Veuve, René "Joyeuse"

Date of birth:: January 17th, 1920 (Zürich, Switzerland)
Date of death:: June 12th, 2012 (Lake Placid/New York, United States)
Buried on:: Arlington National Cemetery
Nationality:: French

Biography

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Distinguished Service Cross (DSC)

Period:: Second World War (1939-1945)
Rank:: Sous-Lieutenant (Second Lieutenant)
Unit:: Special Operations, Office of Strategic Services (OSS), U.S. Government
Awarded on:: January 25th, 1945

"For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy from 10 April 1944 to 26 August 1944. Sous-Lieutenant Veuve was dropped by parachute into France in civilian clothes to fulfill a specific intelligence mission in the region of Le Bourget. With the aid of a radio operator. He set up a very important network in the northwest part of the Paris suburbs, but because of radio transmission difficulties, was obliged to transmit most of his intelligence by Klaxon, a phone device for talking directly to a high-flying, specially equipped airplane. The sixty messages which Sous-Lieutenant Veuve transmitted by this means covered enemy movements at an airfield, troop identifications, V-I manufacturing plants, underground factories and important gasoline depots. Although no provision had been made for the transmission of intelligence by courier, he showed great initiative in getting through to London two pouches of very valuable information on a naval powder factory and an oil refinery, both of which were subsequently heavily bombarded by allied aircraft. One night the house in which he was transmitting a Klaxon message was surrounded by Germans, and he narrowly escaped with a bullet wound in his right foot, although his two bodyguards were killed. The gallantry and unusual devotion to duty displayed by Sous-Lieutenant Veuve were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Allied Forces."

Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, General Orders No. 6