by Paul Kix
61Loyalties blurred: Ibid.
62“allied with the Devil”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
CHAPTER 6
63spring of 1938: Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE.
63Political Warfare Executive: Foot, SOE in France.
63Section D: Ibid.
63MI(R): Ibid.
63“until that time unheard of”: Ibid.
63equally novel and just as fascinating: Ibid.
63For as long as there had been war: Max Boot, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). The rest of this paragraph is informed by Invisible Armies.
64first counterinsurgency manual emerged in 600 AD: Ibid.
64T. E. Lawrence’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: Knoxville, TN: Wordsworth Classics, 1997.
64“widespread revolt in [Germany’s] conquered territories”: Foot, SOE in France.
64Hugh Dalton wrote a letter: Ibid.
65a “most secret paper”: Ibid.
65SOE’s founding charter: Ibid., and Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE.
65nothing like SOE: Boot, Invisible Armies.
66often of his own devising: Ibid.
66in 1895: David Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service (London: Thistle Publishing, 2013).
66“everywhere and nowhere”: Ibid.
66Malakand Pass: Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (London: Dover Publications, 1898).
66gone to cover the Boer War: Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service, Ibid. The rest of the paragraph is informed by this book.
67“And now, set Europe ablaze”: Foot, SOE in France.
67visiting SOE agents: Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service.
67“order paper”: Foot, SOE in France, Ibid.
67Parliament had no control: Ibid.
67“eccentrically English organization”: Ibid.
67the Ministry of Economic Warfare: Ibid.
68bungled Section D mission: Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service.
68which met twice: Ibid.
68“SOE’s in the shit”: Ibid.
68“My bombing offensive”: Foot, SOE in France.
69“funny operations”: Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service.
CHAPTER 7
71his youthful arrogance: La Rochefoucauld recording.
71he had a sense: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
71Reinhard Heydrich: Delarue, The Gestapo, and the Holocaust Research Project, http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/heydrichkilling.htm. Also, for the assassination attempt: Czech Ministry of Defense paper, “Assassination: Operation Anthropoid: 1941–1942,” http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf; Mario R. Dederichs, Heydrich: The Face of Evil (Philadelphia: Casemate Publishers, 2009).
71Norsk Hydro: Thomas Gallagher, Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program (Guillford, CT: Globe Pequot, 2002); Knut Haukeid, Skis Against the Atom: The Exciting, First Hand Account of Heroism and Daring Sabotage During the Nazi Occupation of Norway (Minot, ND: North American Heritage Press, 1989); and Paul Kendall, “A New Mission for the Hero of Telemark,” The [London] Telegraph (May 2, 2010), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7664351/A-new-mission-for-the-hero-of-Telemark.html.
71he said he wanted to join: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
71“from pimps to princesses”: Foot, SOE in France.
72France required six sections: Ibid.
72were told it didn’t exist: Ibid.
721 Dorset Square: Piquet-Wick, Four in the Shadows.
73Even Piquet-Wicks had a hard time: Ibid.
73“woefully small”: Ibid.
73convinced Churchill to provide: Stafford, Churchill & Secret Service.
73four times the number: Foot, SOE in France.
73Jean Moulin: Piquet-Wicks, Four in the Shadows.
73Piquet-Wicks had developed tuberculosis: Piquet-Wicks’s SOE files.
73the “action” division: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté. See also Foot, SOE in France, for more information on the action division and its close ties with the Free French.
CHAPTER 8
75The first thing they did: La Rouchefoucauld, La Liberté. One thing to note: SOE training was an ad hoc affair. “There was no book,” wrote F Section boss Maurice Buckmaster in his memoir They Fought Alone (London: Biteback Publishing, 2014). But there were general phases or courses from which a trainee graduated, and on this Bernie Ross, “Training SOE Saboteurs in World War II,” BBC (February 17, 2011), is a good guide. It pulls insights from a dozen books concerning SOE affairs, and can be found online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/soe_training_01.shtml. Also see: Denis Ringden, introduction, How to Be a Spy: The World War II SOE Training Manual (New York: Crown, 2001). I organized the chronology of events in chapter 8 based on numerous accounts of people who either oversaw the training or participated in it directly. When events synced up—when a lieutenant colonel said X training regimen happened at the same time in the process as trainee Y said it did—I felt comfortable saying X training regimen happened, and then Y happened. Complicating matters were the specialty schools. SOE had a lot of them, and trainees would be sent there in fairly short order after arriving, which meant that the making of an agent was often as idiosyncratic as the agent himself. So in the end, I let Robert’s memories guide the chapter. In a couple of spots, he seems to have confused the chronology of events. But on the whole, the order in which he said things happened aligned with the experiences of other agents, to the extent that such an experience can be generalized for the reader.
75psychological and character assessments: Ringden, How to Be a Spy.
75with full rucksacks: La Rochefoucauld recording.
75Inchmery, near Southampton: Foot, SOE in France.
75for security purposes: Ibid.
75Manchester: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
75kept many secrets: Nicolson, Aristide; Foot, SOE in France; and Piquet-Wicks, Four in the Shadows.
75Basic training lasted around three weeks: Accounts vary on the length. Foot, SOE in France, says basic training lasted two to four weeks, for example.
75wild and stunning western coast: Ringden, How to Be a Spy.
75“secure from inquisitive eyes”: Foot, SOE in France.
76“a most depressing place”: Ibid.
76the roughly thirty prospective agents: La Rochefoucauld recording.
76how to jump from a train: Nicolson, Aristide.
76how to crawl on their bellies: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
76to try escaping without getting caught: Foot, SOE in France, La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
76learned to sabotage almost anything: Bernard O’Connor, SOE Group B Sabotage Training Handbook (Bernard O’Connor, 2014).
76the safest explosives to practice on: Foot, SOE in France.
76don of industrial sabotage: Ibid., and Ringden, How to Be a Spy.
76Tall, somber, even forbidden-looking: Ringden, How to Be a Spy.
76gained a supple understanding: O’Connor, SOE Group B, and Mark Seaman, Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War (London: Routledge, 2013).
77“look at a factory with quite new eyes”: Ringden, How to Be a Spy.
77Rheam had personally instructed: Gary Kamiya, Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
77stuffed rat carcasses: Ringden. How to Be a Spy.
77left many workers afraid: Ibid.
77adopted the teachings: W. E. Fairbairn and E. A. Sykes, Shooting to Live (Boulder, CO: Paladin-Press, 2013).
77possibly the most dangerous: Frederic Wakeman, Policing Shanghai: 1927–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
77French savate: On the styles of fighting taught, see Phil Matthews, “W. E. Fairbairn: The Legendary Instructor,” CQB Services (August 6, 2015), http://combatives.forumotion.com/t3148-w-e-fairbairn-the-legendar
y-instructor-by-phil-matthews.
77the best marksman anyone had seen: Ibid., and Fairbairn and Sykes, Shooting to Live.
77a gun in one hand and a knife in the other: This anecdote comes from the SOE operative Henry Hall, “Personal Memories,” BBC (January 2006), http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/70/a4543670.shtml.
78six hundred street fights: W. E. Fairbairn, Scientific Self-Defense (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1981).
78“Now, put your thumb in his eye”: Hall, “Personal Memories.”
78retired bishop: Matthews, “W. E. Fairbairn: The Legendary Instructor.”
78webbing belt: Hall, “Personal Memories.”
78revised the course syllabus: Matthews, “W. E. Fairbairn: The Legendary Instructor.”
78special ops training ground in Canada: Ibid.
78firing from the navel: Hall, “Personal Memories.”
78a quick shot was better: Fairbairn and Sykes, Shooting to Live.
78how to kill up to four people: Phil Matthews, foreword, Silent Killing: Nazi Counters to Fairbairn-Sykes Techniques (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008).
78“house of horrors”: Matthews, “W. E. Fairbairn: The Legendary Instructor.”
78developed a knife: Ibid.
79reach his organs: Richard Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines: With the OSS in Burma (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2014).
79began at the testicles: “Gutter Fighting,” DVD, archives of the OSS. Found online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feRX5rnS-i4.
79a wooden chair: W. E. Fairbairn, All-In Fighting. (Uckfield, UK: Naval and Military Press, 2009).
79“gutter fighting”: Fairbairn created a system of fighting called Defendu based on the principle of gutter fighting. Fairbairn, Scientific Self-Defense.
79come close to killing him: The examples in this paragraph come from Fairbairn, All-In Fighting.
80Punching the enemy in the Adam’s apple: The examples cited in this paragraph come from Fairbairn, All-In Fighting, and Matthews, Silent Killing.
80“Your aim is to kill your opponent”: Matthews, Silent Killing.
80“The majority of these methods”: Fairbairn, All-In Fighting.
80which the Nazis called “savage”: Matthews, Silent Killing.
80some scholars contend: Ibid., and C. N. Truman, “The Commando Order,” The History Learning Site (May 25, 2015), http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/special-forces-in-world-war-two/the-commando-order/.
80captured Allied special operatives: Ibid.
80“From captured orders”: Eric Lee, Operation Basalt: The British Raid on Sark and Hitler’s Commando Order. (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2016).
80violation of the Geneva Convention: Truman, “The Commando Order.”
80“In future, all terror and sabotage troops”: Foot, SOE in France.
81“I think the great advantage”: Hall, “Personal Memories.”
81“superiority that few men ever acquire”: Langelaan, Knights of the Floating Silk.
81“The English were great coaches”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
81parachute drops: Ibid. and La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
81“the bags thudded onto the ground”: Foot, SOE in France.
82A hot-air balloon: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
82“terrifying vertigo”: Ibid.
82“felt more and more afraid”: Conversations with Astrid Gaignault.
82broke his wrist: Robert de La Rochefoucauld’s military files.
82six fatalities from parachute drops: Foot, SOE in France.
82were literally run by convicts: Ibid.
82“They knew how to open the safes”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
83worked to catch them: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
83“like athletes in training”: Ibid.
83did not punish La Rochefoucauld: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
83“These rehearsals were grim affairs”: Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone: The True Story of SOE’s Agents in Wartime France (London: Biteback Publishing, 2014).
83“When you become angry”: La Rouchefoucauld recording.
83“all the intricate planning”: Piquet-Wicks, Four in the Shadows.
84“only four or five finally could be entrusted”: Ibid.
84“He that has a secret”: Foot, SOE in France.
84final redemption of the cyanide pill: Fredric Boyce et al., SOE: The Scientific Secrets (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2011).
84one of seven to become a saboteur: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
CHAPTER 9
85one summer night in 1943: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté, and Yonne department military records, Ministry of Defense, Paris.
85French clothes, a French watch: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
85the colonel counted on seeing him: Ibid.
85but quietly shook with fear: This paragraph is informed by ibid., and La Rochefoucauld recording.
86Frenchmen who actively participated: James A. Warren, “The Real Story of the French Reisistance,” The Daily Beast (December 10, 2015), and Cobb, The Resistance. This is “active” resistance. Some scholars believe that as much as 10 percent of the populace were “passive,” meaning they contributed to underground newspapers or engaged in the misdirection, misinformation, and lies that protected Resistance fighters.
86only six months in France: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
86650,000 Frenchmen: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
8642 percent of Germany’s transport planes: Ibid.
86“It was everywhere by June”: Cobb, The Resistance.
87“Sabotage their plans and hate their leaders”: Ibid.
873,800 sabotages: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
87“spiritual resistance”: Ibid.
87“Kill the German to purify our territory”: Cobb, The Resistance.
87five million denunciatory letters: Fitzpatrick and Gellately, eds., Accusatory Practices.
87“permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance”: Ibid.
87the Milice men were worse: Jackson, France: The Dark Years; Rod Kedward, “Life in Occupied France, 1940–1944: An Overview of Attitudes, Experiences and Choices;” and White Paper, Post War Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945 to 1950, http://webfeetguides.com/pdf/whitepapers/gdc/LifeInOccupiedFrance.pdf. These sources inform the rest of the paragraph.
88twenty-three different steps: Cobb, The Resistance.
88S-Phone: Nicolson’s Aristide.
88La Rochefoucauld moved to its edge: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
88road near the woods and headed out: Ibid.
88milky-skinned mother of two: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Noah’s Ark. The rest of this paragraph is informed by the book.
89blocked the light of the stars: In La Liberté, and in his recording, La Rochefoucauld named the towns in the Yonne where he fought. I visited those towns myself, with the aid of a local historian, Claude Delasselle, who showed me the Resistance hideouts. I also consulted Alliance records in the Yonne department and in Paris. All of these sources and experiences informed this chapter.
89Quarré-les-Tombes: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
89tombstones near its church: Conversations with Claude Delasselle.
89cigarettes and chocolates: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
89Father Bernard Ferrand: The descriptions of Ferrand come from Claude Delasselle et al., Un Département dans la Guerre 1939–1945: Occupation, Collaboration, et Résistance dans l’Yonne. (France, Tirésias, coll. Ces Oubliés de l’Histoire, 2007).
89from other Resistance groups: Robert mentions fighting with the Alliance on his recording. However, he also makes plain in the recordings left behind, and in La Liberté, that he worked with many Resistance groups in the Yonne. His military records reflect this. One is Groupe Roche, which seems to have been a subset of another group, with him as the leader, if the Roche in the title is any indication. It is an inexact science, figuring ou
t who led what group and where each was stationed, because keeping a paper trail during the Occupation meant inviting death from the Nazis or collaborating Frenchmen. So Robert’s records, like all records from that period, were compiled after the war, from memory.
90often lacked the technical skills: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
90“became a nightmare”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
90the apartment with the wireless transmitter: Foot, SOE in France.
90“the first to sacrifice their lives”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
90southwest France called Scientist: Nicolson, Aristide, and Paddy Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation: The Cockleshell Heroes and the Most Courageous Raid of WW2 (London: Arum Press, 2013).
90Prosper, which crumbled: Foot, SOE in France.
90June 1943: Ibid.
90Klaus Barbie: Ibid, and Piquet-Wicks, Four in the Shadows.
90“I was deeply afraid”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark.
90“total stagnation”: Jackson, France: The Dark Years.
91leading forty men: La Rochefoucauld recording. His military records also describe what he did in the Yonne.
91Pius VII: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
91code-name Henri: Robert de La Rochefoucauld’s military records.
91July 22: As the language suggests, this paragraph is a triangulation of La Rochefoucauld’s memories, as recorded on the CD and in his memoir; Claude Delasselle’s histories, as recounted in his book, Un Département dans la Guerre, and in the journal he edits, Yonne Memoire, specifically the May 2007 issue, found online at http://www.arory.com/fileadmin/images/Yonne_memoire/bulletin_18_n.b.pdf; and various military records of Resistance groups in the Yonne, Ministry of Defense, Paris. This is one of those spots where specific dates—and the actions taken on those dates—are tough to pin down, because everything relies on memories recalled years after the fact.
91“personal messages”: Cobb, The Resistance.
91“The collaborators already have sad faces”: Delasselle, Un Département.
91to the moonlit horizon: I saw this myself.
92Pierre Argoud: La Rochefoucauld’s recording; Delasselle, Un Département; and military records.
92“Everything we needed”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
92looked at Robert in awe: Ibid., and La Rochefoucauld recording.