Moussey – The Moussey Memorial Storyboard |

Memorial Text
The Moussey Memorial
Eglise Saint-Valentin de Moussey, Vosges, France, which has the graves of 10 SAS soldiers in the Churchyard.

Moussey in the Vosges
Moussey in the Vosges lies right on the border with Alsace-Lorraine has been described as the most tortured French region. Constantly terrorised and economically ransacked, (the people) also became cannon fodder for a foreign army.

Historical Notes =Alsace-Lorraine/Moussey
1870-1920 – Originally ceded to Germany by the treaty of Frankfurt but ceded back to France by the Treaty of Versaille.
(Moussey was on the border about 2.5 miles as the crow flies!)
1940-1044/5 – During World War 2, Germany again took control of Alsace-Lorraine annexing it into the German Reich with Moussey (Vosges) in the German Occupied Zone of France and directly on the border of Germany and thus in a buffer zone, subject to intense enemy traffic and occupation.
1945 – Alsace-Lorraine was back in French Control and has been ever since!

Special Air Service “Operation Loyton”
However…..in August and September 1944 SAS soldiers were parachuted into the Vosges to harass the German retreat in the face of the American Army advances and to arm the local Resistance Forces. Eventually SAS patrols were hidden in the hills above the village of Moussey.
The German Army knew that were in the area and set about interrogating the men of the village in an effort to find out where the patrols were hiding. Since no one spoke out, the men were rounded up and sent of to Concentration Camps with very few returning after the war ended.
As German efforts to locate the SAS patrols intensified the soldiers were ordered to disperse and head for the Allied lines. During thi breakout a number of SAS soldiers, Phantom Signals and other Allied agents were captured and executed, or killed in combat.
These executions were not just confined to Allied soldiers, as Resistance Fighters, Gendarmes, Forest Guards, Priests and anyone suspected of helping the SAS were rounded up and either executed or sent to concentration camps.

"Where Nature Greets Remembrance"