Doctor to the Resistance : the true heroic story of an American surgeon and his family in occupied Paris

Title:

Author:

Vaughan, Hal, 1928-2013, author.

ISBN:

9781574887747

Physical Description:

240 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm

General Note:

Originally published: Dulles, Va.: Brassey's, 2004.

Abstract:

Sumner Jackson was a distinguished doctor living in Paris with his French wife & son when the German invasion came in 1940. He remained in the city & with his family joined the Resistance. Hal Vaughan describes their adventures & ultimate, tragic fate.

Personal Subject:

Jackson, Sumner Waldron.

Jackson, Charlotte Sylvie, -1968.

Jackson, Phillip.

Subject Term:

World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.

Surgeons -- United States.

Americans -- France -- History -- 20th century.

Warfare and Defence.

Geographic Term:

France -- History -- German occupation, 1940-1945.

Genre:

Language:

English

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Mark	Adult Genre	Status
Searching... Elm Park Library (Havering)	Adult non-fiction	940.5344	History	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hounslow Feltham Library	Adult non-fiction	940.5344		Searching... Unknown
Searching... Robert Jeyes Library (Barking and Dagenham)	Adult non-fiction	BIO VAU	Biography	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

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.

Reviews (1)

Library Journal Review

Journalist and documentary film producer Vaughan has used recently declassified French sources as well as letters, diaries, and interviews to tell the story of Sumner "Jack" Jackson of Maine, a decorated front-line surgeon and urologist who joined the British army as a volunteer physician during World War I. Never again comfortable with American life, Jackson and his French wife, a Red Cross nurse, settled in Paris after the war. There he became medical director of the American Hospital, treating the elite of Paris, and the text includes stories about his relationships with leading figures of the Lost Generation. The hospital became the base for his Resistance activities during World War II, which included hiding "patients" from the Germans and treating wounded Allied flyers and Resistance fighters. This accessible, absorbing, and inspirational book is both an important chronicle of Parisian life under the Vichy regime and an expos? of Resistance operations. It also reveals the impact of Jackson's politics on his teenage son and the tragic fate that befell the entire family, wrenchingly demonstrating the high price paid for Jackson's acts of courage. Moving and inspirational; for most libraries.-Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.