By sea, a ghost-like patrol of Allied warships keeps watch every night until the approach of dawn. Among them is Iroquois, a powerful  new Canadian destroyer. Silently the warships glide around the coasts of Brittany and
Poitou and only sudden, swift snap challenges from German shore batteries show when their presence has been detected.

Grandmothers Beg Smokes

Commander James C. Hibbard, captain of Iroquois who gained a bar to his D.S.C. for execution among  German ships off France after D-Day recently made a quick  trip into Les Sables d'Olonnes on the Brittany coast. He and his crew had a great reception  from the inhabitants. They found the people reasonably well dressed and there was no shortage of food. But youngsters and grandmothers clamoured for cigarettes. Yvonne, a dark haired girl of 15 offered one of the party a blue silk belt with the British, French and American flags and the Cross of Lorraine painted on it.

Greetings were exchanged with Captain Eugene Beaumont, the active commandant of the district, his officers and Col. Gross, chief of the local gendarmerie. Intelligence in their possession was given Commander Hibbard and later the party were entertained at the loyalists mess. This mess bad been the home of one of Les Sables d'Olonnes  more active collaborationists who had been shot after the Germans' withdrawal a month ago.

The first of several landing trips by parties from Iroquois was to the small Ile d'Yeu, off the Poitou coast, last August, a day after the Germans had pulled out. As a parting gesture, the Nazis had carried off most of  the food and rifled the Post Office. When the landing part left, their boat was filled with flowers and fruit. The next day, Iroquois sent the islanders a considerable quantity of stores.

A few days ago a letter of thanks reached Iroquois by a circuitous route from M. Louis Marcel Valle, leader of the Free French of the Interior on the islands.