WE LANDED AT NIGHT...

The clandestine operations of the RAF squadrons that supported the French Resistance and the SOE (organization for special operations) were for a long time classified Top Secret. Only in recent years has the full story come out in the public domain. These shadowy squadrons, made up of specially trained volunteers, carried out these missions in total secrecy. Their role, their combat, consisted of dropping off on enemy soil or collecting secret agents, indispensable sources of intelligence for the allied staffs. We landed at night... is an opportunity to experience these night take-offs, blind flights, each of which was a new adventure in often capricious nights. Over enemy areas, clandestine landings took place on unprepared fields, drowned in mist, lit only by a more or less generous moon. During all this time on the ground, pilots and passengers ran the risk of being caught by enemy soldiers, or falling into well-prepared ambushes. Then the return to the base, always avoiding detection and without protection or sophisticated navigational means. Such were the missions carried out by these pilots at the controls of rustic, unarmed, single-engine aircraft, the "Lysanders". Hugh Verity, one of the most experienced pilots of these risky flights between Great Britain and France, tells a story of extraordinary adventures. In 1943, at the age of 24, he commanded the Lysanders squadron of 161 Squadron. This story, based on meticulous historical research, is not only the fruit of memories, but also of a harvest of testimonies gathered from other pilots, secret agents and maquisards, who at the cost of their lives, enabled France to regain its dignity in 1945. In Annexes, it provides a list of the operations carried out (dates, locations, names of those in charge of the grounds and passengers).