The majority were dressed in identical military uniforms: khaki jackets made from heavy twill with two buttoned breast pockets, and khaki pants with two front pockets and press-stud fastenings. Two men wore identity discs with their names and regimental numbers; one had a tube of Macleans toothpaste, a British brand; another had the manufacturer’s name on his underwear: “Faulat Belfast.”
Doctor Maupetit observed that one corpse was dressed differently from the others. He wore low-laced shoes and a pullover with a label inside reading “Le Mont St Michel,” a French brand. The doctor took note of the man’s wounds: “Bullet in the head, entered right parietal area. Bullet in praecordial region [the anterior chest wall over the heart] and another in central thorax.” He then added: “Presumed to be French nationality.” This corpse was assigned the number 22.
At a short inquest on December 21, three witnesses who lived near the forest testified that they’d heard machine gun fire early on the morning of July 7. One man, Paul Alleau, a member of the local Resistance, said that in late June or early July “approximately 30 British parachutists” had been captured in the region and that their fate was “unknown.” Later on the 21st, the head of the local gendarmerie, Albert Charron, compiled his report on the discovery; based on the evidence, he wrote, all but one of the dead were probably “British
