THE story of François Scornet, the young Breton executed in Jersey during the Occupation, is a well-known one.

It has been told many times, but it is now also the subject of a new book written in French by a teacher from Morlaix, Marthe Le Clech, and entitled ‘Odyssée Tragique’. It would be wrong to say that it adds much to what is already known about this star-crossed attempt at escape, but it does add interesting details, especially about the other would-be escapees. The author, after all, is writing a local history book about people from her own home area, rather than just about Scornet.

It includes absorbing photographs — both of the group of young men before they set off, and another one taken secretly in jail in Caen. Just as young, with faces equally open and guileless, are the German soldiers stationed in Brittany, pictured relaxing in off-duty moments.

After Liberation, Père Théodule Maré celebrated a Requiem Mass at St Thomas’s Church, and there is a marvellous photo — reproduced here — from the collection of the Scornet family in France, taken on 18 September 1945, showing the arrival of his remains at St Thomas’s for the Mass.

Scornet was executed because he was judged to be the ringleader of a group of 16 youths caught while trying to escape to Britain to join the Free French forces. In December 1940, 16 youths from the neighbourhood of Morlaix in Brittany — none of them older than their early twenties — decided to escape France and the Occupation that had begun that summer. They got hold of a boat, and one night set off for England and freedom. Many of them had not told their parents what they were doing.

But, with bad weather and seasickness, and mishaps with their equipment, the grand adventure quickly became a nightmare. They finally made landfall at what they thought was the Isle of Wight and came ashore singing the Marseillaise.

However, they had only reached occupied Guernsey and they were met by German soldiers.
They were questioned, sent to Jersey and then tried. Four of them were sentenced to death. In three cases this was commuted to imprisonment, but the death sentence on Scornet was confirmed. He was taken to St Ouen’s Manor and executed in the grounds.

With him at during his last night at the prison, and at the site of the execution, was the French Catholic priest, Père Maré, of St Thomas’s Church. Today, a panel featuring Scornet hangs in the French chapel at St Thomas of Our Lady of Lourdes. The other 15 were sent initially to Caen and then to Germany. Not all survived to be liberated in 1945 by the Americans.

‘Odyssée Tragique’, by Marthe Le Clech, is published by Editions Bretagne d’Hier: tel 0033 2 98 88 00 46; e-mail mlc29600@wanadoo.fr.

• Picture above: François Scornet, executed as the ringleader of the escape