Although the plot and characters are fiction, the novel is firmly grounded in historical fact. About 26,000 US airmen from the Eighth Air Force (in which Henry serves in the novel) died in Europe during World War II. Of the US airmen who were downed but survived, it is estimated that more than 3,000 were assisted by the French Resistance and were able to return to Allied territory. The Resistance provided safe houses and organized escape lines. In doing so, these French civilians put their own lives at risk, and many were captured, imprisoned, or killed by the Germans.

Women played a significant role in the French Resistance, as the novel demonstrates through the figures of Madame Gaulloise, Pierre’s mother, and Claudette. Women supplied food, stored guns, and hid serviceman and Jewish civilians in their barns and attics. They also smuggled weapons and secret papers and acted as messengers, forming vital links in escape chains. L. M. Elliott notes in her “Afterword” that one young female who was code-named “Michou” helped 150 British and American airmen to escape by using a ruse that, in the novel, the girl on the train to Switzerland uses to help Henry: Bidding a passionate farewell to an airman she did not know to embarrass a German guard into not checking the man’s identification papers. Michou’s real name was Micheline Aline Dumon (1921-2017); she was a member of the Belgian Resistance.

Children and teenagers also participated in the French Resistance. In the novel, the young man who guides Henry to a maquis camp is no more than 16, and Claudette is 17. Elliott notes in her “Afterword” that many teenage boys were active maquisards and took on adult roles because so many Frenchmen had been forced to work in German factories.

The novel also invokes some of the real historical atrocities the Nazis committed against civilians to punish resistance activity. The Gestapo officer tells Henry that the SS destroyed the village of Oradour-sur-Glane because it was full of “French terrorists” (212), that is, the French Resistance. The massacre did indeed happen on June 10th, 1944. The killings were carried out by the Nazis’ Waffen-SS Panzer Division (armored division), and after the massacre the SS destroyed the entire village. The exact death toll was 642 villagers.

The massacre at the village of Vassieux-en-Vercors (where Pierre and his family live in the novel), was also a real historical event. According to historical accounts, 72 inhabitants of the village died in the attack, which took place on July 14th, 1944. 120 French Resistance fighters were killed in and around the village. The village was awarded the Cross of Liberation in August 1945, commemorating the sacrifice that its people made.

The third massacre mentioned in the novel took place at Dun-les-places in central France. Claudette tells Henry that the Nazis shot 30 people in front of a church, including Claudette’s 80-year-old uncle. Historically, several thousand Nazi soldiers occupied the village for three days in June 1944, killing 27 people as well as looting the village and setting homes on fire. The killings were in response to the presence of Resistance fighters in the village.

Another incident that reflects historical reality is when Claudette and Henry encounter a crowd that is taunting and abusing a teenage girl who has had her head shaved. This was a common punishment meted out after the liberation of France to women and girls who were accused of being collaborators. Many were also accused of engaging in sexual or romantic relationships with German soldiers. There were an estimated 20,000 cases of such punishments.