Between Bluff, Deceit & Treachery
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James Rusbridger Between Bluff, Deceit & Treachery The Story of Henri Dericourtdf an SOE Disaster in France PHCIAL OPERATIONS Ex- good many myths, some of which have found their way into ecutive, the secret organ- books telling individual stories of great heroism. For some w ^^^ S isation created during curious reason, however, there seems to be rancour and ill- ^^^^H 1^^^^^ tne dark days of 1940, was to feeling among those who have written about SOE, with many ^^^^ ^^^^ V take the battle back to the claims and counter-claims of inaccuracy and omission, and enemy and, in the words of worse. Even the official history of the work of SOE in France, Churchill, "set Europe ablaze." approved by the British Government in 1960 and finally Because Britain is not a warlike published in 1966,' was not entirely successful. Many found country, it had no experience the manner in which it was written unsympathetic. of this type of covert operation SOE's most publicly known disaster—the so-called and had made no preparations. Thus SOE was inevitably put Englandspiel—took place in the Netherlands during 1942-43, together in a rather amateurish manner, and often found when Colonel Hermann Giskes of the Abwehr and Major itself at odds with the other established intelligence Josef Schreieder of the SD (the German counter-intelligence agencies—MI5 (responsible for internal security) and MI6, organisation Sicherheitsdienst) captured and "turned" a sometimes called the Secret Intelligence Service (responsible succession of agents. This resulted in the complete pene- for espionage activities abroad). tration of all SOE operations in the country, the capture of The idea of sending agents into Occupied Europe to cause large quantities of arms and other supplies, and the death mayhem and murder appealed to Churchill's love of the of at least 54 agents. The story has already been told in some 2 dramatic, but it found less favour in other quarters—notably detail. All present evidence points confirmingly to its cause the Royal Air Force, which considered the whole idea being the result of an incredible number of errors and ethically distasteful and a waste of scarce resources, and was stupidities at SOE headquarters, where the omission of the most reluctant to provide the necessary aircraft. Additionally, necessary security checks in radio messages received from the as the War progressed, and the political tide changed. SOE Netherlands was not recognised by the Dutch Section in found itself allied with the USSR and other strange London as proof that they were false. bedfellows, which created unexpected problems of personal SOE's French Section, under the control of Colonel motivation and loyalty. Maurice Buckmaster, suffered disasters of an even greater Despite these handicaps. SOE performed a magnificent magnitude, but less has been written about these and many task—largely due to the outstanding courage of ordinary men questions remain. The single biggest loss of life occurred and women who simply saw it as their duty to serve their when the Prosper network, under the control of Major country against the tide of Nazi evil, without thought for their Francis Suttill, was by June 1943 completely penetrated by own safety. If history has served these brave people badly it is the Germans, resulting in the arrest and subsequent death of because for a long time after the War SOE was kept hidden Suttill. his radio operator Major Gilbert Norman, and many from public view, along with its records. Many of the hundreds of the network's agents. documents that might have helped to provide for posterity a The role of SOE in France was also bedevilled by the game complete and accurate record of its work were lost by of bluff and deception that the Allies embarked on in 1943. accident or design; others were destroyed through lack of To understand how SOE became unwittingly involved in this, storage space: those remaining are held by the Foreign we must go back to 1942. Office, where they can neither be inspected nor copied by the The Americans had proposed an invasion of northern public. France (Operation Sledgehammer) in the autumn of that The absence of accurate sources has inevitably created a year, because they feared the Soviet army might collapse following the series of massive defeats it had suffered on 1 the Eastern front. Misunderstandings arose because the M. R. D. Foot. SOE in France (HMSO. 1966). Americans assured the Russians that this invasion would 2 See. in ENCOUNTER. "The 'Great Game" of Secret Agents", by the Dutch historian Louis de Jong (January 1980. pp. 12-21). and H. definitely take place, but Churchill would not give it his J. Giskes. London Calling North Pole (1953). support, considering it too risky and premature: he wanted PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Between Bluff, Deceit & Treachery the landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) to go ahead of verisimilitude by having SOE agents in France begin first. When Stalin learnt that Churchill would not agree to their "pre-invasion" preparations. In the Political Warfare Sledgehammer, he suspected a deliberate plot to delay risking Executive's report (submitted to the Chiefs of Staff on 18 July the lives of British and American troops while hundreds of 19436), it was proposed that SOE should not be told that the thousands of Soviet soldiers perished on the battlefield.3 invasion plan was a ruse, so that they would "react with the In the end, Churchill got his way and the North African full colour of authenticity." landings went ahead, while a single raid was made on the port The documents relating to SOE's unwitting involvement in of Dieppe (Operation Rutter, later Operation Jubilee), Cockade were released into the Public Record Office at Kew intended to tie up German troops in France instead of freeing only in 1974, years after the publication of M. R. D. Foot's them for the Eastern front. official history of SOE—this is why he categorically stated In January 1943, the Allied leaders and their military that SOE was never used in any deception scheme. commanders met at Casablanca, and it was finally agreed that Surprisingly, however, Mr Foot has repeated this claim in his the invasion of France, Operation Overlord, would take place more recent (1984) book about SOE published in conjunction in the spring or early summer of 1944. To placate Stalin—who with a BBC television series. Similar documents to those in remained unimpressed by the losses at Dieppe when set the Public Record Office were made available in the mid- against the 250,000 casualties suffered by the Red Army in 1970s at the US National Archives in Washington, D.C.7 the Crimea during the battles of May and June—it was With this background in mind, we can return to the proposed that a major deception scheme, Operation principal characters in SOE's French Section, and the events Cockade, should be set in motion, to make the Germans in what was to be a tragic disaster. believe that the Allies would be mounting an invasion of France and Norway in September 1943. But Stalin showed little interest in this plan; he continued to press for the real invasion of France to be brought forward. ENTRAL TO THE whole appalling affair was the The Casablanca conference ended on 23 January 1943, and shadowy figure of Henri Dericourt, an Air the task began of preparing Cockade so that it would look C Movements Officer for the French Section, who was sufficiently genuine to attract the enemy's attention without responsible for arranging the RAF's night flights, mainly by arousing their suspicions. This required a fine balance Lysander aircraft, which brought agents in and out of the between illusion and reality. Cockade in fact consisted of Paris sector of Occupied France. Although much has been three separate deception schemes: (7) Starkey—a large-scale written about Dericourt, his true role and loyalties have landing from the sea in the Pas de Calais area; (2) Tindall—an remained obscure because of the many false and misleading Anglo-Russian invasion of northern Norway; and (J) stories he told about himself after the War, and the almost Wadham—an American landing on the coast of Brittany.4 total absence of any archival material about his career. The The first step was to create the impression that far larger recent discovery of many of his private papers and pilot's log- forces than actually existed for such an invasion were books in his widow's apartment in Paris" now makes it available in Britain, and stories were planted in the press possible to establish the truth of his activities. about "large-scale exercises", involving non-existent units. Born in 1909, Henri Dericourt was a Frenchman from a Details were carefully leaked to Berlin through agents whom humble background who in pre-War days had been a highly the Nazis fondly believed were working for the Reich, qualified pilot with Air Bleu, the internal French postal whereas in fact all were under the control of MI5's "Twenty airline for whom he worked from 28 December 1935 to 1 Committee. ° September 1939. Among Dericourt's Paris friends were Hans The second step was to give Cockade an additional degree Boemelburg (a homosexual officer in the Sicherheitsdienst, attached to the German Embassy) and Nicholas Bodington (a correspondent for Reuters news agency since 10 July 1935), 3 We now know, of course, from the post-War exposure of some (but probably not all) of his spies in the West, that Stalin was far who was a fellow guest with Dericourt at Boemelburg's better apprised of the Allies'-innermost thoughts than we believed at house.