Trotobas, Michael Alfred Raymond

Date of birth:: May 20th, 1914 (Brighton/East Sussex, Great Britain)
Date of death:: November 27th, 1943
Buried on:: Commonwealth War Graves Lille
Grave: 92A.
Service number:: 167302
Nationality:: British

Biography

Michael Trotobas, born out of an English (speaking) Mother and a French father, joined the British Army - Middlesex Regiment in 1933.
In 1937 he was promoted to Sergeant. The Regiment was sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. During the retreat to Dunkirk he got wounded.
He was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment on 19 January 1941 and served at Ladysmith Barracks until 1 June 1941 when he joined the Special Operations Executive. Shortly afterwards he was parachuted into France, was captured by the Vichy police and interned in a concentration camp. He organised a mass escape of British Officers and returned to the UK. In November 1942 he was again parachuted into France where he established and led the 'Farmer' circuit, a sabotage group based in Lille. At the end of February 1943 'Farmer' had its first successful derailment of 40 railway trucks which were destroyed and the Lens-Bethune railway line closed for two days. By mid-summer his railway gangs were achieving 15-20 derailments a week and imposing much delay on goods traffic in the area.
Trotobas - or Capitaine Michel as he was known - had great success with his resistance group but was eventually betrayed and the house where he was staying was raided. Before Trotobas was killed he shot and killed the inspector of the raiding party. In Lille there is a memorial in a cemetery to Captain Michael Trotobas of the Manchester Regiment & also a plaque on the wall of Rue de Capitaine Michel.

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