Just before Vera died, Anthony Suttill travelled down to Winchelsea in the hope of coaxing Vera to tell him, once and for all, everything she knew about his father's case. He took Vera out for lunch at the New Inn, so they could chat about his father in a relaxed atmosphere. They talked about many things, but the subject of Prosper was never raised. “I waited for Vera to say something, but she said nothing about it at all. And for some reason I felt it wasn't up to me to raise it,” Anthony told me.
“Why not?”
“I don't know. I wish to God I had.”
Now a group of French resistance veterans, several in jeans, appeared with fifteen different flags and trumpets. An estimated 200,000 French men and women died in Nazi concentration camps during the war, and more than a million French were deported.
We were all waiting for Pearl. I flicked again through the Valençay booklet, which set out the achievements of the SOE circuits in organising the French resistance. The SOE agents were “messengers of hope” to the resistance. The booklet quoted the words of General Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, who wrote in May 1945 that resistance action on D-Day “played a considerable part in our complete and final victory”—words often quoted by those defending the creation of SOE.
Eventually Pearl appeared, still trailing her film crew, who shone a glaring arc light upon her. Tributes were spoken to the dead. Pearl struggled to the podium in front of the memorial, which stands fifteen metres high, a long, graceful, stretched piece of arching metal set amid a bed of flowers.
The traffic stopped, and Valençay was quiet as Pearl laid the wreath. The sun came out. We stood a while. Pearl spoke most movingly of those who had died. And then we moved away.
Back in the shed in Zennor, I had come to take a last look through the remnants of Vera's files. It was another wet and windy day. Phoebe was bedridden with arthritis. Zenna was here visiting with her two small children. But Vera was no longer with us. The urn carrying her ashes had been removed from the windowsill of the conservatory; she must finally have been laid to rest.
There was unlikely to be more to learn here in the shed. I now knew just how systematically Vera had “weeded” her own papers before her death. Mark Seaman, the SOE historian at the Imperial War Museum, had told me he was periodically summoned by Vera in her last years to “go through her files.” This meant watching her pluck papers from brown envelopes, examine them, and say “That's not interesting,” and the paper would go in the bin. “She was a bit of a tease really,” Mark admitted. “She let us all know what she wanted us to know.” I picked up a notebook belonging to Guy Atkins. It was full of aphorisms: “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
Here were those photographs again, showing Vera at endless dinners. Vera arranged things in her later years so that she was rarely alone. When she wasn't visiting friends, she entertained and probably partied more in her seventies and eighties than she had since her Romania days. There were many intimate dinners for her favourites at Rutland Gate and countless functions at “the Club.” When Vera finally won her CBE in 1997, she took over the Special Forces Club with a party at happy hour. The delay in granting Vera an honour had raised many eyebrows, as the letters in her CBE file showed. Well-wishers commented on how the award had been “a long time coming” and “was well overdue.” In fact, Vera's chance of securing an honour had been stuck for over fifty years, ever since MI5 had opened a file on her, suspecting her of Communist sympathies. Only in 1995, when the French made Vera a Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur, the order's highest rank, did the British finally wake up to the fact that a British gong for Vera was overdue. Even then, Vera's case had been quite hard to “get unstuck,” as one senior official put it.
In her very old age Vera was still busy with SOE affairs, as her cleaner Christine had told me. “She'd sometimes have me stand in front of her desk on a Monday morning and she'd say: ‘Now, dear, I shall be in Paris next Thursday and in London Monday and Tuesday, and so you must redirect the mail and would you type some letters on Tuesday, polish the silver on Wednesday and change the linen on Thursday,' and I almost expected her to say: ‘… and parachute into France on Friday' ” Christine laughed, then said: “She did once look at me and say: ‘Yes, I might have given you a job.'
In the evenings Vera preferred the telephone to the television for company. “When I went to stay,” said Mavis Coulson, widow of John Coulson, whom Vera had known in Romania, “I had to be exactly to her schedule. I do remember the drink hour punctually began at seven. And the phone started to ring thereafter, and all her friends would call and she sparkled on the phone, often breaking into French. You would think that every man was her lover, and it was rather strange and rather sweet really. That was the hour of the day for her.”
Vera had continued to travel widely in later life, and here were the pictures, including snaps of her in Egypt that I had not looked at before. I wondered if she went to Egypt to see Dick's name, inscribed on the Alamein Memorial, erected in memory of Commonwealth servicemen and -women with no known grave. She would have found Dick's name on column 241.
Lying loose in a drawer, I found a newspaper clipping from the Daily Telegraph about Felbrigg Hall, reporting that, after the death of Wynd-ham Ketton-Cremer in 1969, the house was left to the National Trust. There were no heirs.
The most important romantic love of Vera's life was surely Dick Ketton-Cremer, but it had been hard to tell how important Vera was to Dick.
Shortly before she died, Vera visited Ann Eagle (née Rogers), her old friend from Bucharest days, who lived in Norfolk in later life. Out of the blue Vera asked Ann to drive her down to Felbrigg Hall. “I had no idea why she should want to go there. The house was closed when we arrived, so we drove around a little, and then she said: ‘You know, Ann, all this might have been mine.' It was a funny thing to say, but, you know, Vera could be funny like that. So I didn't comment, and we drove back home.”
After obtaining Dick's will, in which he left £500 to Vera, I had found John Ward, one of the named witnesses, hoping he might have heard Dick talk about Vera, but he had not and he thought Vera was probably “just one of many.” “He certainly liked the girls,” said John, a bomber pilot who had shared a tent with Dick in the desert. Was there anyone special? He said not, but then he paused a moment, as if considering whether to tell me something. “There was one he used to talk about. I had the impression he had travelled a lot before the war. I don't know where it was exactly, but somewhere maybe in the Far East. He had a native girl. He used to talk about her.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, just how she used to come and live with him for weeks on end and then go back again to her family. I don't think she was important, though. It was just the sort of thing one did if one was travelling. She was the only one he talked about. I think she was just useful to him at the time.”
I had found many other indications, however, that for Dick Vera was not just “one of many.” He had asked the RAF Standing Committee on Adjustment to inform Vera, albeit privately, should he go missing. He had named her in his final will, although second to another woman. He had kept a photograph of Winchelsea church, probably taken on his visit to meet Vera's mother in July 1939. Most important of all was the unsigned love letter which I first found in the shed here, with its address torn off. A handwriting expert had confirmed that the letter was almost certainly in Dick's hand. “My Sweet, My Lovely, My Darling—Cross out the possessives if you like, but you are—My Darling, My Sweet.
“Please—My love—I love you. Dear Sweet.”
It seemed probable that Dick's love for Vera was sincere, but given her background, it was a love that he, as a Norfolk squire, knew he would never be able to avow. As he wrote to her: “Cross out the possessives if you like.”
Poking around the back of the shed, I spotted a musty old box which somehow I had overlooked entirely on my first visit. I pulled out a thick brown envelope addressed to Guy Atkins and sent
from Stuttgart in 1973. When I opened it, I found, much to my surprise, a copy of Siegfried's memoir. This was the same memoir that had been sent to me from another shed in Canada, after the snow melted. Yet all along a copy had been lying here, and neither Zenna, Vera's niece, nor Phoebe, Guy's widow, had known about it.
I noticed that the package was sent to Guy by Aenne Pahl, the Rosenberg cousin in Stuttgart, yet Aenne's own granddaughter, Iris Hilke, had known nothing of the memoir when I had spoken to her in Stuttgart some months before. She had said she had met Uncle Siegfried as a child, and he had told her wonderful tales about Romania—fairy tales, she thought—about “forests full of bears and great balls with ladies in long gowns.” So I had sent her my own copy of the memoir posted from Canada, and only then did she realise that “the fairy tales were true.”
“There were so many taboos,” Iris said. “As children we were not told about the past and we did not ask. It was a great mistake. It just confused the next generation.”
I asked her how she thought Vera had coped with a life so full of secrets. “She had probably retreated in some way a long time ago,” she said. “Think of the age when everything went wrong for her. She was an attractive, clever young woman. Until then she had been protected. She too probably did not know she was a Jew for a long time. She probably grew up with taboos as well. So much would have been hidden from her. And then suddenly she was confronted with the terrible fears and realities of being a Jew at that time. There had perhaps been so many deceptions she had had to practise over the years.”
Before leaving the shed for the last time, I looked through the papers on Vera's death and funeral. In 1980 she had paid fifty guineas to reserve a niche next to her mother in the crematorium at Golders Green Cemetery. In her will Vera left a total of £800,000; evidently her investments had done very well. The money was divided up among her closest family, and generous donations went to godchildren, of whom she had several.
Back indoors I asked Phoebe and Zenna whether Vera's ashes had gone to Golders Green. No, they said. Vera had changed her mind before she died and told them she wanted to “go in” next to Guy, who was buried in the little churchyard of St. Senara in Zennor.
“How did Vera die?”
“Killed by the NHS,” said Zenna, referring to the National Health Service.
Shortly after her ninetieth birthday Vera had gone into hospital in Rye suffering from a nasty skin complaint that had produced itchy blisters. Just as she was recovering, she was moved to a nursing home, where she fell and broke a hip. She was then taken to a hospital in Hastings while her hip mended, and she caught the MRSA “superbug.” “She didn't give up. She just wanted to get out of there. She was battling to get home. But then she weakened and had to battle with hallucinations as well,” said Zenna.
“The thing that bothered her most about the hospital was that all the young nurses called her Vera,” recalled Phoebe. “She kept saying: ‘Will you please call me Miss Atkins.'
Phoebe seemed still to be grieving over Vera's death. “Before she died, I said there will be a time when I am here and you are not here, and I cannot bear that. I cried during the first winter after she died. It seemed to go on and on forever.”
I walked down to the village to look at Vera's grave. St. Senara is a twelfth-century granite church, famous for its legend of a mermaid who once sang here and led a young village boy down to the sea, never to be seen again. Hikers pass by on their way to the Tinners pub or onto the coastal path, which traverses one of the wildest and most spectacular stretches of Cornwall's coast. Vera had come to rest a long way from Galatz.
In the graveyard I couldn't see her headstone immediately, but then there it was, nestling against a drystone wall. Phoebe had arranged for Vera to share a stone with Guy. I read the inscription “Vera May Atkins CBE” and then the words Coix guerre. The stonemason had missed out both the r of Croix and the de, and I almost expected to see a couple of marks in black ink correcting the errors. When I returned to the house, I told Phoebe about the stonemason's mistakes. She would have to get it put right, she said, or Vera would turn in her grave.
SOURCES
OVERVIEW
ARCHIVES AND DOCUMENTARY MATERIAL
The most important material for the story of Vera Atkins's life and the reconstruction of her war crimes investigation came from her personal archive. Part of this archive was held by Phoebe Atkins at her home in Zennor, Cornwall, and part of it at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London.
For the story of SOE, I relied largely on primary sources, mainly in files opened recently at the National Archives (NA) and in papers deposited with the IWM.
I also referred to other private archives in the U.K., as well as material held in archives in Germany, France, the United States, and Canada.
Numerous individuals have allowed me to read their contemporaneous diaries, correspondence, and other relevant papers.
INTER VIEWS
I interviewed dozens of former SOE agents and Baker Street staff in the U.K. and France, as well as their families. I also interviewed Vera's former war crimes colleagues and relatives of murdered SOE agents. For details of Vera's earlier life, I spoke to relatives in Britain, Canada, the United States, France, Germany, and Romania, as well as friends and acquaintances.
Several historians and individuals with specialist knowledge gave valuable assistance. Where possible, I also visited places where important events in Vera's life took place and talked to those I found there who had relevant memories or documents.
MORE DETAILED SOURCES
PA RT I
ARCHIVES
From Vera's personal archive, I drew details of her appointment with SOE and background on individual F Section agents. The files “Correspondence on Casualties,” “Correspondence on Tracing,” “Paris Files,” and “Avenue Foch” provided information on the early stages of her search for missing SOE agents, including the debate on the posting of casualties, contacts with next of kin, and early interrogations with returning agents. I also drew extensively on interviews Vera gave for the IWM's sound archives. Vera's naturalisation file was shown to me by the Home Office (R20340/2/Nat. Div), for which I am grateful to John M. Lloyd.
For details on F Section, I referred in particular to SOE files in the NA series HS4, HS6, HS7, HS8, and HS9. I relied heavily on Vera's own SOE personal file, HS/9/59/2.
MI5 interrogations concerning Henri Déricourt, Nicholas Bodington, Hugo Bleicher, and related files were largely in the KV2 series. Related papers on SOE operations were also in Air2, Air20, and Air40.
For the tracing of agents immediately after D-Day, I relied in particular on HS6/438, 439, and 1440. For war crimes–related material, I referred also to NA papers in the series WO32, WO309, WO311, and WO323 and related files. Among interrogations of returnees, I relied in particular on statements from Maurice Southgate, John Starr, Harry Peulevé, Jean Argence, Eileen Nearne, Yvonne Baseden, Odette Sansom, Brian Stonehouse, and Armel Eugène Guerne.
OTHER SOURCES AND ARCHIVES
For the story of Nora (Noor) Inayat Khan, I drew on Nora's personal file (HS9/836S) and on the biography by Jean Overton Fuller, Madeleine. The author also generously provided original documents. Vilayat Inayat Khan spoke about Nora's background and provided documents. I relied on my own interview with Vera.
For the wider F Section story, I also drew on the IWM sound archives and was grateful to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) for access to their archives. Francis Suttill provided documents. Tim Buckmaster kindly showed me his father's contemporary diaries. Peter Lee and E. H. Van Maurick showed me their memoirs. John Pitt at the Special Forces Club assisted with research. SOE in France by M.R.D. Foot was a regular point of reference.
INTERVIEWS
For the portrayal of Vera at Baker Street and at the airfields, I relied on my own interview with Vera and on interviews with numerous SOE agents and staff officers, in particular Nancy Roberts (formerly Fraser-Campbell), Yvonne Baseden, Penel
ope Torr, Hugh Verity, Francis Cammaerts, Elizabeth FitzGerald (née Norman), Lise de Baissac, Margaret Jackson, Kay Gimpel, Peggy Heard, Robert Sheppard, Peter Lee, Roddy Clube, Peter Lake, Jacques Poirier, Bob Maloubier, Tony Brooks, George Millar, Ralph Beauclerk, Jean-Bernard Badaire, Sir Brooks Richards, and Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker. Joan Astley, coauthor of Gubbins of SOE, gave advice. Lynette Beardwood advised on FANY
On the collapse of the Prosper circuit, I interviewed agents involved, including Gaston Collins, Bob Maloubier, André Watt, Lise de Baissac, and Roger Landes.
Robert Sheppard gave firsthand memories of Avenue Foch and of Hans Kieffer.
PA RT II
ARCHIVES
Vera's letters, address books, photographs, and pocket diaries were an essential source. Her naturalisation certificate and a postwar passport were in her archive. Her curriculum vitae for the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges provided several pointers.
Ronald Atkins, Vera's nephew, provided further family papers, including information about his father, Ralph Atkins. Zenna Atkins, Vera's niece, provided additional documents relating to Vera and her father, Guy Atkins.
In the NA I referred again to Vera's SOE personal file and records of name changes by deed poll relating to Hilda, Ralph, and Guy Atkins. Hilda Atkins's birth and marriage certificates were in the Family Records Centre.
Foreign Office files in the NA confirmed details about Vera's associates in prewar intelligence. I am also grateful to BBC archivists for assistance on Vera's prewar intelligence links. Duncan Stuart, the SOE adviser; Gillian Bennett, the Foreign Office historian; and Nigel West, the military historian, also assisted in this field. Stonyhurst College provided background on Leslie Humphreys, and Valerie Chidson provided information about Montague Chidson and photographs.
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