They Fought Alone Read online

  To the brave men and women of the Resistance who gave

  their lives for the liberation of France

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Map of France and F Section Circuits

  Chapter 1: ‘Set Europe Ablaze!’

  Chapter 2: Matchbox

  Chapter 3: Recruiting and Training

  Chapter 4: The Match

  Chapter 5: Suspicion

  Chapter 6: First Flames

  Chapter 7: Cradle of the Resistance

  Chapter 8: Blackmail

  Chapter 9: Check

  Chapter 10: Traitor

  Chapter 11: Kindling

  Chapter 12: Flame

  Chapter 13: Aftermath

  Appendix 1: Report of Sabotage and Guerrilla Warfare, October 1944

  Appendix 2: List of SOE and Resistance members run by Buckmaster’s F Section

  Index

  Plates

  Copyright

  Introduction

  The role played during the Second World War by the French Resistance and by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers and agents who worked alongside them is widely understood. But their critical role ahead of D-Day is only rarely recognised and is certainly far less known. There were a number of Allied special operations forces on the ground in France, of which those run by F Section of SOE were by far the most numerous. Indeed, F Section was the largest individual section within SOE, running more than eighty ‘circuits’ or groups of resistance fighters, each with an organiser sent in from the F Section headquarters in Baker Street, London, based just a few yards from the supposed home of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

  The head of F Section was Maurice Buckmaster, who was thirty-seven at the start of the war and had been a teacher, a merchant banker, the head of the first French office of the Ford Motor Company and then head of its European operations. Buckmaster was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and in 1941, being fluent in French, was appointed head of SOE’s independent French section. There was a separate French section designated RF which worked with the Free French led by Charles de Gaulle. Relations between the two sections were often difficult.

  In recent years, it has become fashionable to blame Maurice Buckmaster for the deaths of SOE agents who were killed as a direct result of German infiltration of F Section’s ‘circuits’. There is no doubt that F Section suffered substantial losses and that a relatively small number of its ‘circuits’ (eight out of a total of eighty-six) were penetrated and turned back against the British under German control. Buckmaster cannot entirely escape blame for that, although he was certainly not solely responsible. But the losses need to be kept in perspective. F Section had at least 425 agents in France, of whom 104 died, with only around twenty dying as a direct result of the German penetration of the eight ‘circuits’.

  Those sent in from England were told before they went in that their life expectancy, in a country where Nazi surveillance was far more intense than it was in any other country in occupied Europe, was just six weeks. In such circumstances, it would have been odd indeed if the Germans had not managed to track down some of the SOE agents, even if they had not been assisted by Henri Déricourt, an SOE agent who passed details of some of his fellow agents to the Sicherheitsdienst.

  The original revelations of the German successes, made in the late 1950s by the writers Elizabeth Nicholas and Jean Overton Fuller, led to the commissioning of an official history of SOE in France by Professor M. R. D. Foot and it is worth quoting his conclusions: ‘Not only did F Section staff do all for the best; they did all that could be reasonably expected of them, given whom they were up against. There was far too much going on at once for every circuit to get the minute care it deserved.’

  It has been argued that Buckmaster failed to pick up telltale signs from the radio communications with his agents that they had been captured. The omission of important security checks which ought to have been seen as signs that the agents had been captured and were being played back against the British were missed. Certainly they were, but not by Buckmaster. Spotting those issues was not his job. The more pertinent criticism is that when told of such problems by Leo Marks, the head of SOE coding, he ignored them. While there is substance to such claims, it is clear from Marks’s admirably honest From Silk to Cyanide that the reality is more nuanced.

  It is true that Buckmaster was sometimes reluctant to accept that an agent had been blown, but not always without justification. Even the best agents occasionally failed to send security checks or sent the wrong ones. But it is clear from the Marks account that Buckmaster’s failing was more a reluctance to give up on any one of his agents and in the case of at least two of the better known casualties, Gilbert Norman and Noor Inayat Khan, Buckmaster recognised they were blown but insisted on continuing to communicate with them in the hope that it would keep them alive. Marks noted that no matter how late he called the F Section head with a message from an agent in the field, ‘he was always waiting in his office, and his first concern was for the safety of the agent. Not all country section directors shared that attitude. To some of them, agents in the field were heads to be counted, a tally they could show CD [SOE Chief Colin Gubbins]. But Maurice Buckmaster was a family man.’

  Notwithstanding the failures, there were fifty active circuits in place, all under Buckmaster’s control, when it really mattered ahead of D-Day. Co-ordinated from London via the messages personnels broadcast by the BBC, they mounted a campaign of sabotage of railways, bridges, and German supply and ammunition dumps. They also destroyed telephone exchanges, an important element which ensured that German communications had to be sent by wireless transmissions that could be intercepted by the British and deciphered at Bletchley Park.

  The work of the Communist Maquis in mounting guerrilla attacks on German troops, delaying their arrival in Normandy and thereby enabling the allies to establish a vital bridgehead, has never been properly recognised, not even in France where they were airbrushed out of history because they were not part of the Free French forces. None of these vital operations would have been possible on such a scale without F Section’s operations and support.

  At the end of the war, when the failures were already well known to his superiors, Buckmaster was described as ‘an excellent officer with great powers of inspiring other people. It was owing to his wide knowledge of the French and his personal drive and enthusiasm that a large part of the French Resistance was successful.’

  He was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government and awarded the Legion of Merit by the US government. He wrote two memoirs, Specially Employed (1952) and this book, They Fought Alone (1958). It is a true classic but was written a dozen years after the war and before the official files were released, and as a result included a number of mistakes which have been edited out of this book. In addition, agents whose identities had been disguised have been named to ensure that their bravery is recognised. I am very grateful to David Harrison for his assistance in helping to ensure that it is now as accurate as possible.

  Michael Smith

  Editor of Dialogue Espionage Classics

  Map of France and F Section Circuits

  The map on the opposite page contains references only to those who are mentioned in the text of the book. There were many other leaders and thousands of Frenchmen who do not find mention here.

  HQ Staff

  Colonel Maurice Buckmaster Section Head

  Vera Atkins Intelligence and PA to Section Head

  Lt Col Robert Bourne-Paterson Planning

  Major Jacques de Guélis Briefing
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  Major Lewis Gielgud Recruiting

  Major Gérard Morel Operations

  Captain George Bégué Signals

  Major Louis Huot US liaison officer

  Mr Park Janitor

  These are just some of the more than eighty F Section circuits across France with their organisers. There were around fifty circuits operating ahead of D-Day.

  1 – Pierre de Vomécourt – Autogyro Circuit

  2 – Ben Cowburn – Tinker Circuit

  3 – Francis Suttill – Prosper/Physician Circuit

  4 – François Basin – Urchin Circuit

  5 – Peter Churchill – Spindle Circuit

  6 – Richard Heslop – Marksman Circuit

  7 – Virginia Hall – Heckler Circuit

  8 – Claude de Baissac – Scientist Circuit

  9 – George Starr – Wheelwright Circuit

  10 – Michael Trotobas – Farmer Circuit

  11 – Gustave Biéler – Musician Circuit

  12 – Harry Rée – Stockbroker Circuit

  13 – René Dumont-Guillemet – Spiritualist Circuit

  14 – Amédée Maingard – Shipwright Circuit

  15 – Philippe Liewer – Salesman Circuit

  16 – John Farmer – Freelance Circuit

  17 – Frank Pickersgill – Archdeacon Circuit (Pickersgill was sent out as controller of the Archdeacon Circuit in June 1943 but was captured soon after landing. The Archdeacon Circuit became German-controlled for the next eight months.)

  18 – Pearl Witherington – Wrestler Circuit

  19 – Henri Peulevé – Author Circuit

  Chapter 1

  ‘Set Europe Ablaze!’

  ‘Yes, Buckmaster, what is it?’ The voice of the General commanding the 50th Division was curt, but not unfriendly.

  ‘I wondered whether I might come in and see you for a moment, sir.’

  A pause was followed by the words ‘Yes, come in.’

  It was a March day in 1941 and the 50th, to which I was the Intelligence Officer, was stationed somewhere in the south of England. An electric fire was burning in the General’s office and he stretched his hands to it as he growled, ‘Well, Buckmaster, what’s the trouble?’

  ‘I don’t exactly find this easy to say, sir—’

  ‘Come on, man, out with it.’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s about the division’s move to Libya—’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I believe that Italian’s likely to be the language for Prisoner Interrogation there.’

  ‘That’s the general idea, yes.’

  ‘I think you know, sir, that Italian’s not really one of my languages and I’m sure you’d be better off with an IO who spoke it.’

  The General warmed his hands. ‘There might be something in that,’ he conceded at last, with a smile. ‘But assuming we get someone else, what are we going to do with you? I suppose you’ve got some ideas on that too, eh?’

  ‘I did have one or two thoughts.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘If, for instance, there were a post where my French could be of use—’

  ‘Like that Dakar show, what?’

  I smiled wryly; even today I cannot recall the Dakar expedition without a certain annoyance. Calculated to be the first sign that we had recaptured the spirit of offence, the combined operation had been hardly impressive. I myself had very little part – except for the fact of my physical presence – in the affair; my clearest memory of it is our sitting in the bay of Rufisque and being bombarded and dive-bombed for twenty-four hours, as well as being torpedoed, without being able, owing to the strategic objective of the expedition, to return or parry the fire of the Vichy French whom we were seeking to recruit to our side.

  There’s nothing more unpleasant to any soldier, including strictly non-professional ones like me, than to be ‘straddled’ regularly by fifteen-inch shells without any chance of taking cover. My whole being longed for a nice slit trench and they don’t have slit trenches on battleships. Many conflicting accounts exist of the political wranglings and the tactical misfortunes of the episode; for my part, I was concerned only to help in winning the war and had been deeply disappointed at the touchiness – a touchiness which the years have apparently aggravated – of de Gaulle and some of his colleagues who seemed more suspicious of England than aware of the purpose of the sortie. I was never, throughout the war, very much concerned with politics and I cared more for harrying the Germans than apportioning the credit to respective persons. I had been attached to the Dakar force simply because French-speaking officers were, naturally, at a premium on such a joint Anglo-French operation. I must have allowed something of my impression of the matter to become known to the General: hence his sally about the ‘Dakar show’.

  I said: ‘I wasn’t exactly thinking of anything in that line again, sir.’

  ‘I understand,’ he grinned. ‘Look, I’m pretty pushed at the moment with the division about to go overseas—’

  ‘I fully realise that, sir.’

  ‘Can you come up to London with me on Wednesday morning? I’ve got to pop into the War Office and you might care to be on hand.’

  ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ I said, rising.

  ‘All right, Buckmaster.’

  I left feeling very much relieved. It may seem that I was taking rather a high-handed line in asking for a change simply because the 50th Division was going to an area which I did not greatly fancy, but only those who are actually aware of our situation in 1941 will realise how keen I was to make the fullest possible use of whatever special qualifications I had. I have always loved France and I lived there for many years before the war, first as a tutor to a small boy, later as a reporter on the French newspaper Le Matin and finally as Assistant Manager of the Ford Company which I had joined in the meanwhile; I was eager to serve Britain by helping France.

  On Wednesday morning we drove in the General’s car up to London. It was a London dented and buffeted by the bombardment she had suffered. Daylight raids were largely past, but the nights were still filled with the wailing of sirens and the explosion of bombs; people still made their way to work through the rubble of last night’s damage. Though the country stood firm and even now was beginning to try and turn the fight, disruption was inevitable; viewed from today it seems that victory was certain, even in the darkest days: in the darkest days, it seemed far from certain.

  ‘Come on,’ said the General. ‘This is where we get out. I’ve got a meeting which will take about an hour. Meet me back here at – eleven. All right?’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ I replied. I walked away, up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. Of all the countries of Europe, England alone was free, free and alone. I shall never forget my deep pain when I thought of France in the grip of the Boches; I thought of the many friends I had made there and of how they must be feeling at the collapse of their France. I was with the 50th Division (the first Territorials to land with the BEF) throughout the campaign which ended for me with Dunkirk and for France with occupation.

  Promptly at eleven I was waiting for the General at the place he had said. When he came down the steps, I saluted and as he returned the salute he growled, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Come along in.’ The General strode along the passages of the War Office with a brisk determination while I followed him with long and persistent strides. As he came to each door he would look up at it with a snort of inquisitiveness. The first we came to had a card with the name of a Field Marshal on it; to my surprise he banged authoritatively on it with his swagger stick. ‘Come on,’ he called to me, as he opened the door and marched in. I followed diffidently.

  ‘Brought a young chap to see you,’ my General said to the Field Marshal when he had gained admittance to him. ‘Buckmaster, excellent fellow. Speaks French. Intelligence chap, you know.’ He rattled off several other maliciously flattering references and then suggested that the Field Marshal should find me a post. Politely, we were shown the door. ‘On second thoughts,’ the Gene
ral said when we were back in the passage, ‘you wouldn’t want to work for him in any case. We’ll try someone else.’ We tried several others (including another Field Marshal); if our reception was courteous, my rejection was firm. I became dispirited and, by this time, somewhat embarrassed. I suggested we persist no further; I would go to Libya with the 50th.

  ‘Nonsense! We wouldn’t have you. There’re lots more Generals yet, my boy, lots.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, sir—’

  ‘Of course. I know the very man! Stupid of me not to think of him before! Come on.’ He set off at a great pace down the passage and up some stairs and down another passage while I struggled to keep up with him. ‘First-rate fellow this,’ he was mumbling, ‘he’ll fix you up, you see.’

  A minute later I was being presented to yet another General. ‘Templer, I want you to meet a young officer of mine – Buckmaster.’

  ‘How do you do, sir?’

  General Templer listened attentively while my General again retailed my abilities and my qualifications. This time, to my surprise, I was not so quickly rebuffed.

  ‘You know something about Intelligence work, Buckmaster?’

  ‘A certain amount, sir. I was on the first Minley course.’

  ‘And your French is really good?’

  ‘I think I could fairly say that, yes.’

  ‘We’ve recently formed a new organisation to deal with something that sounds very much up your street – subversive warfare in France. It’s something quite fresh. They need an Information Officer. You sound the man for the job. How about it?’

  I looked at them both and smiled: ‘I’ll have a shot.’

  ‘When could you start?’

  ‘When would you want me?’

  General Templer said: ‘Tomorrow?’

  I looked at my General. He nodded.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said.