Eastern Approaches

by Fitzroy MacLean

  ‘And will your new Jugoslavia be an independent State or part of the Soviet Union?’ I asked. He did not answer immediately. Then: ‘You must remember,’ he said, ‘the sacrifices which we are making in this struggle for our independence. Hundreds of thousands of Jugloslavs have suffered torture and death, men, women and children. Vast areas of our countryside have been laid waste. You need not suppose that we shall lightly cast aside a prize which has been won at such cost.’

  It might mean something. On the other hand, I reflected, it might not.

  These were interesting thoughts to go to bed on. As we made our way down the hill and across the river, I tried to sum up my impressions of the man with whom I had been talking, and reached the conclusion that it should not be impossible to get on with him. Militarily, it was too early to form any opinion of the Partisans or of Tito as a leader. First I must see all I could for myself. But he clearly possessed energy, determination and intelligence. Also, he seemed to my relief to have a sense of humour. Though strangely shy socially (a rather engaging weakness) he was perfectly sure of himself when it came to fundamentals. He relied, too, on his own judgment and was ready to give his views on any subject that happened to crop up.

  In short, here at last was a Communist who did not need to refer everything to the ‘competent authorities’, to look up the Party line at every step. He himself was the competent authority and, as for the Party line, he knew it instinctively, or perhaps even evolved it as he went along. At the same time, there was no pretence at liberalism or ‘social democracy’ or any question of his being anything but a Communist. In this respect, at any rate, I knew exactly where I stood.

  Might he, as time went on, evolve — become more of a nationalist, less of a Communist? Might his allegiance to Moscow weaken? Would he ever be able to throw off a mental habit, painfully and rigorously built up over twenty years? It seemed unlikely.

  And yet there was that unexpected independence of mind, that odd lack of servility. …

  Chapter III

  Orientation

  LATE next night the remainder of my party arrived looking a good deal the worse for wear. We were relieved to see them, for, as time passed and there was still no sign of them, we had grown more and more certain that they had been dropped to the enemy.

  Their journey had gone a great deal less smoothly than ours. They had left Bizerta, as had been arranged, a few minutes after us, but their pilot had lost his way and, finding himself shortly before dawn over what appeared to be Bulgaria, had wisely decided to go home without dropping his passengers. And so the latter had arrived back at Bizerta in time for breakfast, having spent a frustrating and rather worrying night over Hitler’s Europe, alternatively putting their parachutes on and taking them off again.

  The following night, feeling sleepy and faintly irritable, they had set out again. This time the pilot found his way and they were successfully dropped in the right place. They were given a warm welcome by the Partisans and, after finishing off the remains of the pink vanilla brandy, had set off from Mrkonićgrad in the captured truck, still gaily flying the red flag. They had not expected such luxury. Things, they felt (quite mistakenly), were beginning to look up.

  Then, when they had gone some distance, a German reconnaissance aeroplane, which had no doubt got wind of the previous night’s doings, had appeared, hovering inquiringly over the tree-tops. After one look at the red flag, it settled down to machine gun them with characteristic thoroughness, the observer from time to time light-heartedly tossing a hand-grenade over the side. Having emptied their automatics at their tormentor without apparent effect, the occupants of the truck had wisely left it for the extremely damp ditch by the side of the road. There they remained until the aeroplane, having exhausted its ammunition, left for home.

  When at length they emerged from their hiding-place, moist but fortunately unscathed, it was to find that the engine of the truck, never very sound mechanically, was now completely unserviceable, having received a number of machine-gun bullets in the radiator. Its wheels, on the other hand, were still on, and the driver was reluctant to abandon it. Besides, it was loaded to the brim with the various supplies which had been dropped in with them, including our rum ration, and these, apart from a few bullet holes, were still intact. Accordingly, they decided that the right course was to tow it with its contents to a place of safety, and set out in search of a means of propulsion.

  After scouring the countryside for several hours, they returned, towards dusk, with a team of oxen borrowed from a neighbouring peasant. By the time the oxen had been made fast to the truck, it was quite dark and raining steadily. With the truck’s headlights illuminating the rumps of the oxen, they set off for Jajce. Their troubles, they reflected, were over at last.

  Once again they were mistaken. They had not gone very far when a fusillade broke out from the bushes at the side of the road. With a merry cry of ‘Četniks!’ their escort returned the fire and a confused skirmish ensued in the course of which the headlights were put out and the oxen stampeded. The remainder of their journey, undertaken in pitch darkness and drenching rain, they preferred not to discuss. Now that they had reached their destination, a double rum all round comforted them and they went to sleep on the floor where they lay.

  Now that we were all there, we could get down to work. Next morning we started on full-dress ‘staff conversations’ with the Partisans, with the object of obtaining from them, as a first step, their picture of the military situation in Jugoslavia, which we could then check against information available from the other sources at our disposal.

  Vivian Street, as my ‘Chief of Staff’, spent his days poring over large-scale maps with the Partisan Chief of Staff, Arso Jovanović. Peter Moore discussed demolitions and explosives with Tito’s Chief Engineer, who, strangely enough turned out to be a White Russian émigré. Parker’s opposite number was known as the Intendant and together they worked out an elaborate draft scheme of requirements and priorities on the best staff college lines. Gordon Alston, his confidential manner more accentuated than ever, repaired daily to a house at some distance from the others to confabulate with the chief of the Partisan Intelligence, piecing together from agent’s reports and captured German pay books and badges a patchwork of information about the enemy’s order of battle, which we then signalled diligently to Cairo and London, to be compared with the information on the same subject collected from elsewhere.

  Every two or three days, when we had had time to sift and digest the material we had collected, I would climb up to the fortress for a general survey of the situation with Tito, in the course of which we would talk over the latest developments, discuss the various courses open to the enemy and to the Partisans, and clear up any outstanding questions.

  These preliminary discussions showed us one thing: that the Partisan Movement in Jugoslavia possessed an efficient central organization with which it was possible to make plans and exchange information, and which, in turn, was in more or less close touch, by courier, and in some cases by wireless, with Partisan forces throughout the country.

  The information which the Partisans gave us about their strength in the country as a whole, about the number of German divisions they were containing, and, above all, about the quantities of supplies they required, we were inclined to take with a grain of salt, at any rate until we had had an opportunity of checking it for ourselves.

  Meanwhile there was no doubt as to the shape which my mission must assume and the functions which it must seek to perform. As we had thought, my own Headquarters must remain with Partisan Headquarters, while suitably trained officers, linked to us by wireless, must be attached to all of the principal Partisan formations. On the basis of the information thus obtained, it should be possible to form a fairly accurate idea, both of the extent and effectiveness of Partisan resistance and of the degree of material assistance which we should be justified in giving them. Once sufficiently good liaison had thus been established, it should further be possibl
e for us to concert and co-ordinate Partisan operations with Allied operations in the Mediterranean theatre of war as a whole.

  The first step was to establish direct contact with the three or four British officers who had been dropped to the Partisans earlier in the summer and were now with Partisan formations in different parts of Jugoslavia. Their views, which for one reason or another did not seem to have reached the outside world, would clearly be of the greatest value to us in attempting to assess the situation.

  In our own area there was Bill Deakin. He had been away at the time of our arrival and was now on his way back. A history don from Oxford, he had been with Tito’s Headquarters during the bitter fighting of the past two or three months, and I felt that he should be able to give us a better idea than anyone of what the Partisans were worth.

  The others were harder to reach, being separated from us by much wild country and many enemy garrisons. In Croatia there was a regular, soldier, Anthony Hunter, a Scots Fusilier, who had commanded a patrol of L.R.D.G. Further north, in Slovenia, was Major Jones, a picturesque figure, whose personal courage was only equalled by the violence of his enthusiasms. Having won the D.C.M. and bar as an N.C.O. with the Canadians in the First World War, and subsequently risen to command a company, he had, when well over fifty, somehow contrived to have himself dropped into Jugoslavia, where his powers of endurance and his spirited, though at times somewhat unorthodox behaviour astonished all who met him.

  Meanwhile Peter Moore had concluded his technical talks with the Partisan demolition experts and was now anxious to see something of their practical work. His journey to the north, which, according to the Partisans, could be accomplished in about six weeks, would serve several purposes. He could visit first Hunter and then Jones, obtain their views and arrange for them in future to report direct to me by wireless or courier. He would also, in the course of a journey of two or three hundred miles on foot through German-occupied Jugoslavia, inevitably collect a good deal of valuable information on his own account. Finally he was instructed to discuss with the Partisan commanders in Slovenia the possibility of intensified operations against the Ljubljana-Trieste railway, a strategic line of first-rate importance Italian front and which offered a number of tempting targets in the shape of bridges and aqueducts.

  The Partisans provided a guide and late one evening Peter set out on his travels, his kit reduced to what he could carry on his back. To read on the journey, he carried one formidable-looking technical work on engineering. We all went out to watch him start. Someone shouted to him to put the charges in the right place. He replied over his shoulder that he certainly would. We were not to see him again for several months.

  Soon after Moore had left, Deakin arrived. We had expected a forbidding academic figure, and were relieved to find that he looked like a very young and rather untidy undergraduate and managed to combine an outstanding intellect with a gift for getting on with everyone. When he had had something to eat and got rid of the lice, which were an almost unavoidable accompaniment to Partisan warfare, we settled down to cross-question him about his experiences. They had been remarkable.

  He had arrived, straight from an office desk in Cairo, to find the German Fifth Offensive in full swing and the Partisans on the move. He had moved with them, on short rations, on foot and at a great rate. He had been moving ever since. In Montenegro the main body of the Partisans had been surrounded, forced on to the defensive, and very nearly wiped out by an overwhelmingly strong enemy force, including seven German and four Italian divisions, supported by armour, artillery and aircraft. He and Tito had been wounded by the same bomb. Only their superior mobility and knowledge of the country had enabled the Partisans to escape complete annihilation.

  Deakin’s conduct during these trying times had, I soon found, earned him the respect and admiration of the Partisans and built a solid foundation for our relations with them.

  We asked Deakin what he thought of the fighting qualities of the Partisans. He was loud in their praises. He spoke of their almost unlimited powers of endurance. As to their military effectiveness, the unceasing efforts of the enemy to wipe them out were the best proof of that.

  We went on to talk of the Četniks and of their alleged collaboration with the enemy, and found that, after his experiences in Montenegro and Bosnia, Deakin had few doubts on this score. There the Četniks had fought side by side with the Germans and Italians against the Partisans, while captured documents provided evidence of the contacts which existed between the commands. Still a historian at heart, Deakin had already gone into this question at some length and I accordingly now gave him the task of sifting the undigested mass of evidence at our disposal and producing a considered report on the subject.

  Soon after Moore had left for the north, I dispatched Slim Farish with Knight, our other Royal Engineer, to Glamoć, a village lying in a mountain valley some forty miles to the south-west of Jajce. The problem of our communications with the outside world was all-important, and at Glamoć, nestling among the surrounding hills, we had found a flat bit of land on which, if a few trees were cut down and some hummocks flattened, it should be possible to land an aircraft.

  Thus Farish, the expert airfield designer, found himself back at his peace-time occupation sooner than he had expected, helped in his work by the men, women and children of Glamoć, who, under his direction, toiled away with pick and shovel, making the way smooth for the Dakotas which we fondly imagined would land there when all was ready. Once we had a landing-strip, we told ourselves optimistically, we should be able to start a regular courier service with Cairo and most of our difficulties would disappear. Meanwhile, we signalled endless measurements and details to R.A.F. Headquarters in the hope of overcoming the scepticism and distrust which in those early days they still displayed towards amateur-run, improvised landing-strips. When not actually at work, Farish and his party carefully replaced the bushes that they had uprooted, so as to cover up their traces and thus avoid exciting the curiosity of passing enemy aircraft.

  The frequency with which these visited our area, sometimes bombing and machine-gunning, sometimes merely hovering, left no doubt as to the interest which they took in us and our activities. For purposes of propaganda, however, the Germans continued to deny my existence and to maintain that the Partisans had no contact with the Allies. The story of our arrival, which had spread like wildfire through Bosnia, they disposed of with some ingenuity by announcing in the local quisling newspaper that the whole thing was a hoax. The Communists, they said, had got hold of a Moslem sausage-seller and dressed him up as a British Brigadier. It was not until some months later that the enemy propaganda authorities decided to face up to the ugly fact of our existence in their midst. When they did, the result was almost equally fanciful.1

  Sometimes at night, before going to sleep, we would turn on our receiving set and listen to Radio Belgrade. For months now, the flower of the Afrika Korps had been languishing behind the barbed wire of Allied prison camps. But still, punctually at ten o’clock, came Lili Marlene singing their special song, with the same unvarying, heart-rending sweetness that we knew so well from the desert.

  Unter der Laterne,

  Vor dem grossen Tor …

  Belgrade was still remote. But, now that we ourselves were in Jugoslavia, it had acquired a new significance for us. It had become our ultimate goal, which Lili Marlene and her nostalgic little tune seemed somehow to symbolize. ‘When we get to Belgrade …’ we would say. And then we would switch off the wireless a little guiltily, for the Partisans, we knew, were shocked at the strange pleasure we got from listening to the singing of the German woman who was queening it in their capital.

  It grew colder: sharp, crackling autumn weather. The leaves fell and a bitter wind swept up the valley, ruffling the waters of the lake. Winter was not far off; a hard time for guerrillas. For the Partisans it would be the third spent in the woods, ‘u šume’. Already food was scarcer and the lack of proper boots and clothing was making itself
felt.

  Once again the Germans were attacking. Split had fallen, and, with the enemy in strength at Banjaluka and Travnik, just up the road, our position was none too secure. Daily their patrols pushed closer. Between us and the coast the Germans were forcing their way back into the areas which the Italians had evacuated.

  War breaks down the barriers which divide us in peace time. Living as we did amongst the Partisans, we came to know them well, from Tito and the other leaders to the dozen or so rank and file who acted as our bodyguard and provided for our daily needs.

  All had one thing in common: an intense pride in their Movement and in its achievements. For them the outside world did not seem of immediate interest or importance. What mattered was their War of National Liberation, their struggle against the invader, their victories, their sacrifices. Of this they were proudest of all, that they owed nothing to anyone; that they had got so far without outside help. In their eyes we acquired merit from the mere fact of our presence among them. We were living proof of the interest which the outside world was at last beginning to take in them. We were with them ‘in the woods’. This, in itself, was a bond.

  With this pride went a spirit of dedication, hard not to admire. The life of every one of them was ruled by rigid self-discipline, complete austerity; no drinking, no looting, no love-making. It was as though each one of them were bound by a vow, a vow part ideological and part military, for, in the conditions under which they were fighting, any relaxation of discipline would have been disastrous; nor could private desires and feelings be allowed to count for anything.