Michel Hollard , born the July 10th 1897 with Épinay and deceased the July 16th 1993, is a French colonel, who was a resistant famous at the time of the Second world war.

Its network

• 1941, it constitutes the Réseau TO ACT, attached to the Secret Intelligence Service (S.I.S.) and composed of a hundred agents. It used its cover of producing owner of a company of the Gazogène.

Launching pads of the V1

• At the summer 1943, one of its agents, an engineer of the railroads of Rouen, announced that several building sites of an unusual complexity had made their appearance in High-Normandy. Hollard went to Rouen, disguised as a Protestant Pasteur, and persuaded a local manager to communicate the list of the building sites to him. They was constructions of launching pads of the fused V1.

• It communicates the information with the British (MI6) by the Embassy of Great Britain to Bern, while passing itself the Swiss border 98 times (49 voyages).

• From the end of December 1943, the 103 sites of launching of V1 in France, which formed an arc of active circle of the Basse-Normandie to the Pas-de-Calais, were systematically bombarded by RAF.

The arrest

• In 1944, it is stopped by the Gestapo with Paris, is tortured, imprisoned with Fresnes and is condemned to death.
• It is off-set with the Concentration camp of Neuengamme. It is saved shipwreck of the Cape Arcona by the Count Folke Bernadotte which, informed by the British Intelligence , obtained the safety of some prisoners of French language.

Distinctions

• Commander about the Legion of Honor

• Military Cross 1914-1918
• Military Cross 1939-1945
• Rivet washer of Resistance
• Distinguished Service Order (DSO)
• the April 27th 2004, a train Eurostar (between Paris and London) was baptized of its name.

Family

• Descending from the Pasteur Jean Monod (1765-1836)
• His father, Auguste Hollard, professor of nuclear physics at the school of Physics and chemistry of Paris and in the Sorbonne
• His/her mother Pauline Monod
• First cousin of Theodore Monod (1902-2000) naturalist, explorer, scholar and humanistic French
• First cousin of Jacques Monod (1910-1976), Nobel Prize 1965
• His/her son Florian hollard, leader. A long time directing of the symphony orchestra of Turns and choirmaster of the Oratory from Louvre in Paris, he traversed also the world and represented his country in front of many foreign audiences

external Bond

• Michel Hollard, hero of resistance

Bibliograghie

Michel Hollard, the French who saved London, by his son Florian Hollard, seeks It midday

George Martelli, " The man who saved Londres" , I read their adventure, A17/18, 1962

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