Located to the right of the entrance door.

The site contains a simple inscribed stone plaque commemorating U.S. Marine Colonel Peter Ortiz. The square by Centron town hall was named for then-Major Peter Ortiz, who, during Office of Strategic Services (OSS) deployment supporting French Resistance during World War II saved the town from German annihilation by surrendering his team with honor in August 1944.

After deploying his team by airdrop near Les Saisies on 1 August 1944, Ortiz linked up with French Resistance and, for two weeks, conducted sabotage operations and direct action raids against German forces retreating from southern France toward Germany.

On 16 August 1944, German forces ambushed and surrounded the team in the Village of Centron. The teams fierce resistance led the German commander to believe he faced a company-sized unit. Along with Ortiz on this mission at this point were only six personnel: Army Air Forces Captain Francis Coolidge, and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Robert La Salle, Sergeants John P. Bodnar, Frederick J. Brunner, and Jack R. Risler, as well as a Free French officer, Joseph Arcelin, who carried false identification which showed him to be a U.S. Marine. Brunner, Coolidge, and Arcelin escaped by jumping in the river before the Germans could cover the area with machine gun fire.

Ortiz knew the Germans had liquidated entire towns for harboring resistance fighters -- which happened only days before in the nearby village Montgirod. Ortiz made a drastic decision to surrender his team to prevent reprisals. He approached the German lines under a flag of truce and negotiated directly with German commander Major Kolb, offering to surrender his entire garrison if Kolb gave his word the villagers would not be harmed. Kolb agreed.

When only Ortiz, Sergeant Bodnar, and Sergeant Risler walked out of the village, the Germans were shocked. Kolb was furious when he realized only three Marines in the village had held off a German battalion. But Kolb kept his word. The people of Centron lived. Arcelin was captured soon after, and treated as a U.S. Marine since he was wearing the uniform of an American Marine who died on the deployment airdrop. The Germans would hold the four members of Union II until the end of the war in a POW camp near Bremen, Germany.

Centron held a ceremony in August 1994 to rename the town center Place Colonel Peter Ortiz in honor of Ortiz. Former Sergeants Bodnar and Risler were present at this dedication.

Source of information: www.smithsonianmag.com, www.military.com, www.cia.gov

Source of photo: www.smithsonianmag.com

PLACE

COLONEL

PETER ORTIZ