by Damien Lewis
After giving evidence at the Noailles Wood trial, Jones and Vaculik would meet just once more, at a Resistance reunion in France, in 1980. They would die within twenty-four hours of each other – Jones on 6 December 1990, and Vaculik the following day. The life thread that had united the two of them and had enabled their remarkable survival was clearly an immensely powerful – and seemingly inseverable – bond, until the very end. Vaculik had attended many such reunions in France, and in 1954 he met up with Captain Patrick Garstin’s widow and his son, to mark the tenth anniversary of the mission.
Lieutenant Colonel Mayne – 1 SAS’s commanding officer and source of inspiration for the SABU-70 patrol members – would be awarded four Distinguished Service Orders (DSOs) during the war, the last of which, in October 1945, was controversially downgraded from a Victoria Cross. The original citation for the VC was signed off by no less a figure than Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and the subsequent downgrading led the king to enquire why Mayne had been denied the honour of the VC, which ‘so strangely eluded him’. David Stirling also objected, noting the considerable prejudice that had extended from elements of the British establishment to the outspoken, uncompromising and peerless SAS commander.
In May 1945 Mayne had been able to host two very special visitors at the SAS’s Scottish training base. Captain Patrick Garstin’s widow, Susan, had travelled up to Darvel from Canterbury, along with her infant son. Once Patrick Garstin junior had succeeded in executing eight ‘parachute jumps’ off the bar, with a little help from several SAS old hands, Mayne presented the youngster with his SAS wings. They were pinned proudly to the boy’s pram, to his mother’s joy.
Mayne died on 13 December 1955, aged forty, in a late-night car accident in his hometown of Newtownards, Northern Ireland. He had also been awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm, and the Légion d’Honneur, by the French. The latter decoration is that nation’s highest gallantry medal, instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, making it the nearest French equivalent to the honour that had been denied him by his own country – the VC. But as Mayne’s nearest surviving relative, Fiona Ferguson (née Mayne), told me about her uncle, he would not have cared greatly for honours and distinctions: he cared only to stand tall amongst the men of his command.
Fiona gave me access to her uncle’s wartime trunks, stuffed full of reports, letters, photos, film and mementos, which proved an invaluable source of inspiration for this book. Her priority in doing so was to ensure that her uncle’s memory be suitably preserved, and that his multifaceted character be more fully appreciated. It was of course a privilege to view and read such original wartime materials.
Not long after the disbandment of the SAS, the SOE would also be disbanded, and in the latter’s case, sadly it would be for good. I say ‘sadly’ because, despite SOE headquarters falling victim to the Funkspiel and letting down many of their agents, the SOE did an enormous amount of highly valuable work during the war, which was so often distinguished by the unorthodox, the unthinkable and the outright daring. Many of SOE’s stories of courage and fortitude in the face of the enemy remain untold to this day.
Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book without the help of the following people, and please forgive me for any individuals I may have inadvertently forgotten. I extend my immense gratitude to you all (notwithstanding the fact that some of the research has had to be carried out in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, so has been conducted remotely):
The Wiehe family, and in particular Jacques Wiehe, Father Alexis Wiehe, Dominique Gibson and Olivier Lalouette. Thank you for giving me access to family records and to Lieutenant Wiehe’s diaries and letters from the war years, such as you were able to.
The Garstin family, and in particular Sean Garstin, Captain Patrick Garstin’s son, for your correspondence and for sharing with me family papers, archival documents and photos regarding Captain Garstin’s wartime career, such as you were able to.
James Irvine, for sharing with me your archival research and family records regarding SAS Trooper Leslie Herbert William Packman, and of the efforts of the Operation Gain 2015 memorial team – fabulous work.
Phil Rhodes, for sharing with me the private family papers of Fred ‘Dusty’ Rhodes, and much of the Rhodes family memorabilia, photos and other materials from the war years.
Joanne Turner, of the Dumfries Museum, and the family of C. Riding for kindly granting me access to the wonderful Captain Cecil Riding, MC collection, including his diary from the war years and rich archive of related photographs and documents.
Fiona Ferguson, niece of Colonel Blair Mayne, for allowing me to access your late uncle’s war chests and the letters, reports, documents, photos and memorabilia that they contain, and for the endless insight you have been able to provide into your uncle’s wartime career and his wider achievements. To you and your husband, Norman, enormous thanks, and especially for so warmly inviting me into your family home.
Many thanks to Chris Drakes, whose father, Sergeant Peter Drakes, served in the SAS War Crimes Investigation Team, for the help with research and provision of photographs.
Peter Forbes and all of The Keepers, including Gary Hull, Roy Magowan and David McCallion, for allowing me to access the extraordinary records and memorabilia you have safeguarded from the war years, especially those concerning Colonel Mayne and his fellow SAS raiders, and for generously showing me the key sites in and around Newtownards that reflect upon this story. Sally Forbes, the good wife of Peter Forbes, for the enormous hospitality I was treated to in your family home.
Michael de Burgh, at ninety-six the last Second World War survivor of the 9/12 Lancers, for corresponding with me about your war years and about Ralph ‘Karl’ Marx, one of the Operation Loyton commanders. Robin Collins, Mr de Burgh’s grandson, for corresponding with me about the same and for introducing me to your grandfather.
Eoin McGonigal and Patric McGonigal, for corresponding with me over your late uncle Eoin McGonigal’s war years and his relations to Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne.
Jack Mann, Second World War LRDG, SAS and SBS veteran, for reading the entire manuscript of this book and for giving me your perceptive and enlightening comments. I am hugely grateful, once again, for the insight and inspiration so provided. Alec Borrie, Second World War SAS veteran, for your insight into the SAS terms ‘SABU’ and its origins and what it signified during operations behind the lines in France. I am immensely grateful.
Gregory Lunt, whose father, John ‘Jack’ Frederick Lunt, was a wireless operator with 196 Squadron, flying Short Stirlings, for sharing some of your father’s fascinating stories of the war with me.
Huge thanks to Simon Kinder, whose grandfather, Harry Kinder, was one of Major Barkworth’s Secret Hunters, and who provided fascinating documents and photos regarding their work.
Terry Lowe, for corresponding with me on the fate of the Operation Gain disappeared and their remembrance today in the French villages where they operated. Mr Alan Lockey, for the correspondence and the details you provided on the wartime career of Major Ian Fenwick. Patrick Baty, for correspondence over Major Ian Fenwick and alerting me to his Bruton parish church burial plot. Alain Lavigne, for correspondence over Serge Vaculik ’s war record and the archives held on Vaculik at Minstère Des Armees, Mémoire des Hommes. James Harris, for your help and advice on explaining how exactly parachutists exited from a Short Stirling.
Dr Phil Judkins, for expert insight into all things Luftwaffe and Second World War, and in particular operations at the Étampes airbases. Mike Holmes, for permission to quote from Mediterranean Odyssey, the life story of his father, Mike Holmes, MM, and for the meetings, chats and insight. Author Asher Pirt, for lengthy communications on all things Phantom, SAS and ‘SABU’-related in particular: a font of knowledge and information as always. Julian Barnes, at Chicksands Military Intelligence Museum, for corresponding with me over this story.
The staff at various archives and museums also deserve special m
ention, including those at the British National Archives, the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill Archive Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge. Some files from the National Archives were made available to me as a result of Freedom of Information requests, and I am grateful to the individuals at the Archives who made the decision that those files should be opened.
My gratitude is also extended to my literary agent, Gordon Wise, of Curtis Brown, for helping bring this project to fruition, and to all at my fantastic publisher, Quercus, for same, including, but not limited to: Charlotte Fry, Hannah Robinson, Bethan Ferguson, Ben Brock, Fiona Murphy and Jon Butler. My editor, Richard Milner, deserves very special mention, as always. Many thanks also to Wendy McCurdy at my American publisher, Kensington, and to all of her team, and to George Lucas, the agent who represented this book in the USA, and to Luke Speed, my film agent at Curtis Brown.
I am also indebted to those authors who have previously written about some of the topics dealt with in this book and whose work has helped inform my writing; I have included a full bibliography.
I am also indebted to Marilyn de Langladure, retired commercial lawyer and sailor, a dedicated supporter of Diverse Abilities, a wonderful charity for children and adults with physical or learning disabilities and a founder member of the Dorset National Park Project.
Finally, of course, thanks are due also to Eva and the ever-patient David, Damien Jr and Sianna, for not resenting Dad spending too much of his time locked away . . . again . . . writing . . . again.
6 June 1944: as Allied troops stormed ashore to seize the D-Day beaches, the men of the Special Air Service were dropped far behind enemy lines, tasked with a crucial do-or-die mission.
Hitler had ordered his armoured legions – including the 9 SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, 10 SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, and 2 SS Panzer Division Das Reich – to the beachheads, to hurl the Allies back into the sea. The SAS were charged to stop the Nazi armour in its tracks.
Legendary SAS commander Colonel Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, DSO, commanded 1 SAS, which spearheaded the D-Day operations. He urged his men: ‘Before they surrender, the Germans must be subject to every known trick, stratagem and explosive which will kill, threaten, frighten or unsettle them: but they must know that they will be safe and unharmed if they surrender.’
Major Ian Fenwick (centre, with binoculars) and Captain Cecil ‘Jock’ Riding (right of photo), prepare the men of D Squadron 1 SAS for Operation Gain, one of the most daring and audacious of the D-Day missions. Sadly, Fenwick would die when his jeep hit an enemy ambush, leaving Captain Riding to take overall command.
In Scotland, rigorous training got fresh SAS recruits into shape for the D-Day missions. Mayne had set his men the ‘around Britain challenge’ – to cross the nation begging, borrowing and stealing whatever they might need, for there was no better way to teach behind-the-lines survival techniques.
Riding in Short Stirling warplanes, the men of D Squadron were parachuted to the south of Paris, in the depths of night, as the SAS prepared to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
Heavily-armed Jeeps were dropped to the Op Gain raiders, along with supplies of weaponry, explosives and ammunition. Moving by vehicle and on foot, and linking up with the French Resistances, the raiders began to blow up trains laden with armour, plus road convoys, just as Mayne had urged.
Churchill had urged massive supply drops, to arm the French Resistance prior to D-Day. Once Mayne’s raiders had parachuted in, they brought confidence, audacity, command and raw firepower, the combined SAS and Resistance teams proving ‘extremely successful’ on the ground.
From their hideouts set in thick woodland to the south of Paris, the Op Gain raiders struck time and time again, causing ‘considerable material damage’ to ‘rolling stock and railway lines.’
In areas hosting the SAS there was a ‘carnival’ atmosphere, as locals sensed their hour of liberation was close at hand. But with German military units harassed at every turn, they turned their ire on the villagers, wreaking savage vengeance.
Twelve men formed the sabotage team codenamed SABU-70, commanded by Captain Patrick ‘Pat’ Garstin MC (above). Garstin and his second in command, Lieutenant John ‘Rex’ Wiehe (right), had been ruled unfit for frontline duties, but had managed to hide their injuries and blag their way into the SAS.
Under cover of darkness, Captain Garstin, Lt. Wiehe and their raiders blew up a steam-train laden with war materiel bound for Normandy, plus scores of ammo dumps piled high with tank and artillery shells.
Pat Garstin and his men found themselves hounded by a vengeful enemy, hunting them cross-country in fast moving patrols. Cut off from the French Resistance, they faced all-but-certain capture, unless …
In Britain, a pilot and his crew readied a C47 ‘Dakota’ to execute one of the most daring and audacious rescue missions of the entire war.
Flying into Etampes airfield, a Luftwaffe airbase lying to the south of Paris, the aircrew landed under intense fire, plucking Captain Garstin and his raiders to safety. (Photos above and below show a second August ’44 landing by C47 deep in enemy territory, to relieve a sister SAS patrol: a USAAF photographer just happening to be aboard and managed to snap these remarkable images).
Reports had reached Allied intelligence that the Messerschmitt ME 262 Sturmvogel – Stormbird – the world’s first ever operational jet-powered warplane, was based at Etampes airfield. Having just been plucked out of there, Garstin and his men were sent back in, to blow the airbase to smithereens.
An article in the June 1945 issue of Soldier magazine, reporting on the daring exploits of the SAS raiders in France, the bottom photo showing Major Ian Fenwick at the wheel of his jeep.
Expecting to link up with the Resistance, Captain Garstin and his men dropped directly into enemy hands. During the fierce firefight that followed, Garstin and Lieutenant Wiehe suffered terrible injuries, while Free French SAS man Serge Vaculik (left), plus SAS original Thomas ‘Ginger’ Jones (front of photo, with Garstin, below) fought to the last grenade and the last round.
The SAS patrol’s capture had been masterminded from the Gestapo’s Paris headquarters (pictured). SS Sturmbannfuhrer Hans Kieffer (fifth from left, front row) was the grandmaster of the Funkspiel – the ‘radio games’ – using captured radio sets and codebooks to lure in Allied airdrops, while his boss, SS Standartenfuhrer Helmut Knochen (left) rounded-up thousands of Resistance members, Jews and other ‘undesirables’, to be sent to the death camps.
Assassination attempts by British-trained special agents – including Operation Anthropoid, in which high-ranking SS commander Reinhard Heydrich’s staff car was blown up (pictured) – had enraged Hitler. The Furhrer issued orders that Captain Garstin and the other SAS captives were to be dressed as civilians and executed …
Facing a firing squad in a patch of dark woodland, Garstin – pictured with wife Susan and with their infant son – was too weakened by his injuries to break away. Instead, he ordered his men to flee, as he stood firm to take the fire. Only two men, Vaculik and Jones – pictured right, in the civilian clothes the Gestapo had forced them to dress in – managed to make a daring getaway.
Having escaped death, Vaculik and Jones linked up with the local Resistance, training and arming them and ambushing a German staff car. But the thing they hungered for most was justice for their murdered SAS comrades. The trouble was, there were no leads to go on: the Gestapo had managed to hide their identities.
SOE agent Captain John Starr provided the breakthrough. Captured and held at the Gestapo’s Avenue Foch headquarters, Starr was fully aware of who was responsible for the SAS murders. At war’s end he made it back to Britain alive, and gave chapter and verse on the Gestapo killers.
WANTED reports were issued, but in the chaos of post-war Germany the suspects had to be found. Enter Major Eric ‘Bill’ Barkworth (above left), seasoned SAS man and fluent German speaker. Together with his trusty deputy, Sergeant Fred ‘Dusty’ Rhodes (above right), they set o
ut for Germany in May 1945 driving a battered SAS jeep and truck, to become some of the most successful Nazi-hunters ever.
From a commandeered villa in the German city of Gaggenau, Barkworth’s Nazi-hunters got to work. Very quickly they realised that hundreds of captured SAS, SOE and downed Allied aircrew had been murdered under Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’, which decreed that all such captives were to be ‘exterminated to the last man’. Thirsting for justice, Barkworth, Rhodes (third from left, below) and team would break all the rules to track down the killers.
Even as they rounded up the suspects, the SAS itself was disbanded in October 1945. Colonel Mayne (second from right), and Colonel Brian Franks (fourth from right) – 2 SAS’s commander – remained determined to track down those who had murdered their men. With Churchill’s backing, Barkworth and his team went covert, becoming ‘The Secret Hunters’. Quietly recruiting more men – like Sgt Peter Drakes (driver of the jeep, below) – they combed Europe, from Italy in the south to Norway in the north, and as far east as the Russian Zone of occupation.