the attack. By 6 o'clock, the buildings used to house the German garrison were identified; the post office and the town hall, where the FTP established their command posts, were secured by 7 o'clock. At 8 o'clock, the train station was also taken by the resistance, who found there only eighteen watchmen and one employee of the railway, Abel Leblanc: invited to join the Maquis, they decided instead to await the end of the fighting in the station waiting room. At 11:30, the forces of the Milice and the Mobile Reserve Group hoisted a white flag on the barracks of the Champs de Mars and, following negotiations, they left the town around 4:00 pm carrying all their gear. For Elie Dupuy, whose FTP battle group was not affected by the order to fall back to Chapou, this departure was a failure of one of the operation's goals of recovering war material and transport from the security forces; but with his single battalion of only 90 men, he could not afford "to continue the attack against the German garrison, and at the same time, impose unconditional surrender on the security forces". Meanwhile, around 1:30 in the afternoon, German forces took advantage of a partial withdraw of the Maquis from the hills around Tulle that had been ordered by Chapou and briefly regained control of the train station where they found the watchmen wearing white armbands, part of their work uniform but also bearing some resemblance to those worn by the FTP. The watchmen were taken from the building and, without any questioning and without being searched, they were shot by German troops in the station courtyard or along the tracks leading to the regional railway engine house, cut down "in the crossfire, including of a machine gun shooting them in the back as they pleaded with the Germans, shouting 'Comrades! Comrades!'". Only Abel Leblanc survived the shootout. According to B. Kartheuser, it was deliberate murder, the Germans being aware of the presence of the watchmen and knowing their attire. In the night between the 7 and 8 June, according to the Maquis fighters, still without the 450 fighters of their A group, withdrew to the hills around the town and the German forces regrouped in three places: the girls school in the north, the weapons factory and the Souilhac school in the south. Fighting resumed at half past six in the