Ernest Hemingway Finds His Private Army: August 1944

A week after his holiday at the Hôtel de la Mère Hemingway and Pelkey – this time in a commandeered jeep, and on official reconnaissance business for Lanham – found themselves on the outskirts of the town of Maintenon, half way between Chartres and Rambouillet, some twenty miles south west of Paris. Here they located the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the 5th Division of the US Army resting in a patch of woodland. Hemingway asked a young lieutenant what news he had of any advancement toward Paris. The young officer knew very little – although he’d heard rumours that his own company was about to be replaced by one from the 7th Division – and directed Hemingway to a regimental outpost near Épernon, just a few kilometres closer to Rambouillet.

When Pelkey and Hemingway reached Épernon they encountered a bunch of irregular French fighters, under the command of a tired looking man called Tahon Marceau. This fierce looking bunch of young men were stripped to the waist in the August heat and armed with Sten guns, grenades, and captured Luger pistols. Marceau assured Hemingway that the Germans had abandoned Rambouillet before dawn that morning, but he warned Hemingway that the Germans had left trees blocking the roads, with minefields and booby traps everywhere.

It was obvious to Hemingway that Marceau’s small band of irregular troops were in desperate need of leadership. Marceau himself seemed exhausted and without any clear idea of what he should be doing, or where he should be doing it. It may also have been the case that the French irregulars thought Hemingway to be an American officer, which is quite understandable if Hemingway had removed his correspondents insignia from his tunic, or, because of the heat, was in shirtsleeves. And many photographs from the period do show Hemingway in shirtsleeves, and without insignia; and insignia could easily have been pinned to a collar or sleeve top. Whatever the reason, and with little persuasion it would seem, Hemingway and Pelkey accompanied the irregulars back along the road toward Rambouillet.

When they reached the outskirts of Rambouillet they discovered that the stories the irregulars had told them were true. Dozens of large plain trees had been felled at regular intervals to block the main road into the town. And just beyond the first couple of trees were the ghastly remains of an ambushed US army patrol. Two Jeeps, a truck, and a dozen or so soldiers had been blown apart and were scattered across the road. As the irregulars began to go through the bloody wreckage Pelkey stopped them and pointed out thin taught wires extending from the vehicles to several seemingly destroyed German tanks concealed in the deep ditches on the eastern side of the road. Tripping those wires (attached to the firing triggers of the tanks) would have brought down a deadly fire of artillery shells.