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Robert Leycuras

Robert Leycuras - son Livre ouvert !
 

Acte de naissance

Né le 23 mars 1909
pas de mention de décès

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Jacques Ghémard le dimanche 26 août 2018 - Demander un contact

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Merci et bravo

Merci pour ce bel hommage, nous sommes très émus et fiers que l'heroisme de notre grand-père soit ainsi reconnu.
Alexandre, Joanna et Emily

Alexandre Leycuras, Joanna et Emily Garfen le samedi 25 avril 2015 - Demander un contact

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Robert Leycuras (alias Albert) est né le 2 mai 1902 à Limoges, pupille de la Nation. Gardien de la paix à la Préfecture de Police en 1934, il adhère au Coq Gaulois (un groupe de Résistance policière) à sa création, mais réussit à se faire acquitter par la justice militaire allemande. A la sortie de ses quatre mois de détention provisoire, il met peu de temps pour rejoindre, en mai 1942, les Forces Françaises Libres. Il est brièvement interné à la prison Saint-Antoine de Genève, où il est en mission pour le réseau d’évasions Pat O’Leary (2 février 1943 – 1er mars 1943). Il retrouve rapidement Pat O’Leary, héberge et convoie 70 aviateurs alliés, et devient responsable du secteur sud-est de la ligne d’évasions. Il monte dans sa hiérarchie au point d’être, à la Libération, le deuxième liquidateur du réseau. Avec l’arrivée de Bertet, ils acquièrent une solide réputation d’être tous deux toujours volontaires pour tous les coups difficiles. Il est arrêté à nouveau à Agullana en Espagne, et interné à Figueras, à Gérone, puis au camp de Miranda (7 avril 1943 – 18 août 1943) après être parti sur ordre suite à la capture du chef de réseau, le docteur Guérisse. Il travaille un temps en Espagne à la Base locale des Travaux Ruraux du commandant Paillole, et il est employé par la Direction Générale des Services Spéciaux jusqu’à la Libération, qui le trouve homolgué, modestement, au grade de sous-lieutenant. Suspendu le 11 juillet 1942 et révoqué le 13 août, il est réintégré dans la police en octobre 1946. Il devient alors officier de paix, et prend sa retraite en 1964 comme commandant de gardiens de la paix. Robert Leycuras est chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Member of the British Empire, et titulaire de la Croix de Guerre.

RUDOLPH le vendredi 18 novembre 2011 - Demander un contact

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Robert Leycuras ?

www.conscript-heroes.com/  

"... In October 42, being temporarily without radio contact, O'Leary went to Switzerland to communicate direct with London through Victor Farrel, the British Consul in Geneva. Whilst he was there, Farrel asked O'Leary to evacuate a particularly valuable and tough young intelligence agent named Fabien de Cortes from Lyon. Fabien then offered to work for the Line until his departure. When O'Leary returned to Marseille in November he found everything had changed again following the German's occupation of the previously non-occupied part of France. Louis Nouveau and Mario Prassinos were too well known to continue there so Mario left for England via the Pyrenees whilst Louis moved to Paris leaving Robert Leycuras (Albert) in charge of the Marseille area, along with Fabien de Cortes. In July of that year Alex Wattebled (Jacques) and Francis Blanchain (Achille - soon to leave for England himself) had been introduced by Paul Ulmann to Françoise Dissard and Mifouf in Toulouse and now O'Leary set up his new headquarters there while Augustine Mongelard continued to house evading servicemen at the Hotel de Paris.

The German occupation of the ZNO also prompted O'Leary and Françoise to try and rescue Ian Garrow from Mauzac before he could be transferred to Germany, and almost certain death. Mauzac concentration camp, on the Dordogne river, was used by the French and Germans as a transit camp for resistance workers and collaborators. This complicated operation was carried out on 8 December with the help of Nancy Fiocca, who had supported Garrow throughout his imprisonment, Paul Ulmann, who supplied Garrow's counterfeit prison-guard uniform, and Jean Bregi who drove Garrow and O'Leary away to his home at Lunas les Bergerac. After three weeks with Françoise Dissard, Garrow and Alex Nitelet (who had been 'released' from Chambaran the previous November) were taken across the Pyrenees to the British Consulate in Barcelona at the end of January.

In February 1943 O'Leary and Françoise organised another prison break - this time from Castres, about 65 kms east of Toulouse, where Gaston Negre, Pierre Lanvers and Charles, from the parachute drop, and radio operator Philippe Valat were held along with a couple of evading airmen. They were quickly dispersed to safe houses in Toulouse and Marseille.

The End of the Line

On 12 February 1943, Louis Nouveau and Suzy Gerard were arrested at St Pierre des Corps whilst bringing a group of airmen from Paris to cross the demarcation line near Tours. Unknown to O'Leary, they had been betrayed by their courier Roger le Neveu - aka Roger le Legionnaire. Two weeks later le Neveu arrived in Toulouse and arranged to meet O'Leary and Paul Ulmann at the Super Bar café where they were promptly arrested by the Gestapo. The arrests of Fabien de Cortes, Alex Bensi and the Martin family soon followed thanks to another traitor, an ex-policeman named Fari. Within weeks Henri Fiocca (Nancy's husband who had financed much of the Line's activities) was also arrested - he died two months later at St Pierre prison in Marseille.

After the arrests of the Cheramys and Tom Groome in January, of Louis Nouveau and Georges Rodocanachi in February and of Pat O'Leary, Paul Ulmann, Fabien de Cortes, Alex Wattebled, Jean de La Olla, Norbert Fillerin, Costa Dimpoglou and Gaston Dijon, in early March, I would suggest setting the effective ending of the Pat Line as 22 April 1943 when Françoise Dissard sent Robert Leycuras and Georges Zarifi (nephew of Georges and Fanny Rodocanachi) across the Pyrenees to Spain. From that point on I prefer to call the escape line Françoise in honour of the redoubtable lady who maintained it so successfully until the end of the war."

Laurent Laloup le lundi 16 juin 2008 - Demander un contact

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