Radio Londres – John Has A Long Mustache

Radio Londres was the BBC’s French-language voice from 1940 to 1944.

It countered German propaganda, urged the French to resist and carried coded messages to the Resistance.

Les Français Parlent Aux Français

The best-known program gave French exiles a microphone in London.

Occupied France listened in secret.

The signal became a daily appointment.

Between the news and the commentary came strange sentences read slowly and repeated.

Each one belonged to a resistance group that knew what it meant.

Meanings were agreed in advance and delivered by courier through the Special Operations Executive.

Message	Reported Meaning
John has a long mustache	Representative personal message
There is a fire at the insurance agency	Representative personal message
The postman has fallen asleep	Representative spring 1944 message
Grandma is eating our sweets	Representative spring 1944 message
The dice are on the table	Begin destroying locomotives and rail lines
It is hot in Suez	Cut communication lines

On June 1, a line from Paul Verlaine’s poem about autumn violins told resistance groups that the invasion was coming within two weeks.

On June 5, the poem’s second line told them it was within 48 hours.

Radios went quiet, tools were readied and the sabotage began.

One message, “Courvoisier, we are coming to visit you,” confused the head of the Courvoisier brandy firm in London.

He called the BBC to ask what it meant.

The coded world sometimes collided with the ordinary one.