Pausing only to pay attention to grilled turbot garnished with steamed clams, baby artichokes, and garlic butter, Uncle Pierre continued. "Like the situation in Corsica, your quest is more complex than you imagine. You have, for instance, forgotten the existence of Belgian Resistance in the Ardennes during The Battle of the Bulge."
"What we surmise with some evidence", Nico replied, "is that Ted Treharne entered Normandy at Utah Beach in June, 1944. Before the war, Ted was a scholar of California art and a not significant painter of California Bay Area landscapes. He had a studio in his Grandfather's hotel and a girlfriend whose family owned a winery in the Gold Country. Along with 23,000 other US soldiers, Captain Treharne, at that time with the 4th Armored in Patton's Third Army, was -- between December 22, 1944 and when Bastogne was relieved on December 26 -- officially listed as Missing in Action in the Battle of the Bulge."
"I should point out", Uncle Pierre said -- filling his and Nico's glasses with Dom Perignon -- "that following the invasion of Southern France in Operation Dragoon, on their way North up the Rhone River Valley, part of the French First Army exited from the Vosges mountains, and in December of 1944, General Patch's Seventh Army and General de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army did not follow Patton's abrupt turn into the Ardennes. Instead, continuing Patton's earlier mission, their objective -- and that of the Resistance-bred French Forces of the Interior -- was to drive the German Army back across the Rhine -- in what would in January, 1945 be called The Battle of Colmar Pocket. Thus, the organized French Resistance was not in the Ardennes when Captain Treharne went MIA. However, groups of unofficial French and/or Belgian Resistance -- as well as pre-existing safe houses might have been involved in his rescue."