No Drums, No Trumpets

This is a true story from the Second World War which tells of the adventures and experiences of the author, Alec le Vernoy. Alec le Vernoy was born in 1918 and at the outbreak of war was a young medical student in Paris. He relates his experiences as a soldier in campaigns in France, Tunisia, Egypt and Germany as he pursued his ambition to join the Free French. He was captured four times and he escaped four times - once from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On reaching neutral territory, he was seconded to a unit of the Resistance harrying German forces occupying France and in the weeks following D-Day Alec was appointed commander of an area of south-west France and was finally demobbed in 1945 as Captain in the Marines paratroop commando. He was awarded 14 decorations including the military Legion of Honour.