Jedburgh Operations in Southwestern Brittany

This study will chronicle and asses the operations of three Jedburgh teams operating behind German lines in France during the summer of 1944. The declassification of records from the United States and Great Britain some fifty years after World War II has made this type of analysis possible. The world remembers World War IIs major European campaigns as large, conventional battles, but small units operating in austere conditions deep behind enemy lines to organize, train, and equip local resistance movements contributed as well. The birth of modern-day special operations forces occurred in the years leading up to, and the months following the Allied invasion at Normandy. Jedburghs operated in the space between conventional forces and spies and were the first units of their kind. In all, ninety-three Jedburgh teams parachuted into occupied France during the months of June through September 1944.1 They accomplished much. With a mature organizational structure and doctrine, they could have accomplished more.