by Tom Keene
(3) Many now say W25 [Lippet] and J [sic] am fully aware of operations but I do not regard too seriously as many wild rumours current.
(4) Captain German launch entered consulate 0130 hours 15th lubricated started fight was ejected then arrested. We have Police protection day and night. Behaviour Chief Police friendly helpful.17
Word of the successful cutting-out operation in Santa Isabel harbour spread like wildfire. By 17 January Sir Samuel Hoare, British Ambassador in Madrid charged specifically with keeping Spain out of the war, was reporting back to London his receipt of an inaccurate account of Operation Postmaster which the Spanish would later refer to as ‘an incident of exceptional gravity’:18
Arriba publishes today a leading article voicing a violent protest alleging action of a Free French destroyer in entering the harbour of Santa Isabel Fernando Po and seizing three ‘enemy’ merchant vessels which they ‘towed out of harbour’ after ‘dropping depth charges in order to break moorings and killing crew’. 2. Use is being made of this alleged incident in order to stir up feeling against Great Britain as ultimately responsible. I should be glad to know if there is any truth in it.19
The Foreign Office replied to their man in Madrid on 20 January:
For your own information, although no British or allied warship was concerned, operation was carried out by SOE with our approval. Every precaution has been taken and it seems reasonably certain that no evidence can be traced to our participation in the affair. One of the ships concerned carries an extremely valuable cargo and is herself a valuable modern liner … Please burn this telegram after perusal.20
That same afternoon HMS Violet finally closed with Duchessa d’Aosta. She had been ordered to sea with a prize crew, ostensibly to bring back another vessel. Once at sea her captain had opened sealed orders which detailed the true reason for their mission.21 At 1500 Vulcan spotted HMS Violet steaming up towards their starboard beam. Her Captain, Tom Coker, remembered: ‘A shot was fired across our bow at the same time a string of bunting was hauled aloft. Identified as “STOP. HEAVE TO. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ABANDON OR SCUTTLE YOUR SHIP.” This caused quite a laugh between us.’22 HMS Violet came alongside Duchessa d’Aosta and sent aboard a young sub lieutenant and a boarding party of four ratings armed with rifles. Security on board HMS Violet, evidently, had been watertight. After a ludicrous exchange between the autocratic Capt. March-Phillipps and the junior naval officer who had not the slightest idea with whom he was dealing, the young sub lieutenant signalled back to his Captain aboard HMS Violet: ‘Captain of the Italian ship wishes to speak to the Captain of Violet. Italian Captain speaks good English.’23 Quite so: March-Phillipps had actually written books on the subject. He crossed to Violet’s bridge and presently the situation was made clear.
All resolved, the vessels got under way once more and presently Duchessa d’Aosta made her triumphant way into Lagos harbour, surrounded by a swirl of immaculate Royal Navy motor launches sent out to escort her in. She arrived at 1800 on Wednesday, 21 January. Nuneaton and Likomba had made the safety of Lagos port two hours earlier. Plagued by continued troubles with her engines, Nuneaton had been hailed by a passing vessel the day before. It transpired the captain of Nuneaton knew the master of SS Ajassa, who promptly offered a tow to the tug and her charges. Once approaching the harbour:
We had a tremendous reception. The old General himself [Giffard], who was against us, came down and looked upon us as his chaps having pulled off a successful operation and we got all sorts of telegrams from the Cabinet and from the Foreign Office and so forth, congratulatory, and then, of course, the jitters set in on the part of the authority. They thought ‘My God, what have we done in a neutral harbour?’ and we were all dispersed to the far corners of the earth.24
The safe arrival of all three prize vessels in Lagos was topped off in fitting style by His Excellency, the ever-supportive Governor Sir Bernard Bourdillon, who stood at the end of his private landing stage with many of the SOE home team, cheering loudly, whisky and soda in hand.25 It was a stylish finale to a skilfully executed and audacious piece of piracy. Major Victor Laversuch’s signalled London:
LAGOS.
FROM W4 [Laversuch] FOR C.D. [Gubbins]: 22.1.42
MOST SECRET DECYPHER YOURSELF.
1. ALL POST MASTERS ARRIVED HERE 2000 TODAY.
2. CASUALTIES OUR PARTY ABSOLUTELY NIL.
3. CASUALTIES ENEMY NIL WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A FEW SORE HEADS.
4. PRISONERS GERMANS NIL. ITALIANS MEN 27, WOMAN 1, NATIVES 1. ALL LEAVING TOMORROW NIGHT FOR INTERNMENT CAMP 150 MILES IN INTERIOR AND WILL BE KEPT ENTIRELY SEPARATED FROM OTHER INTERNEES.
5. OUR PARTY ALL WELL AND COLONIAL GOVERNMENT VOLUNTEERS BEING DISPERSED TO THEIR RESPECTIVE POSTS TOMORROW UNDER COMPLETE SEAL OF SECRECY.26
This triggered a fusillade of congratulatory responses including one from Brigadier Colin Gubbins himself:
To W4 FROM CD:
SO [Hugh Dalton] AND ALL RANKS HERE SEND BEST CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL CONCERNED ON COMPLETE SUCCESS OF A WELL THOUGHT-OUT CAREFULLY PLANNED AND NEATLY EXECUTED OPERATION.
‘Caesar’ followed up his telegram of congratulations with this letter from London dated 21 January:
The extent of our satisfaction and pleasure at the success of this jolly little venture will have been clear to you from the telegram which was sent to you by me and W Section yesterday, and I should just like to add that everybody at London HQ from the Chief right down to the messenger is frightfully pleased and proud of this marked SOE success.27
From Lagos, Major Laversuch forwarded to Brigadier Gubbins one particular telegram which must have touched a particularly pleasant chord with the triumphant raiders. It was from that old obstructionist, General George Giffard:
DEAR W4.
FOR REASONS WHICH I WAS UNABLE TO EXPLAIN TO YOU I FELT I HAD TO OPPOSE YOUR PROJECT. IT DOES NOT LESSEN MY ADMIRATION FOR SKILLED?28 DARING AND SUCCESS WITH WHICH YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED. I SEND YOU ALL MY HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS AND HOPE IN THE EVENT OF SIMILAR PROJECTS IN FUTURE, CIRCUMSTANCES MAY PERMIT ME TO ASSIST AND NOT OPPOSE.
YOURS SINCERELY
GIFFARD29
Not all telegrams to do with Britain’s flagrant breach of Spanish neutrality on Fernando Po were quite so warm or conciliatory. The British Ambassador in Madrid, Sir Samuel Hoare, the former War Cabinet’s Lord Privy Seal and the man sent to Madrid by Churchill expressly to keep Spain out of the war, was still busy fielding irate diplomatic communiqués. Earlier the Admiralty had eased matters a little – but not by much – when they issued a communiqué of their own, stating that one of their patrols had simply happened to intercept Duchessa d’Aosta and the tug Likomba off the west coast of Africa and that ‘it appears that these ships were endeavouring to reach the Vichy port of Contonu to take on sufficient fuel to enable them to continue their voyage to a port in German-occupied France.’30
By the middle of February, Sir Samuel Hoare was able to send the Spanish authorities his government’s measured response to the very suggestion that Britain might have been in any way involved in the seizure of Axis shipping from within a neutral Spanish port. After the usual hollow pleasantries, during which Sir Samuel emphasised that he was writing on the instructions of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, he continued:
His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom have had under consideration the Spanish Government’s communication regarding certain events which are alleged to have taken place in the harbour of Santa Isabel in the island of Fernando Po on the 14th January, before the interception of the Italian vessel Duchessa d’Aosta by His Majesty’s Ships.
His Majesty’s Government’s action in connection with this vessel was confined to operations of British Naval and Air Forces reported in two communiqués issued by the Admiralty … These communiqués, copies of which for convenience are enclosed herein, clearly show that it was owing to the information obtained from the German broadcasts that the British Commander-in-Chief in the area concerned despatched five patrols to c
over the area in question. As a result the Italian vessel Duchessa d’Aosta was intercepted, captured, and sent into a British port together with the two minor enemy vessels.
In these circumstances His Majesty’s Government cannot accept any protest of the Spanish Government in regard to this incident. They feel indeed compelled to express their surprise that the Spanish Government should so readily have assumed that His Majesty’s Government were concerned with any events which may have taken place in Santa Isabel or on the Duchessa d’Aosta prior to the vessel’s departure from the harbour …
His Majesty’s Government, being in no way responsible for what happened prior to the capture of the enemy vessels on the high seas [author’s italics], are not in a position to provide an explanation of the events that have occurred in the harbour of Santa Isabel …
In all the circumstances His Majesty’s Government do not perceive any grounds on which they could be called upon to take steps to restore an enemy vessel which was captured on the high seas in accordance with the accepted rights of belligerents.31
The Rt Hon. Anthony Eden, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was lying through his teeth.
Notes
1. Guise report in HS 3/91.
2. Anders Lassen, 85.
3. Guise HS 3/91.
4. March-Phillipps report in HS 3/91.
5. Maid Honor Log entry.
6. BBC Henrietta.
7. Detailed account by unknown author in the March-Phillipps Papers, 06/103, Documents and Sound Section, Imperial War Museum.
8. Guise HS 3/91.
9. BBC Henrietta.
10. HMS Violet survived the war. She was broken up in Bilbao, Spain, in October 1970.
11. HS 3/91.
12. Michie Report in HS 3/91.
13. Anders Lassen, 86–7.
14. Michie Report in HS 3/91.
15. Anders Lassen, 87.
16. Specht then allegedly spent three weeks in jail.
17. HS 3/87.
18. PREM 3/405/3.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. HS 7/225.
22. Report of Tom Coker, Master S/T Vulcan. In ADM 116/5736.
23. Guise HS 3/91.
24. Longe in BBC Henrietta.
25. Guise HS 3/91.
26. HS 3/87.
27. Ibid.
28. As marked on original. Presumably refers to distorted grouping.
29. HS 3/87.
30. Ibid.
31. ADM 116/5736.
10
Medals, Marjorie and Marriage
Yet still word could get out, the story leak. With the Italian prisoners moved to a remote inland internment camp and colonial government volunteers scattered back to their different stations, it was only the original Maid Honor Force that now remained to be dispersed far away from Lagos and the scene of their illegal triumph of violated neutrality. March-Phillipps and Appleyard were ordered back to England: both were needed urgently for the debriefing and caught the first available passenger liner back to England. The others were permitted to take a more leisurely route home. Lassen and a handful of others stayed in Nigeria, others headed south to Cape Town for a fortnight’s leave before – eventually – returning home to England. Maid Honor herself, Blake Glanville’s pride and joy that had carried them all safely from Poole to Africa but not onto the raid itself, was abandoned with regret in West Africa. Stripped of her ‘Q’ ship armament and surprises, Maid Honor was sold on in Lagos and ended her days as a simple fishing smack working out of Freetown, Sierra Leone, her un-sheathed bottom-planking riddled with teredo worm. Her bones lie there still.1
Before Duchessa d’Aosta set out for England she was thoroughly examined, her cargo meticulously inventoried. One of the justifications for her seizure had been the possibility that she too was a ‘Q’ ship and that her radio was being used to pass information which might harm British interests. The fear proved groundless. A Most Secret signal sent to the Admiralty flatly stated: ‘No evidence yet found of vessel having given assistance to the enemy. No W/T message sent since Italy entered the war transmitter sealed. This is confirmed by W/T Operator and feel confident is the truth.’2 Now, with Maid Honor Force dispersed and on the way home, it hardly mattered. What did matter, however, was the fact that, at a time when SOE in London was under great pressure to produce results to reassure Churchill and its many critics that SOE was, indeed, a force of real worth manned by competent, courageous officers, March-Phillipps and his men had stepped up to the mark. The success of Operation Postmaster, as SOE’s first historian recorded after the war, was simply ‘manna in the desert to SOE in its early lean years’.3
Hugh Dalton, SOE’s chairman, describing Postmaster as a ‘good show’,4 lost no time in writing to Churchill, the prime minister he admired but who disliked him, enclosing in a three-page letter not simply a full account of the raid and its potential political repercussions but generous thanks to the other agencies – excluding General Giffard – who had assisted SOE along the way. He too was in the business of building bridges:
I should like to express my high appreciation of the attitude of the Foreign Secretary in allowing the operation to proceed in spite of the political risks involved, and my gratitude to the Admiralty and to the Governor of Nigeria for their invaluable assistance. Great credit, I think, also attaches to SOE West Africa, who planned the operation in minute detail and successfully carried it out.5
In time, there would be medals: a Distinguished Service Order for Gus March-Phillipps for his leadership of an operation of ‘a most delicate and difficult nature’, during which he displayed ‘military qualities of a very high order’. He was also promoted to Major.6
Appleyard, as already stated, received his second Military Cross for leading the explosives’ party aboard Duchessa and for carrying out the setting and firing of explosive charges ‘with complete disregard of his own personal safety’. His childhood friend from the same village, Graham Hayes, the man whose after-action report heaps praise upon everyone but himself, also received the Military Cross for leading the attack on Likomba and for fighting another endless battle – that with the troublesome tug Nuneaton. He too was promoted, from Lieutenant to Captain.
Anders Lassen got his commission: ‘Put your pips up, Andy,’ ordered March-Phillipps. Lassen did so, by-passing all the recognised channels of selection and officer training. His commission as Second Lieutenant was confirmed later that May.7
SOE’s men in West Africa were also remembered in December 1942, with Guise and Lippett being awarded the MBE and Laversuch, Michie and Vulcan tugmaster Thomas Coker receiving the OBE. Nuneaton’s Captain, H.M. Goodman, received a much-deserved MBE. Brigadier Colin Gubbins pushed the additional awards to his civilians through the Colonial Office. ‘They would be informed officially through the Colonial Office but if Laversuch could do so without endangering security he should congratulate them heartily from SOE. Laversuch replied that he could do this without endangering security and added that the awards had greatly pleased the Governor.’8
With March-Phillipps and Appleyard on the way home it was left to Lt Col Julius Hanau, SOE’s ‘Caesar’ and Gubbins’ West Africa deputy, to reflect upon the real success and lessons to be learned that had been left bobbing in the wake of Operation Postmaster:
The operation not only achieved more than its material object, but it achieved it in such a way that the task of the Foreign Office and the Admiralty in meeting the political and legal aftermath has been reduced to a minimum.
We hope that SOE will be permitted to demonstrate that what was possible in Fernando Po is possible elsewhere: perhaps on the next occasion, it will not be found necessary to preface twenty-five minutes compact and decisive action by over four months of prolonged and desultory negotiation.9
Touché.
Burned the colour of teak by the African sun, March-Phillipps and Appleyard returned to a drab, rationed, stone-cold England in early February 1942. They were deb
riefed by Gubbins personally on Thursday 12 February and Monday 16 February. Much time had been spent on the journey home discussing plans to expand Maid Honor Force into something larger, harder hitting, more substantial. March-Phillipps took their ideas to Brigadier Gubbins, a man now favourably disposed to listen to his newly decorated champions.
March-Phillipps planned the creation of a small scale raiding force of 50–100 men equipped with a couple of motor launches and a few ‘Goatley’ assault boats. The task of these raiders would be to slip across the Channel at night by gunboat, kill sentries, seize prisoners,10 lift documents to order and steal interesting bits of German military kit for the other fighting services. Above all, his idea was to broaden the base of front-line experience for selected personnel, tie German troops to the coast and generally undermine any German sense of shoreline invulnerability. His idea for a lightweight strike force independent of the cumbrous complexities of higher-echelon planning or air support received, we are told, ‘immediate support’11 from Combined Operations and went forward over the next month to the Chiefs of Staff for their rubber-stamping of the creation of yet another small ‘private army’. Other accounts suggest the idea was Mountbatten’s own,12 but the original idea of what would shortly become known as the Small Scale Raiding Force came, almost certainly, from the newly promoted and decorated men of Operation Postmaster. Those other accounts suggest Lord Louis Mountbatten, the newly appointed Chief of Combined Operations, approached the Chiefs of Staff himself on 19 February with what he thought was an interesting idea: to form a permanent group of fifty men as an ‘amphibious sabotage force’ who would, naturally, operate under his command.13 The Men of Maid Honor Force, he considered, would be ideal.