in the torture and the slaughter of the Maquisards of Vercors and the inhabitants of Vassieux. On 23 July 1944, three Go-242 gliders (each with 2 pilots and 21 soldiers, or weaponry and supplies) towed by Heinkel-111 bombers, and 20 DFS-230 gliders transported one Ost-Kompanie (Ostlegionen: Russian, Ukrainian and Caucasian volunteers) and a paratrooper platoon from Valence-Chabeuil to Vassieux. According to Peter Lieb, at least two DFS-230 and two Go-242 gliders landed a further on, only one Go-242 with weaponry and supplies landed on Vassieux, so the second wave of assault consisted only of about a hundred and fifty soldiers. Thomas and Ketley wrote that the Fallschirm-Kampfgruppe "Schäfer" was detached from Kampfgeschwader 200 on 8 June 1944. It was made up of volunteers out of Fallschirmjäger-Bewährungstruppe (probationary troops), mustered at Tangerhütte and trained for three months at Dedelstorf in order to launch an attack from gliders. Günther Gellermann says that the Fallschirm-Kampfgruppe "Schäfer" was under Luftflotte 3 command and no longer under Kampfgeschwader 200 command. In fiction The Maquis du Vercors is depicted and veterans act in Pierre Schoendoerffer's 2002 feature film Above the Clouds (Là-Haut), and in the third season of the British TV programme Wish Me Luck, first broadcast in 1990. The battle and the maquisards of Vercors also prominently feature in Frank Yerby's 1974 novel The Voyage Unplanned. Documentary films In 1948, French director Jean-Paul Le Chanois made (In the Heart of the Thunderstorm''), a documentary about the French Resistance during the Second World War. The film, composed of Allied clandestine film recordings and German newsreels, focuses on the battle of the Vercors Plateau during July 1944. See also Maquis des Glières Maquis du Mont Mouchet Maquis de l'Oisans Operation Rösselsprung (1944) Citations Bibliography V V Free French military personnel of World War II V Vercors V V V V V Nazi war crimes in France