Stradishall

Knowles’s trip to Sumburgh is cancelled just after 9 a.m., and at 1135 Knowles asks Ops to let the Earl of Bandon know that SAVANNA is ‘temporarily suspended’, replaced by a 9.5-hour operation by 419 Flight, taking off at between 8 and 9 p.m. This is Operation BENJAMIN, an SOE-sponsored operation to insert a Czech intelligence agent into Bohemia. Though an intelligence operation, it is aimed at inserting a secure wireless link independent from Czech Intelligence chief Moravec’s own organisation. It has been backed by Brigadier Gubbins, SOE’s Operations Director.

At 1350 Ops is told of an alternative operation, taking off at about midnight and lasting 5 hours – ‘Brussels way’. SIS has pulled rank: it insists that 419 Flight fly the SIS operation to insert a Belgian agent, Gaston Poplimon. With only one aircraft available, SIS insists on its operation taking priority. BENJAMIN is cancelled.

Gubbins is furious. This operation has been several months in the planning. Moreover the nights are getting shorter; soon it will not be possible to fly an agent to Eastern Europe and return to the safety of the North Sea before daybreak. It has the effect of crystallising SOE’s resentment at being considered by SIS as a poor relation, rather than the ‘fourth arm’ that Hugh Dalton believed it should be.