By Bohdan Cherniawski | July 23rd, 2025
In the waning weeks of August 1944, as the German military retreated across France and Allied divisions advanced from both Normandy and the south, an organized rebellion unfolded in the Haute-Saône region in Eastern France. Two battalions of soldiers, long removed from their homes in Ukraine, turned their rifles on the very officers they had served under for years.
These men were members of the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, recently transferred from East Prussia. Their presence in France was the result of a chain of conscriptions, battlefield captures, and forced assignments that had begun years earlier under foreign occupation. By the time they reached eastern France, the soldiers of these units had already fought in forests and steppes, seen the rise and fall of front lines, and lived for years with the knowledge that neither victory nor safety would come easily—if at all.
On August 27, near the village of Noidans-le-Ferroux, Major Lev Hloba signaled with a green flare. It was the cue. The battalions moved quickly. German officers were ambushed and killed. Horses scattered, barracks were stormed, and command vehicles seized. Within minutes, seventy-five German officers and NCOs lay dead. Only two of the mutineers were killed. At Camp Valdahon, the second battalion executed a simultaneous revolt, removing their officers and taking full control of the post.
By day’s end, over 1,200 trained fighters had left German command and aligned with the French Resistance. Their weapons—machine guns, mortars, anti-tank rifles—and their discipline became immediate assets to the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).
Across the Continent — A Path Shaped by War
These battalions had not originated in France. Their roots were in cities and villages to the east—places marked by collectivization, famine, political purges, and war. Their journey westward had followed a familiar pattern for those from the borderlands of empires: occupation, fragmentation, survival.
During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, entire regions were consumed in weeks. In the power vacuum that followed, thousands were pressed into local police units or recruited into German auxiliary forces. The 102nd Battalion was raised in Kremianets. The 118th, in Kyiv. The men in these units came from a range of backgrounds: former Red Army prisoners hoping to avoid starvation in POW camps, rural recruits pulled from villages
devastated by collectivization, and others who had survived purges or political imprisonment.
At first, their duties were limited to protecting key infrastructure—rail lines, supply depots, and government outposts. But by the end of 1942, their role had shifted. Both battalions found themselves drawn into front-line combat, taking part in anti-partisan campaigns across Belarus and occupied regions of Russia.
It was during these operations that some members of the 118th Battalion became involved in atrocities, including the March 1943 massacre at the Belarusian village of Khatyn, where 149 civilians—many of them women and children—were killed. Though responsibility was shared among several units, including collaborators and SS personnel, this incident would later haunt the legacy of the battalion, complicating the narrative of its later defection in France.
By early 1944, they were relocated to East Prussia. There, they underwent retraining and were absorbed into the Waffen-SS as elements of the 30th Grenadier Division. From that point on, they had little control over their path. Orders came down in a language unfamiliar to many of them, from a command that saw them as expendable. Their eventual transfer to France didn’t signify advancement—it was merely another forced move.
The Reasons Behind the Revolt
By the time the battalions arrived in France, the war had become an open wound. The men had little connection to the cause they were fighting for and no desire to die defending territory that was never theirs. In private conversations among the ranks, frustration had long replaced fear.
Major Hloba had once served in the Red Army, been captured, and spent time in a German POW camp before being offered a command post in an auxiliary unit. Captain A. Negrebetzki had a similar background. Both men understood the implications of their service and the likely outcome if captured by Soviet forces. They also recognized an opportunity in France: a moment when defection was possible, and collaboration with local Resistance could provide a path out.
Contact was established with FFI leader Simon Doillon in Vesoul. An agreement was reached: the battalions would defect, but only if the German command structure could be eliminated entirely. On the morning of August 27, that plan was put into action. The executions were swift and controlled. Once their officers were dead, the battalions moved immediately to link up with Resistance forces in the surrounding countryside.
Reorganized and Renamed
The battalions did not simply dissolve into the Resistance. They were reorganized, given structure, and—importantly—names of their own choosing. The 102nd became the Ivan Bohun Bataillon, honoring a 17th-century Cossack leader who had resisted foreign domination. The 118th adopted the name Taras Shevchenko Bataillon, in tribute to the poet whose work had long symbolized cultural endurance and national identity.
Far from symbolic, these reconstituted units were immediately thrust into combat. The 1st BUK launched offensives near Melin, liberated hostages, ambushed German convoys, and built fortified positions in the Cherlieu Forest. On September 8–9, they repelled a coordinated German assault at Vy-les-Rupt. The 2nd BUK engaged Wehrmacht forces in Pontarlier, Chaux-les-Passavant, and Pont-de-Roide. Their combat performance earned four Croix de Guerre, and Private Danylo Klym was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for valor.
Their strength lay in unity, hard-won experience, and the training they had once received under German command—skills they now used against their former superiors. As they struck at retreating Axis forces through the Belfort Gap and kept up relentless pressure in the Vosges, these battalions became a critical part of the Resistance’s fighting power, playing a direct role in helping the Allies push forward.
To coordinate efforts, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) sent in a team—codenamed “Marcel-Proust”—by parachute. Among them was Lieutenant Walter Kuzmuk, a Ukrainian-American officer serving as the team’s liaison. To many of the fighters, his presence meant more than just coordination with the Allies—it was a rare and personal reminder of the Ukraine they had left behind.
On September 12, 1944, in the village of Confracourt, members of the Ukrainian battalions joined French and American forces for a joint liberation ceremony. Three flags were raised side by side: the French tricolor, the Stars and Stripes, and the blue and yellow of Ukraine.
Freedom’s Terms — Repatriation or Exile
The liberation of France brought celebration and relief. But for these Ukrainian battalions, it also brought a new danger. The Yalta Conference agreements required that all Soviet nationals in Allied-held territory be repatriated, regardless of their circumstances during the war.
To the men of the Bohun and Shevchenko Battalions, this was a death sentence. Under Soviet policy, surviving behind German lines—regardless of the context—was considered treason. Soldiers who had been captured and returned to the USSR faced interrogation, imprisonment, or execution.
This looming threat became more concrete under Operation Keelhaul, a postwar Allied operation carried out between 1945 and 1947. Its goal was to forcibly repatriate millions of Soviet citizens, including former POWs, laborers, and refugees—many of whom, like the Ukrainian defectors in France, had no desire to return. The operation was controversial even among its organizers, as reports emerged of suicides, forced returns at gunpoint, and mass deportations into the Soviet Gulag system. For many, being labeled a “repatriate” meant disappearance.
Understanding this, French officers—along with sympathetic OSS personnel—acted quietly to prevent their deportation. In September 1944, the Bohun Battalion was officially integrated into the French Foreign Legion, with the Shevchenko Battalion joining soon after. This move wasn’t just bureaucratic—it granted the men legal recognition as French soldiers, offering crucial protection from forced repatriation.
Around 230 members of the Shevchenko Battalion entered the Legion’s ranks. For those left behind, the future was far less certain. Some were sent back to the East; others simply vanished amid the confusion and disorder of the postwar return process.
Postwar Combat — Indochina and Algeria
The Foreign Legion offered protection—but not peace. The men who had defected in Haute-Saône were soon reassigned to French colonial deployments. In Indochina, they fought in jungle terrain unfamiliar and unforgiving.
At Dien Bien Phu in 1954, Legion records show that several veterans of the 1944 mutiny were among the defenders. Their names, often changed or abbreviated, are difficult to trace. One soldier, listed as “V.K.,” was wounded in the final week of the siege. No record of his evacuation or burial has survived.
Following the collapse of French control in Indochina, the surviving members were redeployed to Algeria. There, they were involved in suppressing a nationalist uprising that had begun in 1954. The experience was conflicted. Some had turned on their own commanders in France to avoid killing civilians. Now, they were ordered to contain another liberation movement.
A History Without a Home
The men of the Bohun and Shevchenko Battalions were never carved into monuments, and their names rarely appear in the pages of history books. Their story didn’t align with the clean lines of national pride. They had served under shifting flags, crossed endless borders, and changed uniforms as often as they changed direction—all in the fight to stay alive.
But in 1944, when history cracked open just wide enough, they stepped through. Their mutiny was not an empty gesture—it was an act of defiance with real consequence. By standing with the Resistance, they brought not only weapons and training, but purpose and resolve. Their courage helped drive back the Axis through eastern France and added momentum to the broader fight for liberation. They may have been forgotten by the world, but for a brief and vital moment, they helped shape its future.