I found the story of Robert’s parents fascinating, and Robert was interested in publicizing the additional story of the V-1 and especially of the adventures of a French resistant, Michel Hollard, who informed the British about launch sites that the Germans began constructing in 1943. I had just published Lincoln & Darwin and was ready for a new project: and this one would bring me into the 20th century, with people alive who remembered the events, an excuse for repeated visits to France, and something Sarah could help me with since she could speak French while I could only read it. So, over the next eighteen months I worked with Robert while Sarah and I made six more visits to Bosmelet, and though Robert continued to find people for me to interview and more and more family diaries, memoirs, and letters for me to read, I felt that to make a book out of the story I would need to discuss also the background to the deployment of the V-1 and the British efforts to counter this unprecedented weapon. My research uncovered new material about the man who commanded the regiment that launched the V-1s, Colonel Max Wachtel, and also about key  players who discovered Wachtel’s plans and desperately tried to stop him.

    Then in March 2012 Robert de Bosmelet tragically died of spinal cancer. Members of his family wanted me to carry on with my work, which I did. A first draft was completed in 2014, when I found that I had written far too much, a problem exacerbated in 2015 by the discovery of a ‘scandalous’ memoir written by Pierre de Bosmelet that his son Robert had never shown me.

    After many more months spent incorporating this new material while also  boiling down the entire text, I’ve begun the process of finding a publisher. If you would like further information, please contact me. 

James Lander

jlander909@gmail.com

                The Origins of the Project

    This is the true story of a handsome Frenchman and wealthy Englishwoman whose fragile marriage in 1936 was turned into a nightmare by the Second World War. Pierre de Bosmelet was a reserve officer determined to fight the Germans even after the French government surrendered, and his wife, the former Diana Mathias, fled the château with their two young children because she was an ‘enemy alien’ and also a Jew. While the couple had various misadventures in America, Africa and England, Pierre’s mother, Henriette, remained at the château, where German troops were billeted. After many confrontations she was finally banished from the Château de Bosmelet when the Germans decided to build a top secret V-1 launch site on the estate. The man who made that decision was Colonel Max Wachtel, commander of the regiment he trained to launch this revolutionary weapon in order to threaten London with destruction. How the British dealt with this threat is a large part of our story, for Bomber Command’s countermeasures resulted in bombs falling on the château. After Pierre and Diana were reunited after the Liberation of France, but found their home in ruins, they fatally disagreed whether to attempt to restore it.

    While Sarah and I were on our way to a holiday in the Loire in August 2010 we broke the journey in Normandy at the château de Bosmelet, mainly to view its walled garden. We happened to meet the owner, Robert de Bosmelet, and learned about the V-1 launch site that the Germans built on the property during the war, and about the bizarre war-time experiences of his parents. His mother, Diana Mathias, came from a wealthy London family and had married Pierre de Bosmelet in 1936. Pierre was an international lawyer and a reserve officer who fought the Germans until the armistice in June 1940, then managed to take his wife and two small children to safety in America before he himself rallied to General de Gaulle in London. After serving in French Africa, Pierre then took part in the liberation of France. Meanwhile Diana struggled to be with Pierre and had various adventures in California, Africa and England before re-uniting with Pierre in 1945.