Churchill's White Rabbit

by Sophie Jackson

  Forest was far from being alone in feeling that no one was really taking the war seriously, as this was the overriding feeling of many ordinary soldiers and airmen. It seemed that the authorities had blinkered themselves to the danger and were spinning out time until they had to do something decisive. Part of the problem was a need to hastily rearm, and both Britain and France had gone into a buying frenzy with the US to stock up on much-needed weapons and equipment. Meanwhile the RAF ran pointless sorties to Germany, dropping not bombs, but propaganda leaflets. Aside from a few odd skirmishes, the troops on the Maginot Line were enjoying a quiet stalemate. The real action was happening out at sea with the opening stages of the Battle of the Atlantic.

  It was with nervous optimism that Forest joined the Forward Air Ammunition Park (FAAP) near Reims in the hope of carrying out duties more to his liking. He was at last given a uniform and it was with some relief that he realised he could be truly useful at the posting, using his bilingual abilities to create links between the military and the local population. Though he did not know it at the time, it would prove good practice for when he had to liaise between resistance groups and London.

  Forest was perfect for the role, his natural charm and charisma as well as his confidence led people to instinctively trust and listen to him. He also slipped into the role of a leader easily and people automatically looked up to him. He might not have had the traditional good looks of a future secret agent – one author called him ‘terrier-like’ in appearance – but he radiated honesty and sincerity, which meant far more.

  His time at FAAP was cut short when he was sent to attend an anti-gas course in England on 23 November. Forest had not been ‘home’ in seventeen years and, right at that moment with Germans on his doorstep, he was hardly in the mood for a sojourn abroad. He stepped into an England about to experience the harshest winter it had seen in forty-five years, with temperatures plummeting while Forest and four fellow NCOs sat through lectures at a camp on Salisbury Plain. At least the RAF lecturers impressed Forest, and there were some opportunities for fun and games. This included a car trip into Salisbury with a civilian employee on the camp. Forest and four of his companions agreed to the arrangement but were stunned when their charitable friend demanded 10s each for giving them a lift. Too keen to get out of the camp and into city life to argue, they paid up, though on their return Forest tried his hand at ‘wartime’ sabotage and put half a pound of sugar into the petrol tank of the man’s car. Salisbury had proved a pleasant break from the stalemate in France, but it was only to last a fortnight and Forest was soon back at FAAP.

  It seemed that the military could still not quite decide what to do with him, and he was not the only one. Trying to keep men who wanted to be fighting occupied was not easy. Just before Christmas another training course was arranged, this time at Fighter Command at Stanmore, Middlesex. Forest had barely unpacked when he was ordered back to Britain in the bleak midwinter. It was not to be the nicest of trips as Forest found himself stuck aboard a transport ship in the middle of the Channel on Christmas Day, his mind returning to past Christmases with his family. He was still in touch with Lillian, though their relationship was now as cold as the ocean surrounding him, and Forest found himself suffering in his loneliness for the first time. Not a person prone to worrying about being by themselves or requiring someone to lean upon, he now found that his isolation was becoming uncomfortable.

  Matters were not improved by his arrival at Fighter Command on Boxing Day, when he was abruptly sent away for another 48 hours of unwanted leave. Stuck in London with nothing to do and with the December weather biting at his heels, he would later remark: ‘I don’t think I have ever hated any place more than I did London that night.’2

  When he returned to the RAF they yet again seemed to consider him surplus to requirements and, increasingly frustrated, he was sent off for another week’s leave. Forest now sunk into one his lowest ebbs; it was not until he found himself interned in a German concentration camp that he felt so miserable and alone again. He withdrew money from the bank, slept in several luxury West End hotels and went on a week-long bender.

  It was while Forest was extinguishing his misery in various bottles of alcohol that another wartime volunteer, who would change Forest’s life, was also finding the Phoney War an inconvenience. This was Barbara Dean, born in Kent in 1915, partially orphaned when her mother died shortly afterwards and unloved by a father who blamed her for his wife’s death. Stubbornly independent and with plenty of opinions and a rankling dislike for authority, Barbara was almost Forest’s female counterpart. She was not a conventional beauty, but pretty and with a sense of flare about her appearance that summed up her personality. She was described by one contemporary as ‘one of the few exceedingly pretty women I have known who are also sweet and humble and charitable.’

  While Forest was battling with temporary depression, Barbara was struggling to fit in with the WAAF. Spurred on by a desire to protect and defend her country, she had willingly volunteered for the service only four months before, but quickly discovered that military life was too uncompromising to suit her. Unlike Forest, who not only responded to the discipline of uniformed life but encouraged it in his later dealings with resistance members, Barbara could not stick being told what to do. For her it was all petty bureaucracy – pointless, stupid and infuriating – and she finally had enough when she argued with an officer about her hat being crooked and was put on a charge. Barbara ‘volunteered’ her way out and was waiting impatiently for the paperwork to be finished at the same time as Forest was kicking his heels in London.

  There was always something that felt like the hand of fate, or perhaps lady luck, in Forest’s life, and his first meeting with Barbara has precisely that feeling. They could easily have missed each other by a few days and they weren’t even based at the same station, but on Forest’s return to Stanmore Forest, he discovered that he was being sent to the Bomber Liaison Section, where he would meet the woman who would sustain him through the war and beyond.

  At Bomber Liaison, Forest was sent to the Filter Room, the secret control centre where all radar reports on hostile intruders were sent. The RAF had several of these Filter Rooms operating during the war, manned almost exclusively by WAAF members such as Barbara. There were strict rules for choosing operatives: ‘Must be under twenty-one years of age, with quick reactions, good at figures and female’ stated one criterion.3 Though these were obviously not always followed, as Barbara was 24. Still it was a decidedly young, female environment and a hub of activity.

  The purpose of the Filter Room was what its name suggests – it filtered information from the various radar stations across the country. Raw data was sent in and was then checked and sometimes recalculated to compensate for human error. This information was then arranged on a giant table map – so familiar from old war movies where WAAF girls pushed blocks representing German planes around with long pointers – before being passed on to the Operations Room.

  In a gallery above the WAAF workers, senior officers monitored the maps and acted according to the information present, whether that meant instructing air raid warnings to be sounded, scrambling fighter squadrons, alerting anti-aircraft defences or monitoring damaged homecoming planes that might be in need of assistance. It would be from this eyrie that Forest would operate and from where he could have a good bird’s-eye view of Barbara as she hurried back and forth.

  Forest was surprisingly cautious in his attempts to attract Barbara’s attention; the disaster of his marriage and the fact he was not yet divorced probably damaged his confidence in approaching her, but he was still determined. On long watches in the Filter Room he would talk with Elizabeth Trouncer, a friend of Barbara’s, and try to surreptitiously draw out ideas on how to woo the elusive woman of his dreams. He prolonged these interrogations by taking Elizabeth out to dinner, but she was no fool and knew he was using her as a means to an end. Offended at being so obviously misled, she told him bluntly that he had no c
hance with Barbara; Forest shrugged this off and even wagered £5 with her that he could win the feisty Miss Dean over.

  Elizabeth now found herself in the unenviable role of go-between, and Forest regularly sent her with messages for Barbara. One of the first, with typical Forest abruptness, was to inform her that he was married. Less than impressed, she sent back via Elizabeth: ‘well tell him to spend his weekend with his wife.’4 Fortunately Forest’s stubborn streak was not about to let him back down and he sent further notes explaining that he had been separated from his wife for four years and had every intention of getting a divorce as soon as the war was over.

  It was not until Barbara’s final day in the WAAF that she finally relented and agreed to meet Forest at the Windmill pub, situated just outside headquarters. Having promised herself never to date an airman, she consoled herself at this change of heart by thinking of it as purely for practical reasons as Forest could carry her suitcases to the train station.

  The meeting did not go smoothly. Barbara was under the impression that they were meeting outside, following the protocol that it was improper for a lady to enter a pub unescorted. Forest had missed this British social convention and was happily ensconced inside by the warm fire, while his date lingered outside in the freezing January weather. It was only when Barbara’s impatience got the better of her that she finally entered the pub and spotted Forest waiting for her. She then found that Forest only had an hour left before he had to go back on duty and therefore could not escort her to the station. Despite all these problems however, there was enough spark between them to arrange to meet again in Leicester Square, London, in two days’ time.

  Their second meeting went as smoothly as the first; Barbara was violently sick just before leaving the house to meet Forest and, with no means of getting a message to him, she had to pass two fraught hours wondering what he would think of her before she felt well enough to leave home. It seemed pointless to hope that Forest would still be waiting, but Barbara went anyway (which suggests the depths of her feelings already). To her amazement he was still in Leicester Square, perhaps having formed the opinion that his date was prone to being remarkably late. This went a long way to improving him in her estimation, even if he did give her legs a long, appreciative look when the wind gusted up her skirt slightly. Her illness behind her, the pair carried on to a French restaurant to enjoy an intimate meal.

  By now it was obvious that both were quite besotted with each other. Forest had set his sights on Barbara and despite any objections she had stood no chance against his determination. Forest was perhaps not the obvious ladies’ man, but his confident manner and forceful personality seemed to attract them to him nonetheless. To fuel his affair with Barbara, Forest spent his inheritance from his late mother like there was no tomorrow, determined that his estranged wife would have no part of it. When it finally ran out their romance was already well advanced and could withstand becoming more frugal.

  Barbara had freed herself from the restrictions of the WAAF and took a job running a Harridges dress shop in Surrey, where she rented a cottage for weekend rendezvous with Forest when he was able to get forty-eight hours’ leave. Like so many couples at that time, with true war a close prospect, they wanted to cement their relationship with marriage, but Lillian would not consent to a divorce from her estranged husband. They finally agreed on 9 February 1940 to simply become ‘married’. There was no church service or anything official, but from then on Barbara was Mrs Yeo-Thomas (more often shortened to just Mrs Thomas). It was not an easy arrangement and led to criticism from outsiders who learned that the couple ‘lived in sin’. Forest would have undoubtedly loved to have married Barbara properly, but with Lillian being so obstinate his hands were tied. Still, it was not a legal arrangement and even when filling in his MI9 papers later on, Forest felt it necessary to list his next of kin as Lillian Yeo-Thomas and his two daughters. Barbara fell down an official loophole.

  Their ‘marriage’, however, was significant for other reasons, it was a promise of loyalty to Barbara even as Forest determined to return to France to fight the war he was certain was looming. He was afraid that it would only be a matter of weeks or even days before the Germans made a conclusive move. He felt torn in his loyalties and needed Barbara to know how much he loved her even as he prepared himself to face Hitler and the possibility of his own death. So, on 6 April 1940, after a farewell meal with Barbara, Forest headed for an airfield just outside Paris run by Bomber Liaison Section, little knowing that France’s future now rested in German hands.

  * * *

  Notes

  1. Marshal, B., The White Rabbit.

  2. Seaman, M., Bravest of the Brave.

  3. ‘Memories of Eileen Younghusband’, The Wartime Memories Project.

  4. Seaman, M., Op cit.

  – 4 –

  The Ruination of France

  IN EARLY MAY A German force was seen amassing in front of the French Maginot Line. For the defenders of this epic fortification spanning the length of the French/German border, it seemed a laughable effort from the enemy.

  The Maginot Line had been constructed following the principles of First World War trench warfare, which dictated that it was necessary to defend static positions. Veterans of that war remembered the fraught battles for small patches of land well, along with the hasty construction of earthen fortifications to protect newly won territory. With this in mind, when Germany started to become a threat yet again, the majority opinion was to build significant defences along the border to protect against assault or a surprise attack.

  Support for the plan came from national hero and Marshal of France Henri Pétain, whose valour in the First World War gave weight to his opinions. He was an elderly man as war loomed yet again, and pre-empting an invasion seemed a sound solution. But his opinions were not unanimously held: an upstart French general named Charles de Gaulle, another First World War veteran, was adamantly against the plan, wanting investment to go into armour and aircraft, rather than an expensive series of forts. But Pétain’s views won the day and the Maginot Line (named after French minister of war, André Maginot) grew up along the border like some modern-day Hadrian’s Wall.

  It was not a simple undertaking. There were systems of heavy turrets, anti-tank defences, sophisticated barracks for the defending force, border guard posts, communication centres, machine-gun posts and supply depots. At some points the line was 20–25km deep (12–16 miles). This was no small investment and Pétain hoped that it would buy France valuable time to amass their own army and strengthen their military.

  Connected by a series of underground passages, the line was a hive of activity, with British and French forces manning the various posts. Popular opinion was that it was impregnable and would save France from invasion. Initial construction had stopped at the Belgian border, but the line had been extended after Belgium announced its neutrality in 1936. Despite this, it was still thought unlikely that Belgium would be invaded and even if it was, Pétain felt confident that his troops could push them out. Aside from a gap at the Ardennes forest, which French advisors pointed out was virtually impregnable anyway, the line was an unbroken barrier between the hostile Germans and France.

  On 10 May the amassing Germans made a sortie against the line and were easily driven back. No one realised that this was a diversion and a second German army was marching through that impenetrable Ardennes forest, and, worse still, that German forces had invaded neutral Belgium and the Netherlands. The line defences along the Belgian border, always less substantial than the rest of the line due to the high water table, which risked flooding, now fell under the German assault.

  The large forts were simply overrun. On 19 May all 107 members of one French crew were killed defending their post when the German 16th Army pummelled them with heavy artillery. Within days of the initial assault Germany was pushing into France and the Maginot Line had become pointless. By 24 May the British Expeditionary Force had been separated from the French Army and h
ad fallen back to the port of Dunkirk with the Germans breathing down their necks. No place evokes a greater sense of tragedy and heroism. The British were sitting ducks at Dunkirk and it was only due to the Germans holding back that they were able to evacuate.

  The French were in similar disarray. Many soldiers began to openly desert and even those that continued fighting soon found themselves being forced to withdraw. Among them was Forest, who was stunned to find that the embassy staff had already left Paris, including the air attaché who he had hoped to get orders from. He saw that there was no choice but to follow his superiors in a retreat to the coast.

  Forest watched his beloved France collapsing around him. At Bomber Liaison some of the French aircraftmen had already fallen into defeatism and watched refugees streaming down the roads with a mixture of pity and inevitability. The aerodrome had been bombed on 3 June, but much to Forest’s frustration there was no call to return the action, and on 11 June communications were finally cut. It was in this state of chaos that the embassy staff had simply vanished and Forest was left with no choice but to evacuate also.

  It was a bad time in Paris. Forest had been sleeping at his father’s flat, which was conveniently located at the Passy Métro station – four years later Yeo-Thomas senior could witness his son’s arrest from his own window – and returned there to collect his belongings. The skies were black, with thick clouds spewed from the burning remains of oil factories at Port Jerome, which the Nazis had bombed in yet another effort to cripple the French defences. A black layer of heavy dust would fall on the city like mourning clothes and for months everything would be cast in tones of black and grey. Even the birds were leaving and for the next year Paris would become eerily quiet without their song.