The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish

by Noreen Riols

  The agents I met during interrogations at Orchard Court were nearly all people of unusual sensitivity, able to make quick decisions and accurate assessments of a person’s character, but possessing the inner strength to kill or order the execution of a comrade who had betrayed them. SOE seemed to draw officers of exceptional quality who would have been considered outstanding in any form of warfare. They were not military geniuses, who fitted neatly into the British forces’ organization charts. They were individualists, self-reliant people who preferred to operate singly rather than in large groups, happy to be their own master and make their own decisions, rather than being obliged to obey orders made by others, which they often considered futile.

  In those sessions I also learned that we each have a different pain threshold, that point at which, in spite of oneself, the body succumbs and gives in. Listening to the agents’ often harrowing stories, I came to understand that it is easy to think, even to boast when in the relative safety of a free country, that one will never crack, never give in, never talk, never betray one’s comrades. But no one can know their breaking point in advance. That moment, perhaps transitory but often devastating in its consequences, when, faced with terror, threats and insinuations that one has been betrayed or that the enemy knows all the secrets anyway, a person reaches the end of his tether. His body and his spirit can no longer endure the torture, the pain, both mental and physical, and he will crack and thereby betray not only himself, but his comrades, his fellow résistants and the cause for which he is fighting. Perhaps that is why SOE advised departing agents to swallow the L pill if ever they were arrested, so that they would never have to discover what their breaking point might be. In Gestapo hands an agent who cracked was as good as dead. I never met one who did. But perhaps they were the ones who didn’t return!

  Orchard Court was not only the place agents returned to after a mission. It was also the last place they saw before departing for the field. Arthur Park’s firm handshake, his warm smile of encouragement and his friendly pat on the back as they left Orchard Court were precious memories for many agents long after the war was over.

  Departing agents were driven to Orchard Court in the afternoon prior to leaving to change into their ‘made in France’ clothes. These outfits were specially designed for them by a Jewish refugee tailor from Vienna who had a workshop in Whitechapel. The cut of a jacket or the way a shirt collar is set or the buttons and zip fasteners are placed differs from country to country. Had they been infiltrated into France wearing British tailored clothes, even with the original labels removed, and ‘Galeries Lafayette’ or ‘Printemps’ sewn in their place, it could have betrayed them. When they got to the flat, their new outfits would be waiting for them. After changing, their uniform and their personal effects were packed into a suitcase and placed in a locker to await their return – or, should they not return, to be sent to their next of kin. In 1943, when things began to ‘hot up’ for SOE, and more and more agents were being trained and sent into the field, the facilities at Orchard Court, though considerable, became rather strained, and the overflow of agents was taken to another SOE flat, at 32 Wimpole Street.

  Towards the end of the afternoon, Buck or Vera Atkins would arrive at Orchard Court to accompany the departing agents, now togged out in their new clothes, to Tempsford or Tangmere. If they were flying from Tangmere, on arrival they would be taken to Tangmere Cottage just across the lane from the airfield (there were similar facilities at Tempsford, a converted farm named ‘Gibraltar’) and given a slap-up dinner with wine flowing freely – but not too freely – after which they would be taken to a small hut on the airfield. Here they were searched to make sure they had not left something compromising in a pocket. Every possible precaution was taken before the agent climbed into his flying gear to make absolutely sure that during the journey down from London he had not inadvertently slipped into one of his pockets a box of Swan Vesta matches, a cigarette end with ‘Player’s Please’ written on it or a London bus ticket. It seems unbelievable but even the turn-ups on men’s trousers were unfolded and carefully brushed in case they had collected some British dust between Orchard Court and the airfield!

  This procedure completed, they were given their new identity papers, ration cards, work permits and a sum of false ‘French’ (made in England) money. A small suitcase was crammed with temporary rations, tins of food, cigarettes and chocolate, which could also be used for bargaining, since such luxuries were almost unobtainable in France. Their ankles were bandaged to cushion the shock on landing, and they were helped into their cumbersome flying suits. They were like an enormous eider-down, because inside the planes it was not only dreadfully noisy, but also terribly cold. The suit was very heavy since there were about twenty pockets containing a trowel with which to bury their parachute and flying suit on arrival, a small compass, maps of the area for which they were destined, a first aid kit, emergency rations and, for the men, a hand gun and a dagger. Women agents rarely carried guns, though, like the men, they were given a sharp double-edged knife – for silent killing, in case their grip on an enemy throat was not strong enough. The parachute was then fixed in position, the helmet adjusted, and they were finally ready to leave – looking like the Michelin man!

  When the departing agents arrived at the plane, a Whitley, Halifax or Hudson, often walking the few yards which separated them from the plane with great difficulty because of their cumbersome outfit, the pilot would be standing beside the cockpit, waiting for them. Introductions were made, but no names were exchanged, except perhaps the codename which each agent had been given. As he climbed into the plane, an agent left his ‘real self behind him. The pilot was the only member of the crew, except the despatcher, whom they met or with whom they had any contact. Nor was their departure the glamorous take-off sometimes depicted in films or on the television. There was a large hole in the fuselage of the plane into which the agents put their head and shoulders: they were then pushed from behind until they disappeared inside, and crawled on all fours to the front of the plane, where sleeping bags were waiting for them. They were advised to try to sleep, since the journey could be long. Sometimes there was only one agent leaving, sometimes three, but there were generally two of them. Rarely did more than three agents leave on one flight.

  Before they left, Buck always gave each agent a present: a gold pen, cigarette case or cuff-links for a man and a gold pen or powder compact for the women. ‘Just to let you know we shall be thinking of you,’ he used to say, adding with a smile, ‘you can always hock it if you get yourself into a tight hole and need money in a hurry.’

  The despatcher, the only member of the crew actually in the cabin with the agents, was on board to attend to their needs. During the flight, the despatcher liaised constantly with the pilot and the navigator, discussing their position and the distance left to fly, so as to know when to rouse the agents. The men often slept soundly: the women usually only dozed. The despatcher was kept busy arranging the containers full of supplies which would be dropped to the reception committee waiting on the ground, after the agents had left the plane. These containers were very heavy cylinders, sometimes requiring three or four men to carry them to the waiting lorries or farm carts. The supplies they held included grenades, Sten guns, revolvers, machine-guns, batteries, wire so thin it was invisible to the naked eye, which was used for tripwires – and sometimes as a weapon – and bicycle tyres. People did an awful lot of cycling during the occupation, and tyres were not only in short supply in France but virtually unobtainable. Unless they were lucky enough to get new ones from SOE, when tyres wore out, people just cycled on the uppers! There were also drops of tea, coffee, cigarettes, chocolate, clothing, boots, money and whatever other supplies the organizer might have requested.

  When the plane approached the appointed landing ground, the pilot pressed a button and a red light would appear in the cabin. The despatcher would then wake the agents with a cup of coffee and sandwiches, help them out of their sleeping bag
s, hook their parachutes to a static line and open the trapdoor in the floor of the plane. The agents would sit opposite each other on either side of the trapdoor, their legs dangling in mid-air. They were told not to look down at the ground rushing by beneath them, but to fix their eyes on the despatcher’s raised arm. The despatcher’s eyes would be glued to the red light and the second it turned to green his arm would come down and he would shout ‘Go’, although the noise of the plane invariably drowned him out, and, one after the other in rapid succession, the agents jumped from the plane, each one destined, after landing, for a different réseau. If they hesitated, the despatcher would give them a kick, because otherwise they might arrive kilometres away from their scheduled landing zone. Unfortunately, even those who jumped to command sometimes landed some distance from the reception committee and were obliged to find their own way back to the dropping zone. Others dropped into a stream or a bog or were left suspended in a tree and had to be rescued. It was almost impossible to gauge the exact moment at which to jump in order to land at the feet of the waiting reception committee. Mind you, most of them did. The moment they jumped was probably the worst moment of all for the agents because in order to avoid being sucked back into the plane’s slipstream they had to do a freefall, counting to twenty or twenty-five before opening their parachutes.

  The agents soon started circulating silly stories about the drops, some of them rather macabre. In one an agent who had supposedly counted up to the required twenty-five pulled the cord to release his parachute, but the parachute failed to open. ‘Blast,’ he said. ‘The problems are already starting. I bet when I land the bicycle they promised would be hidden in the bushes won’t be there either!’ The agents also joked that the inside of every parachute carried a number and a note from the person who had packed it, stating: ‘Should this parachute fail to open, contact the authorities giving this number, and you will be refunded!’

  The people in charge of the factories packing parachutes today would be horrified by what went on in the war. The parachutes were all hand-packed, usually by exhausted women who had had no sleep because of the air raids and who were also worn out not only by the heavy burden of having to shoulder the responsibilities of their family alone, but by the war itself. And sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, mistakes did occur: some parachutes failed to open – and some agents became just another casualty of war.

  As soon as the agents had left the plane, the despatcher would quickly heave out the containers, each one attached to a parachute, the number depending on what stores the organizer had requested. His mission accomplished, the pilot would dip his wings in salute to the reception committee waiting on the ground to receive the drop and head for home, on a wing and a prayer.

  In the event that the returning plane was bringing dignitaries or agents back to England, Buck remained at the airfield. He was always on the tarmac, waiting to greet the new arrivals when they landed in the early hours of the morning. I don’t know when he slept. He worked eighteen hours a day, often leaving the office around seven in the evening to go home to Chelsea for dinner with his wife, returning a couple of hours later and working until three or four in the morning. And he was always back at his desk again next morning at the usual time.

  There has never been a full biography of Buck, although he wrote two memoirs, both published in the 1950s. But memoirs tend to be subjective, not objective. A biography can tell the real story, especially when the biographer has the personal papers and diaries at his disposal. And when Buck wrote his memoirs it is entirely possible that there was information he felt he could not reveal at the time. But he might have confided it to his diary and his son, Tim, who has all his father’s papers and diaries, intends to see that his father’s biography is written. Any information that might have been restricted in the 1950s would not present a problem now. Sadly, many stories, some scurrilous, incorporated in books about SOE or agents have referred to him, describing him as careless, vain, uncaring, indifferent to the fate of the agents he sent into the field. This has greatly distressed his family, especially his two children, Sybil and Tim, who were teenagers at the time and witness to their father’s hard work and dedication to the job in hand. After the war, when visiting or dining with their father, they met many agents, and none of them ever expressed anything but friendliness and admiration for Buck.

  There is one book especially, recently published, which saddened and caused eyebrows to be raised by the few people left who actually worked with Buck and Vera Atkins. None of us could believe that Vera would ever have said the things she is reported to have said about Buck unless she was losing her reason and her memory at the time, which was not the case. She remained lucid until the end. Like all of us, she had her faults, but disloyalty was not one of them. She and Buck had worked together as a close team during the war. They were very different in their approach, but each respected and admired the other. At one point I had thought that their close relationship went beyond the professional, but realized afterwards that I was mistaken. Buck was very much in love with Anna, the woman for whom he had divorced and had married in 1943. Between him and Vera there was merely a deep understanding and mutual respect for the other’s capabilities. They were both very hard-working and conscientious. They were ‘on the same wavelength’ and made a wonderful team, remaining firm friends, visiting each other frequently, and doubtless reviving old wartime memories, until he died.

  I can only add that, working with Buck – we were a very closely knit group in F Section, only thirty people, so we got to know one another very well – and after the war keeping in touch with him until his death, my memory of him is of a very compassionate, caring man. He was always deeply concerned about his agents and far from careless and uncaring about their fate. Admittedly, he made mistakes: he was a human being, not a robot, and we all make mistakes.

  What critics fail to understand is that SOE was a fledgling organization; it was unconventional and improvisational, since there were no precedents, no previous experience or strategy to help and guide its leaders, no charts, reports or manuals to instruct those in charge. They were obliged to make the rules up as they struggled along and therefore needed not only flexibility but also imagination in order to adapt to situations and crises which arose. So it was inevitable that some decisions proved wrong, even disastrous, and mistakes – sometimes fatal mistakes – were made, especially in times of stress and extreme tiredness, and Buck experienced both. He has been accused of knowingly sending agents to their deaths. What those who make these accusations forget, or don’t take into account, is that in the early 1940s we did not have all the means of instant communication that we possess today. There was very little radar, and transistors, computers and mobile phones did not exist. Had we possessed the modern inventions of the second millennium at the time, many mistakes made by all who had the responsibility of making life-and-death decisions would certainly have been avoided. Once the plane had left the ground and crossed the Channel, carrying across the dark skies agents to be parachuted behind the lines, should a signal arrive saying that the réseau they were destined for had been infiltrated, the members had been arrested or were in hiding and the reception committee waiting to receive them would be the Gestapo, there was no means of contacting the pilot to tell him to turn back. Buck and everyone else knew that the agents were being dropped to their deaths. But there was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent it.

  As for being vain and, after the liberation of Paris, going to France and strutting around preening, which was a comment I read in another recently published book, this is, to my mind, a monstrous accusation, although in all fairness I can see how that mistake might have been made. Buck was a very approachable person with a ready smile, and he liked people. During the mission to France soon after D-Day, which included many other British officials, there were apparently flattering speeches made on the steps of recently liberated town halls, followed by gargantuan feasts and much mutual praising, which is probably
how the accusations of vanity arose.

  After the war, Buck used to come frequently to France. Before he returned to London there was always a reunion dinner in Paris, where he had worked for several years before the war, at which Buck insisted that a car be sent to pick up Arthur Park, the wartime ‘concierge’ at Orchard Court, now showing signs of the advancing years. And I distinctly remember at the end of one such evening seeing Buck helping Arthur into his overcoat and escorting him to the door. Those simple gestures are not the actions of a proud, uncaring man who considers himself above the hoi polloi. Being kind to Arthur, a very minor player in the F Section story about whom no books have been written, no documentaries made, would bring him no recognition or glory.

  I fear these remarks will inflame the wrath of the ‘anti-Buck’ brigade, most of whom never knew him, much less worked with him during the war. If so, I apologize, but I can only write what I saw and believed. They are entitled to their opinions, but I only hope that the book which will one day be published from his papers and diaries will portray him in a true and more sympathetic light.