Welcome to my website! I have been interested in the brave men and women of the French Resistance and the S.O.E.
for a long time and this site is intended to be an introduction to their exciting stories.
These articles were originally
published under my pen-name of Viola Ashford at Suite 101.
TO SET EUROPE ABLAZE: THE STORY OF THE SOE PART ONE
1940
was a grim year for Britain. The war looked unwinnable; France had fallen to the Nazis; the Americans had not joined the war
effort and there were widespread fears of an invasion of Britain by the Germans. The French needed help. A new volunteer fighting
force to wage a secret war was therefore decided upon. Called the Special Operations Executive,its mission, in the words of
Churchill, was 'to set Europe ablaze'. The SOE hoped to do this by two means - sabotage and subversion. Sir Hugh Dalton was
appointed CEO and the first HQ were situated in two family flats in Baker Street (also appropriately the home of that masterly
fictional detective Sherlock Holmes).
"Sabotage meant blowing up trains, bridges and factories whilst subversion meant
fostering revolt or guerilla warfare in all enemy and enemy-occupied countries".1
Although SOE began with limited money
and resources its staff eventually grew to over 10,000 operating all over Europe and Asia. Its main focus of attention, however,
was France because that was where the Allied invasion would take place. The SOE (together with its American counterpart, the
OSS) provided clothing, forged identity cards, wireless traffic and cover stories for its agents. It 'provided the infrastructure
for all successful clandestine operations abroad'.2
SOE agents were mostly recruited by word of mouth, although many
came from the armed forces. Although they came from many different countries and all walks of life - from French and Belgian
nobility to mechanics and workmen - staff were mainly Oxbridge. Agents included women, including Australia's own Nancy Wake.
50 women operated in France. Many of these agents, such as Violette Szabo, were executed by the Nazis. The life expectancy
of the agents was just six weeks.
In Britain the agents were trained at Special Training Schools. Many were country
mansions, so grand that they were nicknamed the 'Stately 'omes of England'. A rigorous fitness programme was first undertaken,
together with courses in how to read maps and operate weapons. Later the agents learned such skills as silent killing, living
off the land, armed combat, camouflage, compiling reports and how to operate a wireless.
1.Morris, Nigel. Mission
Impossible: The Special Operations Executive 1940 -45 www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/spying/soe_01.shtml
2.Casey,
William The Secret War against Hitler. Simon & Schuster, London, 1989.
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TO SET EUROPE ABLAZE: PART TWO
Brian Stonehouse, a prisoner at the Natzweiler
concentration camp in Germany, was able to recollect the scene
vividly later, because it was so unusual. As he worked, digging trenches for a pipeline, he saw four young women being marched
to the gate in single file. "...one of them was tall and looked typically English, with a bit of tartan plaid ribbon in her
hair. One looked older than the others, fortyish he would guess, with the others in their twenties. One carried a small suitcase,
another had a rather tatty-looking coat over her arm."1.
A fashion illustrator, he was later able to sketch the women, Andree Borrel, Vera Leigh,
Sophia Olshanezky and Diana Rowden, from memory. They were just four of the many secret agents who were killed by the Germans
during the Second World War.
The work of the SOE and French Resistance was highly dangerous, especially for the
wireless operators, who had to move quickly from place to place for fear of capture. But landing of the agents, sheltering
airmen, committing acts of sabotage all involved the constant fear of capture and heavy reprisals. Villagers who were not
involved in the Resistance could be killed as a deterrent. There was the constant fear of betrayal - many French collaborated
and the Milice were considered to be just as nasty as the SS. Breaches of security by careless agents could also lead to their
capture. Agents sent to France were supposed to speak fluent
French and be so familiar with the country that they could pass for French people, but, in some cases, they were unmistakably
English. Two Canadian agents were thought by their colleagues to have atrocious French accents. Even looking the wrong way
before crossing the street was more than enough to give an agent's origins away.
Landing the agents was highly precarious. Most were sent in by air. The planes which
carried the, mostly the small Lysanders, were known as Moon Squadrons, because they had to fly during the two week period
before and after the full moon, when the light was reasonably clear. However, if the weather was bad and or beset by the bleak
English fog, it could prevent the expedition altogether. If signal lights were not flashing the planes were forced to fly
back. In too many cases, agents had been betrayed and were sent in only to be met by German reception parties.
The first agent sent in by SOE in May 1941 just south of the demarcation line was George
Begue. When he was sent in SOE was small with limited resources and organization.
By 1942 the Germans were stepping up their
efforts to end the Resistance. Dangers were escalating and mistakes made in security by agents were increasing. It was decided
to send women in because they were less conspicuous. It was normal for women to be out visiting relatives or buying food.
Men, however, were faced with the question of why they were not fighting. At first women were safe from suspicion. As well
as dangers from the Germans, SOE was beset by internal rivalry. The English section had an ancient distrust of the French,
and, with some good reasons, did not trust the de Gaullist section. The French felt betrayed by Dunkirk.
MI6, the Secret Service, regarded SOE as a bunch of amateurs and a nuisance. The RAF didn't like their precious planes being
diverted from bombing raids, in order to supply arms or land agents.
Although the Battle of Britain prevented the invasion of Britain,
by 1942 the Germans had taken over the unoccupied zone, and controlled Europe. But the Resistance,
a shining light in the darkness, grew and would not be defeated.
It was helped by the rise of the maquis. Germans were rounding up French men to work
in their labor camps. Many escaped into the mountains forming small fighting forces. By the end of 1943 there were 50,000
maquis.
The Resistance and SOE were also becoming more successful. French agents, for example,
crippled the French arms merchant, Schneider-Cressuet, by sabotaging its factory. When the RAF sent 75 Lancaster’s against
the works there was little damage, but 1000 French workers were killed. Sabotage proved a more useful weapon.
Pearl Witherington, an SOE agent, who controlled 20,000 armed resisters in the South,
ensured that the main railway line from Paris to Bordeaux
was permanently cut.
Blackmail, a choice between bombs or sabotage against factories, was often effective.
Factory owners were often forced to make this decision. Diana Rowden, an SOE agent, and her partner in the Resistance, Msr
Clerc, for example, offered a senior member of the Peugeot family, which made tank turrets for the German army, this choice.
Either the RAF would bomb the factory and surrounding residential area or the machinery would be carefully blown up without
damage to the building. He chose the latter. Thus the supply of tank turrets from one factory was stopped.
1. Kramer, Rita. Flames in the Field, The Story of Four SOE Agents in Occupied France.
Michael Joseph, London. p. 18
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