The Resistance [signed]

The Resistance is set in England and France during the early part of WWII. The newly appointed head of the French Resistance, Jean Moulin, is sent to England for a series of intelligence briefings. During one particular briefing, a former curator of the Polish national museum in Crackow describes the rape and plunder of his museum and other similar museums by the Nazis. His story touches Jean Moulin who devises a scheme to insure the same thing does not happen in France. Through the British Special Operations Executive-F (SOE, forerunner of today's British Intelligence), a plan is devised to have copies of the three greatest masterpieces in the Louvre secretly substituted for the real paintings, which are being secretly hidden in an old castle in the Dordogne Region of France. An American Army Captain is selected for the mission and he operates a glider to bring the fake paintings into France. With the help of the French Resistance, the switch is made. Meanwhile the Germans, in the person of an SS Colonel working under the personal direction of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, sets about to find the paintings for the Reichsmarschall so that they can be sent back to Germany. The Resistance follows the actions of the American Army Air Force Captain, numerous members of the French Resistance and his beautiful French Resistance fighter-helper as they work their way through south central and finally southern France in their attempt to elude the SS, elements of the Wehrmacht and finally, the SS's Vichy equivalent Milice pursuers. The final incredibly dramatic scene is played out in the storied city of Lourdes, where a spirited gun battle finally decides the outcome of the novel.