Damien Lewis

Now, several things fall out of that.

Of course, at this stage in the war, September 1943, no one in Allied

command knew what a concentration camp was we had no idea so that obviously oswald carrie elwes the commander of the two sas units on the ground has no idea what a concentration camp is so first of all it's like is this guy telling the truth because these horrors are you know inconceivable and then when they're convinced that he's telling the truth that he that they're well why have you come he says because they're about to ship everything north

loading them aboard a train to Nazi Germany and if they get them to Nazi Germany that is a death sentence and in that concentration camp are obviously Jews but there are also French, Yugoslav and Polish partisans and resistance fighters, there are former French foreign legionnaires and there are Italian priests and other intellectuals who've resisted Mussolini's fascist rule.

Now

Again, this is all true.

So when Bill Sterling was recruiting into the SS in Algeria a few months back, he thought,

there's all these French foreign legionnaires sat around with nothing to do.

Because, of course, the French foreign legionnaires, you know, in theory, in North Africa, were now part of the Vichy regime, the regime of Vichy France, which wasn't fighting anymore.

So Bill Stirling says, well, as many French foreign legionnaires recruited did the SAS as possible.

So he finds this chap called Raymond Carod.

Lieutenant Raymond Carod, who is the most incredible figure almost I've ever come across in terms of operations.

So he really brief character sketch.

He's got a film star mother who's American, an arms dealer father who's French, bought up half in America, half in France and,

Age of 18, volunteers for the French Foreign Legion.

But if you're French, you can't join the French Foreign Legion in theory, as you know.

So he has to get a Belgian passport to then pretend he's Belgian to get into the Foreign Legion.

Fights in Norway with the Foreign Legion in 1940 in the defence of Norway.

Wins the Croix de Guerre.

comes back to France.