The case of Great Britain, and the Luftwaffe crew members who landed on its soil in 1940-41, turns out to be very simple and straightforward. Those who encountered civilians were never roughed up, much less killed. To the contrary, both in myth and in fact, they were usually treated with courtesy, and sometimes offered a cup of tea while waiting for the police or soldiers to arrive. She has consulted the requisite archives, but most of her data and anecdotes are taken from her reading the Kent Messenger, a weekly newspaper, for the months when Southern England and London were being attacked. The paper frequently reported on civilians capturing German fliers, and sometimes helping injured men until they were picked up by the authorities. The most striking claim she makes about the British public, and the press, is the importance of the British sense of humor. She quotes a sample headline from the Messenger: “Nazi pilot surrenders to Kent man in bathing kit.”

Andrieu, who is a professor emerita at SciencesPo’s Centre for History, has far more to say about the French, and their treatment of both the handful of German pilots who fell in France during the 1940 invasion, and the thousands of British and American airmen who parachuted or crashed while bombing France between 1941 and 44. She not only provides the facts and numbers for both groups, but provides a revisionist historiography of French resistance to the German invasion and occupation. In 1940, as the Wehrmacht invaded, both French civilians and the newly inaugurated militia—the gardes territoriales—often reacted violently to the German airmen they encountered. From Andrieu’s perspective, this made sense, both historically and immediately. German armies had invaded France during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and then again in 1914. The German military had executed hundreds of Belgian and French civilians during World War I, usually after accusing them of being franc-tireurs (guerrilla sharpshooters). Not only were those memories still alive, the 1940 invasion led to millions of civilians fleeing the German advance—and suffering bombing and strafing from the Luftwaffe as they moved south.

Andrieu sees this initial response as French citizens resisting the German invasion. But the heart of When Men Fell is her description of the actions French civilians took during the four long years of German occupation. Thousands of British, Commonwealth and American airmen parachuted onto French soil during those years, and the majority were given shelter, hidden from the Germans, and—in many cases—smuggled all the way to Spain or Switzerland. This took courage on the part of the women—it was often women who answered the door—and men who rescued these fliers. The Germans, and their Vichy collaborators punished any French civilians who aided Allied fliers harshly. Men would be sent to prison or concentration camps, or, in rare cases, executed. Many women were sent to camps, and not all of them returned in 1945. In addition to taking these risks, these people had an alternative: the Germans offered substantial cash rewards for anyone turning in an Allied flier. And, we should remember, the fliers had, in almost every case, been shot down while bombing French cities and factories. Yet, despite all this, thousands of ordinary French civilians rescued, sheltered, and helped smuggle these airmen. The rescues began during the dark days of 1941, when Hitler was riding high, and persisted right up to liberation. Andrieu uses these facts to question the traditional historiography of the occupation and Résistance. In 1945, right after liberation, the myth of the Résistance was born: almost every French man and woman—except for a few traitorous followers of Vichy—hated the Germans and did whatever they could to resist the occupation. By the 1970s, this myth had been shattered, and replaced with a more realistic portrait of a France with a small percentage of active collaborators, a similar number of resistance members, and a huge population of people who tried to get by. But Andrieu points out that the literature of the occupation is biased: the memoirs left by resistantes came almost entirely from educated urban men. Historians have favored the activities of groups—mostly male—that engaged in assassinations and sabotage. The people who rescued fliers were virtually ignored by France and its historians—though the British and American did work to find them, and compensate for their work. Andrieu’s big point, though, is that rescuing Allied airmen was resisting German rule, and that, in almost every case, the French civilians who were contacted by fliers helped them, despite the risks involved.

The final section of When Men Fell from the Sky describes what happened to Allied fliers who came down in Germany, especially during the last two years of the war. The Royal Air Force and then the Americans bombed German cities from the beginning of the war, with ever-increasing intensity, right to April 1945. Though civilian casualty figures have always been argued over, it’s very likely that more Germans died from bombs than civilians in any other country in World War II. In 1940, 41 and 42, Allied fliers who encountered German civilians were always turned over to the police or army, and sent to POW camps. Late in the war, however, there were more and more instances of civilians beating or even killing airmen. By 1944, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was encouraging civilians to attack downed fliers by using terms such as “Terrorbomber” and “Luftgangster” to describe Allied aircrews, while Himmler sent secret instructions to the police not to intervene if civilian mobs attacked fliers. And, although it may be hard for readers today to believe it, Nazi officials told the German people that Jews were behind the bombing—and this was often believed, and acted upon. Andrieu details cases in which American (Christian) airmen were attacked by mobs who believed them to be Jews. These Germans were aware of what their government had done to Europe’s Jews, and saw the bombing as retribution.

When Men Fell from the Sky is well researched, carefully documented, and full of provocative ideas for reassessing and revising the historiography of this facet of the air war over Europe in World War II.

Note: When Men Fell from the Sky is also available in e-editions.

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