Tag Archives: SIS

Secret Intelligence Service, MI6

Friday, 4 July 1941

The July moon period opens with two operations, one to France, the other to Holland. The short nights, with only a few hours of proper darkness, have significantly reduced the range for clandestine operations.

Operation ARAMIS

Sgt Austin takes off at 23.30 DST, nearly two hours after sunset, so there must have been some delay. The nights are so short that every minute counts. The Whitley crosses the English coast at 00.06 over Southwold, and crosses the Dutch coast between the flak-fortified islands of Vlieland and Texel, probably at about 01.00. Accompanying Sgt Austin’s crew that night is F/Lt Boris Romanoff who has spent the previous year dropping trainee parachute troops at Ringway. He is along to learn how to fly the Whitley on operations, and to practise his navigation.

The moon sets at 02.13 DST: they have only a few minutes of moonlight to find the target before it sets. They didn’t find it, but searched in the darkness for an hour and a half. Above the Zuidlaardermeer, south-east of Groningen, the Whitley is caught in three searchlights, which are shot out on the pilot’s orders. The crew locates what they think is the target at 02.55, and drop the agent with his wireless set. They see his parachute open, but didn’t see him land.

Austin’s operational report indicates that the operation is successful, but Alblas has been dropped near Nieuweschans, extremely close to the German border. It’s fair to say that the navigator was lost, and it’s only good fortune that the agent hasn’t been dropped in Germany.

ARAMIS is Aart Hendrik Alblas. Previously a petty-officer with the Dutch merchant navy, Alblas has escaped to England in a motor boat in March. He has been recruited by the Dutch and British intelligence services and given wireless training, though the brief time between his recruitment and insertion indicates that he was already part-trained. In September 1941 he will be commissioned in the Dutch Naval Reserve.

As well as his intelligence work, Alblas appears to have played a valuable part in helping other organisations maintain contact with England. But by early 1942 his other contacts will be penetrated by the Abwehr’s ‘Englandspiel’ against SOE’s agents. In July 1942 he will be arrested and imprisoned in the infamous Oranjehotel. Refusing to collaborate, he will be deported to Mauthausen, where he will be executed on 6 September 1944.

Operation FITZROY (strictly, FITZROY B)

The code name FITZROY is usually associated with Claude Lamirault, the founder of the SIS-sponsored JADE-FITZROY network, formed primarily to gather intelligence on the German Navy based in the Atlantic ports. Lamirault, parachuted in January 1941, needs an agent to select and prepare Lysander landing-fields.

The agent this time is an artillery officer with the Free French, Lieutenant Roger Mitchell. The grandson of a Scottish immigrant to France whose family has retained English as a second language, Mitchell is entirely fluent in both languages, and can pass as a native of either country. According to Hugh Verity, Lt Mitchell has been loaned by de Gaulle to British Intelligence to assist the Polish intelligence networks operating from southern France. This comes later: his first role is to assist Lamirault.

One of Mitchell’s tasks is to arrange landing grounds for pick-up operations. As ‘2nd Lieutenant Fitzroy B’, he has recently been trained in landing-field selection and Lysander night-operations by F/Lt Nesbitt-Dufort, who on the 14th June writes a highly favourable report on his pupil.

The first attempt has been made by F/Lt Jackson on June 11th, in poor weather. Jackson has another go, taking S/Ldr Nesbitt-Dufort as navigator/map-reader. Ron Hockey is Jackson’s regular navigator; Nesbitt-Dufort is a specialist in low-level navigation, having been a fighter-pilot in the 1930s and an exponent of ‘Bradshawing’, the habit of following railway lines and navigating from station to station, reading the platform signs to find out where he was.

They take off at 10.30, arriving over Abingdon after forty minutes. Crossing the Channel at 4,000 feet and 135 mph ASI, they drop half their pigeons shortly after crossing the French coast. They fly on to the Loire, at 163 mph at 3,000 feet. Reading between the lines of Jackson’s report, they appear to follow the river Vienne, then the Creuse, upstream to Le Blanc. Jackson writes that they drop the agent clear of the woods and just north of the lake. The area around Le Blanc is peppered with small lakes so it is not possible to be precise about the landing spot.

On the return journey they drop nickels over Le Blanc, and the remaining pigeons before they cross the coast for home. According to Jackson they land at 6.01, but the Stradishall log records his Whitley ‘A’ landing at 05.00.

Wednesday, 11 June 1941

Operation OUTHAULLE

Almost as soon as W/Cdr Knowles’s Whitley leaves the English coast it runs into thick cloud. It is only a few nights after Full Moon, so it is possible to fly at 1,0000 feet under 10/10ths cloud and still see. Enough, it seems, to identify Tours, but as they fly south the weather deteriorates; they are now flying under two thick layers of cloud at 1,200 feet. In the gloom they cannot identify their next pinpoint, somewhere between Chateauroux and Montluçon, so Knowles abandons the operation.

There’s no longer any point in flying low, so they attempt to climb into clear air. Shortly before 03.00 they encounter heavy icing and the port engine cuts. With the other engine running roughly they descend to 4,000 feet, at which the port engine picks up and runs normally. They head back towards England, obtaining a QDM (homing bearing obtained by W/T) from Tangmere. From there they fly back to Newmarket, where they land at about 05.30.

Several sources attest to OUTHAULLE as the operation intended to deliver Pierre Vandermies to the Zéro intelligence group in Belgium, notably Emmanuel Debruyne. The peculiar spelling of the operation comes from Knowles’s report; Knowles is not of a nautical disposition.

Operation FITZROY

F/Lt Jackson and his crew take off at 22.34. (The Ops Officer’s log records 22.45, the difference probably due to Jackson taking his timings from engine-start.) On the first leg to Abingdon they find that the Met. winds are from the opposite direction to the forecast. They climb to 6,500 feet to cross the Channel above thick cloud, but cross the French coast above Le Havre, which has a heavy concentration of searchlights. Flying south, they find Tours at 01.19 but, after finding no improvement in the weather, and knowing a front was approaching, they abandon the operation. The experience of S/Ldr Knowles on OUTHAULLE points to the wisdom of Jackson’s decision.

On the return leg they drop pigeons and leaflets just east of Le Havre, but are held over Newmarket for 48 minutes; Stradishall’s 214 Sqn was operating that night, and several land out at Newmarket. The poor weather has affected bombing operations; the returning bombers take priority.

Operation AUTOGYRO C

The purpose of this operation is to drop two SOE ‘F’ Section agents near Mortaine, in Brittany, to work for the AUTOGYRO circuit. The two agents are Norman Burley and Ernest Bernard.

Sgt Austin and his crew cross the coast near Littlehampton, hoping to make landfall at Isigny. Cloud and rain builds up, so that by the time they are due to reach the French coast it is invisible. On ETA Isigny they change course southwards for Avranches, flying at 6,000 ft. On ETA Avranches they drop to 2,500 ft and set course eastwards for Mortaine. On ETA Mortaine, and still unable to see anything, they start a box search at 3,000 ft. They abandon the attempt and return, dropping pigeons between St Sever and Vire on the way. They land at Newmarket after passing Tangmere and Abingdon.

Sources

OUTHAULLE

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 24A
Debruyne, LGSEB, p. 146

FITZROY

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 22A

AUTOGYRO C

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 26A

Friday, 9 May 1941

Operation MARINE/ALBION

Richard van de Walle and Albert Thiou are successfully parachuted into the Eupen district of north-eastern Belgium on the third attempt.

This time the weather is better. Jackson and his crew also take along a passenger: S/Ldr Jack Benham of the parachute training staff at Ringway. A week later Benham will take command of the Parachute Training Squadron at Ringway. As Ringway is responsible for agents’ parachute training, he is getting first-hand experience of the operational side.

Soon after the Whitley crosses the coast at Knokke it is bracketed by accurate and simultaneous searchlights and flak, but remains undamaged. Ground haze makes visibility difficult as they fly south, then east, but eventually they pick up a pinpoint, do their timed run and drop the two agents. They return to the coast via Poperinghe, where they drop their quota of COLUMBA pigeons; six return to the UK. They return to Stradishall at just after 4 a.m.

Aftermath

On 5th June, Gp/Capt. John Bradley, DFC, S/Ldr Knowles’s boss at the Air Ministry (for the Flight receives its operational orders direct from Air Intelligence), writes asking for clarification about two operations. One of these is MARINE/ALBION. It has been reported back to SIS that the aircraft had flown over the pre-selected spot, was seen by people waiting for them on the ground, but the agents were dropped elsewhere. Neither agent has made contact. Worse, the two agents are reported to have been dropped over Germany.

Knowles assures Bradley that the crew has made every effort to drop the agents at the correct place. F/Lt Jackson writes a second report detailing his actions precisely: they had positively identified the Gileppe reservoir before flying for two minutes on a bearing of about 326 degrees true, (the ‘about’ because the observer was guiding the pilot from the bomb-aimer’s position, using a large-scale map). This is somewhat undermined by Knowles’s covering note, which asserts that they steered due north from the reservoir.

The map that accompanies Jackson’s memo (of which only a file copy exists) has not survived, at least publicly. The dropping-point appears to have been the high ground to the north or north-east of Limbourg, the exact position being dependent on the Whitley’s speed of between 80 and 100 knots, and its position over the lake, which is over a mile long.

If they were dropped in the right place, on target, they may still have landed in Germany. On 29 July 1940 the districts of Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt Vith had been annexed to Germany. Even a western-most placement of the target would still have been in Germany. It is entirely possible that neither the agents nor their handlers in the UK were aware of the boundary changes. There’s certainly no indication in the correspondence.

It may be significant that the crew had not reported any lights from a ground-party; according to the Air Ministry correspondence there were people on the ground waiting for the agents. But these were very early days, and almost all drops were done ‘blind’; a ground-party with torches for guidance and signalling would have been exceptional.

There is another possibility, but an unlikely one. What they took for Lac de Gileppe might just have been Lake Eupen, a smaller but similar lake about 8 km (5 miles) further east. It. too, has a dam at the western end, but the lake is smaller, its shape and orientation is very different, and there is no marshland on the south shore. Built in 1938, the reservoir was not inaugurated until 1950 by Prince Charles of Belgium. It may not have been filled in May 1941.

In a biography of Leopold III, mention is made of two agents dropped in May 1941, Richard Van de Walle, with Albert Thiou as his W/T operator. De Walle’s mission was to enter the service of an un-named Belgian aristocrat who would act as an intermediary with the King, to allow the King to have a link with his government-in-exile. Debruyne says that Van de Walle was arrested within hours of his landing in Belgium.

Operation FELIX (pick-up)

Philip Schneidau is picked up by Lysander by Gordon Scotter. This third Lysander pick-up operation is Schneidau’s second. Schneidau’s torches lead him to the right place, and Scotter lands after exchanging signals. After his earlier episode with Coulomb/Cartwright, Scotter is understandably nervous. When a figure he does not recognise hoists himself level with the cockpit Scotter draws his service revolver and waves it at the intruder.  But Schneidau may have re-adopted the disguise he’d used on his first mission.

Schneidau tells Scotter to “put that bloody thing away”, gathers up his torches into a rucksack, and climbs aboard. They take off and the return journey is uneventful. They have a night fighter escort for the final stage of the journey.

Wednesday, 7 May 1941

Operation CARTWRIGHT/HERRY

SIS agent Michel COULOMB (aka ‘Lieutenant Cartwright’) has been back in England for nearly four weeks. He is to be parachuted back into France near Limoges, some 80 miles further south from the Chateauroux area from where Gordon Scotter had picked him up in a Lysander.

S/Ldr Knowles, Murphy and their crew follow Bomber Command lanes, flying via Abingdon and Tangmere. The Whitley crosses the French coast near Dives-sur-Mer and heads south, crossing the Loire about ten miles east of Tours. He notes the aerodrome’s flashing beacon, a reliable aid to navigation for both sides. He flies on to Limoges, pinpointing at Le Blanc on the way.

At half past midnight they are over Limoges. In the Non-occupied Zone, Limoges is lit up as though it is peacetime; for the French south of the demarcation line it is, and will remain so for the next 18 months. Knowles and his crew spend ten minutes disposing of their ‘nickels’ over Limoges before heading east to the village of Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat.

The agents are to be dropped near a particular house with its lights on, but though the crew search the area for 35 minutes, they cannot identify it. Knowles’s report states that the agents are dropped together, each with a W/T set, in a group of three fields south east of Saint-Leonard.

The other agent is code-named HERRY, and nothing has been known about him until March 2019, when Pierre Tillet sent me a related file in the French archives. This included a reference to a Pierre Herricher (codenamed HERRY), a 22-year-old wireless operator (French: ‘officier radio’, so possibly commissioned) from Vitry-sur-Seine. He had been a member of the Free French forces, but on 23 December 1940 he was detached to become Coulomb’s wireless operator. According to the file entry, written mostly in English, he ‘never gave satisfaction, became separated from his above-named chiefs’ (i.e.Coulomb) ‘and finally fell into the hands of the French police, 9.12.1942.’ This implies that he was arrested in the ZNO (Zone Non-Occupée), recently invaded by the Germans.

HERRY is still nominally active in March 1942, though who he was active for – if anyone – is anyone’s guess: Coulomb and most of his circuit had been arrested 10 months earlier. On 26 March 1942 F/Lt Davies will drop a parcel to a HERRY reception a short distance west from this original May 1941 drop. (Davies is also dropping to the SOE ADJUDICATE organisation nearby.) The indications are that HERRY operated exclusively in unoccupied France. HERRY may have refused to move to the Occupied Zone – and who can blame him, especially after the arrests in July 1941? – but he would have been of little use to Coulomb’s Paris-based organisation.

RAF Aftermath

Cartwright appears to have been displeased that he hasn’t been dropped in quite the right place. Unable to see anything from inside the rear fuselage, and dependent solely on the Despatcher for information, he may have been unaware of the crew’s long search for the house. Once he’s landed all he knows is that he’s not quite where he’d expected to be, and tells London.

At the start of the next moon period, Air Intelligence write to S/Ldr Knowles, as the Flight’s Commanding Officer, about this operation and the failed MARINE/ALBION operation. Regarding the CARTWRIGHT operation he is on sure ground because he has flown the sortie. He points out that they couldn’t identify the house despite a long search. In the Occupied Zone a house with its lights on would have stood out in the surrounding darkness of a blacked-out countryside, but in the Unoccupied Zone a house with all its lights on is hardly unusual.

Knowles says he has dropped the agents about a mile west of the pinpoint. Unlike many SOE operations we have no access to any original operation or UK-held personnel documents, so it is impossible to verify the original pinpoint. Knowles also pointed out that their lengthy search for the target created an additional hazard:

All this took place at a height of about 1,000 feet, A Whitley makes a considerable noise when low down, and it is quite certain that while the search for the pin point was going on a considerable number of people must have been wakened up.

As to the agents’ “trying experiences” after landing, Knowles points out that he cannot be accountable for what happens to them on the ground afterwards:

I should like to point out that the responsibility of Captains ends when the passengers leave the aircraft. The dropping of these people must always be a chancy business and as it is necessary to carry out these operations from low level it is difficult to see how the element of risk in disturbing the neighbourhood can be avoided. These agents were dropped at the place marked on the attached map, namely about one mile south east of St. Leonard in three fields. It is impossible to give more details than this as this operation took place a month ago and I cannot remember any more about it.

Knowles ends by suggesting the use of powerful flashing lights from the ground in countries with no blackout regulations. This sortie shows that the Flight’s operations at this time are a learning process, by trial-and-error: no textbooks exist, and no-one has done such long-range insertions before. They have to make it up as they go along.

Sources

TNA AIR 20 / 8334, enclosures 18A, 19A, 20A

Tuesday, 6 May 1941

Operation MARINE/ALBION

This is the second attempt, flown by the same crew. This time they are carrying two packets of ‘nickels’, which implies neither pigeons nor bombs. The weather is considerably worse: after take-off they flew under 10/10th cloud to the Belgian coast, which they see through a break in the continuous layer beneath them. Flying above continuous cloud at 6,500 feet to the target area, they try to descend, but icing forces them to climb again. They achieve this ‘with difficulty’, and the operation is abandoned. On the return journey they see the mining town of Charleroi through a cloud-gap, and drop their leaflets before heading for the coast and home.

Bombs are not carried again on Special Duties operations for more than a year, and then the circumstances are quite different. It may have been decided that dropping bombs would put the valuable passengers at increased risk: a ‘Joe’ primed for dropping is the result of several months’ training; in some cases they were irreplaceable. The possible benefit to the war from a few bombs is negligible.

Operation COLUMBA

A pigeon arrives back in the UK on 7th May from West Flanders. This could have been one of those dropped by Jackson on 8 April, but a month would have been a very long time to keep a pigeon, unless it had been injured in dropping.