"A Maine man, Sumner Waldron - Dr. Jack, as he was known - risked his life and the lives of his wife and teenage son to fight the injustices of Nazi Germany and to help downed Allied flyers escape to freedom. Doctor to the Resistance tells the story of the Jackson family's life in occupied Paris - how a wife and mother struggled with cold and near starvation in the terrible winters of 1941-44; how Dr. Jackson managed against the odds to keep the venerable American Hospital free of Nazi control; and how the Jackson family survived amid the intrigue and terror of underground work and resistance to the Nazis." "Young Phillip Jackson thought it was all "a great game." But the game turns tragically serious as Vichy secret police, who routinely executed resistance fighters, track the family's covert activities and close in on the Jacksons."
Includes bibliographical references (page 199) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
At the Western Front on the Somme : June 1916 -- Coming home, going home -- The debacle : Paris 1940 -- Internment -- Resistance -- Flying fortresses, secret agents -- Betrayal, arrest, deportation -- Ravensbrück, Neuengamme -- SS death ships -- Sacrifice -- Heroes and villains.
Doctor to the Resistance : The Heroic True Story of an American Surgeon and His Family in Occupied Paris
Maine-born Dr. Sumner "Jack" Jackson joined the British Army as a volunteer physician during World War I. After the Battle of the Somme, he married a beautiful French Red Cross nurse. When the war was over, Jackson joined the staff of the American Hospital in Paris, where he quickly became a favorite physician of such Lost Generation figures as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. During World War II, Jackson, his wife, and their teenage son joined the French Resistance. They hid and treated wounded Allied flyers and Resistance fighters, used the hospital as a cover for Resistance activities, photographed the German submarine base at Saint-Nazaire, and helped smuggle plans for the V-1 rocket to England. Just before the Americans liberated Paris, however, the family was betrayed to the Gestapo and deported to German concentration camps. The day before the war ended, tragedy struck. Doctor to the Resistance is based on recently declassified records of the French Resistance, the National Archives, family letters and diaries, and the author's interviews with Dr. Jackson's son. Hal Vaughan recounts the Jacksons' remarkable true story for the first time. It will captivate history buffs, World War II aficionados, and anyone interested in the Paris of that fascinating era.
E-book
