by Matthew Hall
The following day General Enkell of the Finnish Army announced that all volunteers were free to return to Britain immediately via Sweden. Those who wished to remain, in the event they could be of no service, would be returned at a later date. About 70 returned but got no further than Sweden. Herford opted to remain in the hope that a use would be found for him, and threw himself into combat training.
It was late March, and temperatures were still falling as low as minus 40 degrees, but the volunteers were brought into a semblance of order and taught drill, marksmanship and skiing. Herford made best use of his limited medical supplies, but had little other than minor ailments and dysentery to deal with. His main problems continued to be with the other officers. Having rid himself of Blew-Jones, Chandler sought to secure his position by threatening Herford with summary dismissal when he complained at the way in which the contingent was being run. Chandler had now elevated his own assistant, Guthrie, to the position of second in command while completely ignoring the superior talents of many others, including Major Joyce, who, unlike Guthrie, had served as a regular soldier.
The situation was further aggravated in mid-April when the German Army invaded Denmark and Norway. The British responded with their own landing in Norway, and the Finnish volunteers were anxious to join them. Battle was raging between the Allied troops and the German forces, and severe casualties were inflicted by the German Air Force. Finally permission was granted for those who wanted to, to go to the northern Finnish town of Rovaniemi and from there to Narvik in Norway to join the British Expeditionary Force. But, while they were waiting to be moved from Rovaniemi the Norwegians capitulated and the British withdrew. The volunteers were sent back to Lapua without having come within 100 miles of action. Morale sunk to its lowest point yet.
By the end of April, the initial attractiveness of Finland, with its picturesque snow-laden forests, had worn thin. The winter was reputed to have been the coldest for a century and the food was insufficient and monotonous. The few lighter moments that occurred were scarcely enough to raise their spirits out of the doldrums. Some of those who made the best of being marooned were a party of 300 Hungarian volunteers. Their language, like that of the Estonians, was similar to Finnish. They were great singers, especially on the march, and some of their songs made the worst the British could offer seem tame. Among them was an enormous padre, well over 6 feet in his socks, who had a particularly fine baritone voice, an admirable capacity for alcohol, and an ungodly appetite for women.
He had taken part in guerrilla fighting on the Czechoslovak border and at one stage had been caught by enemy troops who proceeded to hang him by the neck from a tree. Fortunately his executioners were disturbed by the return of his own party, who cut him down and managed to revive him with artificial respiration. In mid-May the British contingent was finally moved from Lapua to the far more attractive town of Savonlinna. Spring had finally arrived, and when the men were not training they were able to swim in the clear lakes and sunbathe on the shore, a far cry from the desperate struggle that was at the same time taking place in and around Dunkirk.
This contented atmosphere was given an extra fillip by the arrival of a group of First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANYS – British women volunteer nurses), who accompanied the men on canoe trips and an excursion on a pleasure steamer. But unfortunately the women did not stay long, and left in a ship bound for America. En route they were intercepted by a British cruiser and had the good fortune to be taken straight back to England. Had it been a German cruiser, the British passengers would certainly have been arrested. By a further stroke of luck, in November the OC of the FANYS, Miss Runciman, found herself at a dinner in Newcastle with Herford’s ‘fiancée’, Mary, and was able to show her a number of suitably innocent photographs of him and the other volunteers taken in Finland. It was the first news Mary had had of Martin’s existence since his departure as none of the volunteers’ letters had arrived home.
In the middle of June the volunteers were visited by Lord Balfour, President of the Scottish National Provincial Bank and a senior figure in the FAB. In an ill-considered speech he promised that strenuous efforts were being made to get them returned to England.
In fact, two ships had been chartered for the purpose, but one was sunk and the other diverted to carry out more urgent tasks. All available craft were being thrown into the war effort, and a potentially dangerous ferrying operation across the North Sea was not considered a high priority. Herford and two fellow officers took the opportunity during Balfour’s visit to complain vigorously about the inadequacies of Chandler, their Commanding Officer, and his assistant, Guthrie, whom he had recently promoted to full lieutenant. Herford also expressed his frustration with the entire situation – as far as he was concerned the FAB was not only grossly inefficient, it was also acting highly irresponsibly by keeping the volunteers from active service. Balfour appeared to listen carefully and promised to take the matters up with the British legation in Helsinki. The result was a visit two weeks later from another official, Colonel Gill, the British military attaché in Finland. Colonel Gill appealed for patience, and promised a ship would be arriving shortly. But his promises amounted to no more than a cynical attempt at appeasement. The only positive effect of these two visits was the removal of Chandler and Guthrie and their replacement with Lieutenant Ruck-Keene.
The promised ship of course did not materialize, and the volunteers were moved on again to the town of Jyvaskyla. At this stage the military nature of the expedition ceased. A telegram was received from London stating that all volunteers would revert to the rank of private and were to be encouraged where possible to earn their own living. Pay was to be cut to that of a private’s, except for those who succeeded in finding work, who would not be paid at all. Volunteers reverted to civilian dress and all training ceased.
The weeks spent in Jyvaskyla were far from hard when compared with what the rest of the war would bring. Herford made friends of some local families and learned a little of the impossibly difficult Finnish language. He played tennis and football with some of the workers from the local plywood factory, skied on the remaining snow and took frequent saunas followed by plunges in the lake. He also made the surprising discovery that many of the Finns had strongly pro-German sentiments, and expected Finland to declare war on the Russians on the side of Germany. The general feeling was that the war would be over in six weeks and that Russia would have to return all it had stolen from Finland. Some extremists even talked of acquiring Leningrad, but they were few in number. These views were held in obvious ignorance of the more despicable aspects of the Nazi regime, but may go some way to explain the reason why a sterner attitude was not taken towards Germany by the European democracies throughout the 1930s. It was the spectre of communism and Soviet imperialism that was most widely feared. A strong Germany was considered a useful buffer against potential Soviet aggression.
Week after week of inactivity was more than Herford and many of the other volunteers could stand, and they started to formulate plans for making their own way out of the country. Herford’s first escape attempt was in September. He made enquiries among the men and was finally put in touch with one member of a party of Finns who was planning to leave the country imminently, and would be prepared to part with his identification papers for the right price. Suspecting his contact of being unreliable, Herford arranged to meet him in Helsinki, planning to pay him at the last possible moment before departure, thereby minimizing the risk of being turned in and the man claiming his papers back from the police! For the plan to work successfully, a reliable companion was needed, and Herford was lucky enough to secure the help of a fellow volunteer, Aiken-Quark. A ‘veteran’ pilot from the Spanish Civil War who had gone on to earn a handsome living in currency exchange and smuggling from Algeciras and Gibraltar, he was an adventurer to whom the planned escape was a piece of welcome excitement. They decided that the two of them would board the train with the party bound for Petsamo, and that the transfer of papers
would take place during the journey. Half the money would be handed over during the journey, and the other half would be retained by Aiken-Quark, who would leave the train with the seller at a halt before Petsamo and pay him the balance when Herford was safely out of the country.
Everything went to plan in Helsinki, and Herford and Aiken-Quark managed to by-pass the Finnish police who were making a very careful check of the passengers’ documents. The problem came from an unexpected source. One of the passengers on the train was a Dutchman who had been a volunteer and who recognized Herford. Guessing that he did not have the proper papers, he made an official protest to the Finnish police. He and Aiken-Quark were ordered from the train at the next halt. Fortunately the seller had not yet been paid! They managed to put up in a small railway inn and returned to Helsinki by the morning train.
It was the beginning of November before another escape opportunity arose. The British contingent had now been moved to Korpilahti, and as there were very few medical duties to perform, Herford was able to take up the invitation of Professor Holsti, Dean of the Medical School in Helsinki, to stay with his family and tour the capital’s medical facilities and clinics. During this trip he heard a rumour that some volunteers who had got into Sweden earlier in the year had managed to get transit visas for Russia, Turkey and Palestine, where they joined up with British forces in the Middle East. It was a chink of light, but the problem was getting into Sweden.
Until this time, all applications to the British legation in Helsinki for Swedish visas had been refused, even to the son of a former British ambassador to Stockholm. However, Herford made enquiries of the British Embassy in Stockholm and found that the Councillor there had been at the Barcelona Embassy in 1938 and had been particularly sympathetic to the Quaker relief effort. He wrote back saying that he could not interfere with legation in Helsinki, but enclosed a letter from Sir Archie Ross, the son of an old friend of Herford’s father whom he had not seen for many years, and who was now third Secretary in Stockholm. He offered to help in any way he could.
The Finnish passport office required two referees in Sweden. Herford used the names of Malcolm de Lillihook (with whom he had kept in contact), and Sir Archie Ross. When Ross’s name was mentioned, the official exclaimed, ‘Do you know him? He’s a very good friend of the official in charge of the passport department of the Swedish Foreign Office. If you mention his name you are sure to get a visa.’
A week later his Swedish visa arrived. The next step was obtaining a Russian transit visa. Another back door opened when Herford secured an interview with the Finnish Minister of Finance, Herr Vinoe Tanner, through a former volunteer who was now tutor to Tanner’s children. Although Tanner was a personal friend of Madame Kollontai, the Russian Ambassador in Stockholm, he thought in view of the current tense relations between Russia and Finland, the best course was to give Herford an introduction to the Swedish Prime Minister, Gustav Miller.
That it took such high-level assistance simply to secure a visa was symptomatic of the wartime bureaucracy. Without the right friends Herford might have been trapped in Finland for the rest of the war.
CHAPTER 4
Stockholm to Cairo
In early December 1940, as the first snows were falling, Herford set off by train to the port of D’Abo, from where he crossed the Gulf of Bothnia to Stockholm. Having been so long in Finland, with its food shortages and barely stocked shops, he had forgotten what it was like to be faced with a choice of anything. The first thing that struck him about Stockholm was the sumptuousness of it all. The city exuded wealth and opulence. The shops were overflowing with almost everything one could desire – fine clothes, beautifully crafted furniture, fresh fruit wrapped in shiny coloured paper and mountains of exquisitely made pastries and cakes, their coloured icing twinkling like jewels in the shop windows. The existence of such luxuries had almost entirely vanished from his memory. In contrast to the dimly lit shops and thoroughfares of Helsinki, Stockholm was ablaze with light and colour. It was as if the war had scarcely touched this neutral country and its supply lines remained open to the four corners of the world.
Herford made straight for the restaurants and feasted first his eyes, then his stomach, on forgotten delicacies and some that were altogether new. The only warm drink on offer in Finland was tea consisting of a few sorry leaves scattered into hot water. One of the first things he tried in Sweden was coffee with thick, rich cream and sugar. He went to the Openkeller, a famous restaurant which specialized in smorgasbord and he sat down to a table spread with forty small dishes, each one different, and enjoyed a sumptuous feast. Herford has remarked that after the extremely limited fare of Finland, he came to Sweden with an eye which rested rather ravenously on food.
Herford’s first port of call on business was the offices of Malcolm de Lillihook. The two men had got on well together in Spain and de Lillihook was charming and affable, and more than willing to help. He immediately arranged for Herford to present his letter of introduction to Herr Muller, the Prime Minister. Herford met with Herr Muller shortly afterwards. He was a tall, heavily built man, with typically Scandinavian features. His bearing was confident and he had a manner which gave the impression of considerable force of character. Muller asked keenly after his friend Tanner, and then enquired about Herford’s plans. He listened patiently while Herford described the Finland debacle and his plan to travel across Russia, showing a level of genuine interest in a relatively trivial matter, which was quite extraordinary, given his position. Muller then wrote a letter of introduction to the Soviet Minister.
Continuing his tour of the influential people of Stockholm, Herford visited Archie Ross, who used his influence to secure a meeting with Madame Kollontai, the Soviet Ambassador.
It was with some trepidation that he mounted the steps to the Soviet Embassy. Madame Kollontai was a larger than life figure from a former world, who had somehow successfully survived the transition to Bolshevism. She had been born into an aristocratic family and was considered a great beauty. Before the revolution she had married and become well known in the wealthy, French-speaking upper classes in Leningrad. But as unrest grew she became active in progressive and revolutionary circles and had written a book on free love – Freedom of Women – which had been widely read. She became a close personal friend of Lenin and soon after the revolution was appointed Commissar of Public Welfare, and later moved to her Stockholm post, a position which she held until 1943. When she was finally relieved of her post, she continued to live in Sweden until her death. This was almost exceptional, as in the Stalinist era many Soviet ambassadors held their posts for less than a year and were recalled to Russia never to be heard of again.
Herford was received in the hallway of the Soviet legation by one of the secretaries, who took his details and led him into Madame Kollontai’s room. After a few minutes she swept through the door in a most regal fashion, a slight, erect figure dressed in a plain black gown, her only ornament a gold locket hanging from a simple gold chain. She had a high forehead and slender, refined features which still bore the traces of her youthful beauty. Her secretary bowed in a most courtly manner, showing not the merest hint of communist equality. Herford had been pre-warned that the Ambassador expected her callers to kiss her hand in the manner of the old regime, and she extended it in the manner of a queen greeting a subject. Herford reacted by shaking her hand in the conventional way. If she felt put out by this error she disguised it very tactfully. Their conversation was short and carried out mostly in French, as she spoke little English and Herford no Russian. She asked a few formal questions and said that she would send to Moscow to ask permission for a transit visa.
It normally took several weeks for visas to be processed and Herford’s Swedish visa lasted only for a week. But through another stroke of luck, he was introduced by Malcolm de Lillihook to the Director of Medical Services in Sweden who was related to the official in charge of the passport office. A three-week extension of his Swedish visa was ‘arranged’.
But after only five days the Russian visa came through, and with much regret Herford had to cancel plans to tour the Stockholm hospitals with the Director. Instead he was forced to return to the relative gloom of Helsinki and spend Christmas with the remnants of the volunteers waiting for the British Embassy to secure the Turkish, Syrian and Palestinian passports he needed to finish his journey.
Before leaving Finland Herford managed to stir up a hornet’s nest when he wrote letters to several senior figures in the FAB setting out his catalogue of criticisms of the entire handling of the Finnish expedition, and enclosing verbatim transcripts of the speeches made by Lord Balfour and Colonel Gill promising the volunteers a speedy return. He was firmly of the view that this had been nothing more than hot air, and even deliberate misinformation. Knowing that they could not be expected to arrive in England for many months he requested of the British Embassy that they be carried to England in diplomatic bags. Three days later he was invited to an interview with Gordon Verreker, the British Ambassador, who was very troubled by the letters’ contents, and insisted that they were amended before they were carried. He also reminded Herford that he should consider his long-term career, and also that of Colonel Gill’s. But Herford would not back down, and with a few alterations the letters were apparently sent in a diplomatic bag. Unfortunately they never reached their ultimate destination.
It was 4 January 1941 before the formalities were finally completed and Herford boarded the Leningrad train in Helsinki station. The British Embassy had advised him not to travel with any binoculars, camera or papers, and in a fit of defiant disgust he tore up a very detailed diary of events he had compiled since being in Finland – an act which later became a source of deep regret.