Young, Brave and Beautiful

by Tania Szabô

  The train sighed, whistled and steamed off. Relief was palpable. Violette and Philippe stared grimly, nodding at passengers stretching necks to gawp suspiciously at everyone else. They were both shaken by the search, fearing it was for Violette.

  Once they arrived at Les Aubrais Orléans, they had an hour’s wait and decided lunch was a necessity. It was half-past two and they were peckish. As they walked along to find a brasserie or café-bar Philippe said Malraux was going south, no doubt to keep an eye on his other kid brother, Roland. He went on to explain what had been and still was happening in Orléans – a conservative and wealthy town rooted in age-old traditions. As Violette had seen, everyday life under occupation was much the same from town to town. The Germans requisitioned the best buildings to set up their occupying headquarters, the Feldkommandanturen. Normally, the PPF, Parti Populiste Français, i.e. the French collaborationist movement, was installed close by. Philippe continued that the German army had found few civilian clerical and housekeeping volunteers, fewer than thirty in 1942, but by then in Orléans many more were willing as wages were low elsewhere and they were fearful of unemployment. The rate of exchange, as Violette had discovered, was one Deutschmark to twenty French francs, making daily life even harder. Added to this, steeply rising prices and scarcity of goods caused more worry and distress.

  Violette cut in, explaining that in London they were under similar restrictions, bombing raids and fires with incendiary winds; just not under Jerry occupation. Life was damned hard there too. Londoners coped, had their own sort of Système D. Everyone was trying to do their bit with the same skivers and racketeers as in France. Philippe went on to note that, like in London, shop owners all over France whose shops had been destroyed had erected temporary stalls in streets, squares and along the boulevards of the cities. Citizens in Orléans, like those of other towns, were forced to register their names with local suppliers for food. He presumed everyone in England had to do much the same. Even bartering. Philippe also noted that until 1943, German forces barracked in Orléans were mainly administrative. Repressive mobile forces only arrived this year.

  The meal they had was measly but adequate, accompanied by ‘coffee’ with more carrot than chicory, never mind coffee; but they hardly noticed, engrossed as they were in their comparison of the two countries and discussion of events in Orléans.

  SOE used the area around Orléans time and again, mostly through Henri Déricourt. He was a Frenchman and well-known pilot, but after the war he was never quite cleared of betraying his country and SOE, despite being acquitted by a French court. He was in a tortuous position as it seems he was faced with a stark choice: spy for Bleicher of the German security services, the SD and SS, or risk the life of his wife and maybe more. On the suspicion of agents whom he had transported to and from France, at least twice he was recalled against his will to Baker Street. Though they knew him, neither Violette nor Philippe knew what to think.

  After paying the bill, they walked back through the station and boarded the train to Issoudun. There were no incidents, no unscheduled stops, and they arrived at half past four into a warm sun-filled afternoon.

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  As they sat on a bench in the sun, their luggage at their feet, they chatted while waiting for Maurice Southgate’s contact to arrive from the Stationer circuit further south. In the ‘Dames – Damen’, Violette quickly metamorphosed from young city businesswoman back into pretty farming lass, hiding her widow’s identity papers and carrying those of Corinne Leroy, secretary. She did wonder if the Le Havre papers were unsafe and maybe she should use her third set. No, they would soon be in the air on the way back to England.

  Violette asked what she needed to know about the Stationer circuit, curious about this man with a fine reputation called Maurice Southgate.98

  Philippe proceeded to tell Violette some background he felt might be useful to her.

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  After a fifteen-minute wait, Philippe saw his contact rattle in noisily. Another gazogène running on vegetation. It was one of Southgate’s men, well-trained and working as a young farmhand, delivering produce all over the region and further afield until the call for full mobilisation of Résistants and Maquisards took place. For this, he possessed the correct German Ausweisen99 and French permis. With his old truck, he was a driver and messenger for the Résistance so his authorisations to drive long distances in this part of France were a real boon.

  They piled their luggage in the back under boxes of vegetables and a few crates of chickens and climbed into the cab, where Violette sat cramped in the back part. After a noisy half-hour drive south-east along narrow country lanes, through a dark forest and across wide expanses of flat fields, they finally stopped at a small farmhouse. They exchanged gifts, as was the custom. The farmer and his wife, the Dupuys, looked after them with great warmth and kindness. A couple of merry days passed, news exchanged, intelligence gathered and promises made.

  As the two passengers had three suitcases, a large canvas bag and a few parcels, it was considered safer to walk them over to their departure field after twilight, pushing two barrows holding their luggage. They could hunker down in a small clump of trees and bushes on the edge of Le Fay, an ideal area for Lysander landings on a runway or in one of many fields surrounding it on the high plateau. They waited there until nightfall. Finally, the moon rose high, the reception committee arrived to set up flares in an L-shape for the approaching Lysanders.

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  These tiny planes had no radio link or navigation system, relying on compass, moonlight and landmarks. They flew deep into occupied France with a 650-mile range on two full tanks, one under their belly, but no guns. The flights were extremely perilous.

  Each aircraft, at a pinch, carried four passengers, with two lying across two seated passengers. Where both men and women agents were involved, straying hands, stern slaps, chuckles and giggles erupted. As well as agents, Lysanders carried politicians, downed airmen and communists, flying to Tangmere100 in the south of England or, if they had orders and sufficient fuel, to Tempsford, further north in Bedfordshire. At both airfields, there were inevitable and often lengthy briefings and debriefings, with agents staying overnight in Tangmere cottage or Pym’s Hazel Hall, an elegant Georgian manor house at Sandy.

  Lysander pilots on special missions made these flights hoping not to attract enemy night fighters or flak from anti-aircraft guns on the ground. The pilots’ flying and navigational skills were of the highest order as they could not rely on always having the moon and clear skies to light the landmarks below.

  On the night of Sunday 30 April 1944, it was a ‘double’ Lysander mission. Even though it was cloudy, the half-moon still allowed the two ‘Lizzies’ a straight run. They took only one pass over the terrain to land so the aircraft were not short of fuel. They were delivering a landing-party of three, including Dupuis or Pharaon,101 and collecting two – Violette and Philippe for Tangmere, where the two agents would spend the night in the cottage for initial debriefing.

  Those on the ground heard the slow but resonant drone of a Lysander approaching. Its pilot, Flight Lieutenant Robert G. ‘Bob’ Large DFC, Légion d’Honneur, gave the BN signal of a single beam for this operation codenamed Organist and received the correct AD signal of flashing lights from the ground. Torches lit the pathway so Bob Large banked the plane quite steeply to come in over a few trees, landed quickly and discharged his passengers.

  Bob grumbled affably as he quickly helped his passengers out: ‘Landing was bloody bumpy. Ridges the whole length from ploughing. The Lizzie vibrated like hell. The engine stopped as bloody fuel was thrown up. You know, if the fuel’s over-rich, it gets damned difficult to restart a Mercury engine. Danger of the battery running flat in the attempt.’

  He pulled the slow-running cutout – a control to stop the engine – a trick he expertly performed, to restart the engine.

  ‘Who’s the passenger? Woman, ay? In yer hop, then.’

  The reception committee gave
Violette a leg up, passing in her suitcases and canvas bag full of ‘frivolous’ things, plus a couple of boxy parcels. The whole operation was over within a few minutes. Bob, still grumbling happily, took off.

  Flying Officer J.P. Alcock, on his first operational flight with the 161 Special Squadron, performed the second landing in much the same way, helping his passengers out and taking on Philippe Liewer, his one small suitcase and parcels. In his turn, he quickly took off.

  The arriving passengers had disappeared from the field with their luggage, led away in the dark by members of the reception committee.

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  The two Lysanders slowly made their way homeward at 150 miles an hour average speed. Suddenly they flew into a cloudbank and, without landmarks, Bob Large veered a little too close to an aerodrome with fighters on the ground used by the Luftwaffe, south of Châteaudun. Abruptly the sky lit up with criss-crossing searchlights. The tiny aircraft was being used as target practice.

  ‘What the hell is all that?’ shouted Violette. The noise of the engine made it very difficult to be heard or to hear even with the headphones and mikes. ‘How come we’re flying over an enemy airfield? We’re being fired at?’

  ‘’Fraid so! Too close to a Luftwaffe base. That bank of cloud made us wander off course. Not much – but right into trouble. I’m turning off the intercom so I can concentrate and get us out of this. Okay?’ Bob shouted over the noise of the engine. He thus avoided any smart-ass talk-back from some girl who shouldn’t be over here anyway.

  ‘Okay, understood and out,’ shouted back Violette. Bob was a little surprised by her professional response. Fear certainly surged through her, but she kept quiet and concentrated on remaining in her seat. She saw from the window the puff-white flak and flying bullets streaming past as searchlights caught them in their beams.

  Manoeuvring helter-skelter through the sky, Bob hoped he would not have some damned woman fainting on his hands when they landed, if they got out of this mess. He turned off the intercom so he could concentrate. Diving suddenly, swerving to the portside and then to starboard in quick succession, he avoided the worst damage. Violette felt like a rag doll. Although buckled in, her shoulders hit the sides a few times and her head struck the bulkheads as they careened through the night sky. Bullets slammed into them. Nothing had pierced the fuselage yet, at any rate.

  Eventually they flew out of range into a clear, peaceful sky. The further north they flew, the more frequently they entered banks of clouds, making it impossible to see the land beneath them or reckon the distance to the coast. Violette could not work out where they were as they flew on, hoping for cloud cover over the Channel to prevent German antiaircraft guns on the French coast firing at them.

  Suddenly they were descending. Why? Where? She could not understand why Bob had not put the intercom back on. They seemed to be coming down rather steeply. Were they crash-landing into enemy territory?

  The next thing she knew, she was being thrown all over the place. As the plane touched down it crashed over to one side, sliding along on a wing, causing Violette to bang her head hard.

  They screeched to a halt, sparks flying everywhere; there was more noise and Violette tried to get herself out. They must have crash-landed in France. She would not be captured alive. A piece of metal pipe had fallen to the side. A tall blond man in a uniform that she could not quite see approached and yanked open her side of the plane. She grabbed the metal pipe off the floor and threw herself out of the plane. She would use it to batter him with, or poke him one in the eye!

  ‘Haut les mains!’ she cried as she hit the ground, keeping the metal weapon levelled in front of her. ‘Alors, garde les mains haut ou je tire, compris?’

  ‘Bloody hell, what the devil’s got into you, you idiot!’ shouted Bob Large.

  ‘Oh – it’s you! I thought you were a German. Where the hell are we? I almost bloody gave you one in the eye. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So you ought to be, dammed woman! I’ve got you home!’

  ‘Your landing wasn’t the smoothest. Almost knocked me out. You didn’t turn the intercom back on the whole darned way after we almost got shot down. I had no idea where we were with the clouds and all, and then that landing – well, I naturally thought you were a flipping Kraut. I was ready to defend myself, and even you, if necessary!’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry, too. Forgot to put the intercom back on. Let me get you a drink.’

  ‘Easy to take you for a German in the dark, you know, Bob. Tall, blond and handsome! And in a bomber jacket and goggles. No helmet. I’ve seen the films, you know!’ She grinned, gave him a kiss, and Bob burst into a spluttering laugh.

  At that moment, the ground crew came over and looked at the plane.

  ‘You guys are damned lucky. Tyre got shot to pieces and the undercarriage has all but packed up entirely.’

  Bob and Violette looked at the wheels. He whistled when he saw the state of his plane, especially the smashed wheel. And they both laughed with relief.

  Lysander wheels cannot be raised after take-off as the undercarriage is fixed and the left tyre had been shot up. It was in shreds. There was no way Bob could have known as he could not see the undercarriage while flying. They were lucky not to have been killed over France, or on landing, all due to Bob’s clever handling. He was not the kind to panic and had dealt with the second-by-second events in cool, deliberate fashion.

  ‘Where’s the other Lysander?’ asked Violette as they walked across RAF Tempsford and out over to the SOE cottage for debriefing and refreshments.

  ‘It’s landed and they’re all in just about one piece in the cottage,’ said one of the SOE reception people who had raced across with the crew, half-expecting the plane to blow. ‘Alcock’s propeller was holed by flak, bloody lucky to get back.’

  ‘Darned good to be back and see you undamaged, Philippe,’ said Violette when she saw him ensconced in a corner near the blazing cottage fire. Though it was nearly dawn, a hot meal was laid out on the table and everyone was helping themselves. Philippe opened the customary vintage bottle of champagne. The meal ended with fresh coffee and cognac, courtesy of Lysander, et al.

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  98 Maurice Southgate, DSO, SOE leader of the Stationer circuit.

  99 Ausweis in the singular. Mostly, German plural ends in ‘en’ as in Ausweisen. This is where we get ox/oxen.

  100 Tangmere, near Chichester, is now the Tangmere Military Aircraft Museum with memorials commemorating the bravery of pilots and passengers alike and hosts various associated events, as does Tempsford in Bedfordshire, ten miles north-east of Bedford.

  101 Dupuis, codename for an agent who had been brought to London for discussions, now returning under the codename Pharaon.

  23

  Debriefing

  1 May to 3 May 1944

  Philippe and Violette bade one another farewell at Tangmere after arranging for Philippe to collect her in London after the first debriefing. Vera Atkins had wanted to do this herself but on reflection thought that they should spend time together after the initial debriefings, reviewing the events, joint experiences and insights of their mission, making notes of things half-remembered, forgotten, seemingly innocuous but useful. But at this stage, before the first debriefs, the less contact between them the better so their reports would be entirely free of the other’s bias or memory.

  They were driven to London separately. Vera Atkins had her driver run Violette and herself to the corner of Portman Square, where Orchard Court stood at the southern end of Baker Street. The initial debriefing took place immediately on their arrival.

  Small flats in the building were available for agents to relax before the debriefs, which took place in one of a number of offices, or in Buckmaster’s private domain, where careful notes were recorded from all agents’ reports, including Violette’s activities and conclusions. Her report was then later studied alongside the report provided by Philippe. Reports were often verbal, taken down in shorth
and and typed up. Sometimes, they were handwritten by the agent.

  Violette’s report stated that, after being dropped at the beginning of April and with Philippe accompanying her to Paris, she had made her way to Rouen where, in effect, her mission was cut short by the Vichy police of Rouen, led by the infamous Chief Inspector Alie. She continued that, during nearly three weeks in the dangerous restricted zone, she had succeeded in establishing contact with the Salesman circuit’s external members and with various Maquis groups and Résistance movements from Rouen to Le Havre and as far north as Calais and Dieppe. She also reported that, in her opinion, shared by Philippe, they had no chance of rebuilding this network, not only because the Germans had put a huge price on Philippe’s head but because the German and French security police forces were much more active and had, over months, planned the capture of Résistants and members of the Salesman circuit while seizing arms caches. She added that they had no need to resuscitate Salesman as, by provisioning the group leaders noted in her report, they would increase their sabotage activities and supply intelligence on targets to be struck by the Allied Air Force.102 The success of Salesman and its associated Résistance and Maquis movements was remarkable. Violette felt that the increase in enemy activity and erroneous estimates of where and when the Allies were to land was in no small part a result of the sabotage carried out by the Salesman circuit.

  She recounted her unexpected brief meeting with Philippe in Rouen when she told him it was too dangerous for him to stay. She handed over the wanted posters of Philippe and Bob Maloubier that she had torn from the walls near the station and further reported all her findings on the rocket sites she had visited and on which she had been given information. This led to her being debriefed by the Ministry of Defence.