ii SOE IN FRANCE WHITEHALL HISTORIES: GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL HISTORY SERIES ISSN: 1474-8398 The Government Official History series began in 1919 with wartime histories, and the peace- time series was inaugurated in 1966 by Harold Wilson. The aim of the series is to produce major histories in their own right, compiled by historians eminent in the field, who are afforded free access to all relevant material in the official archives. The Histories also provide a trusted secondary source for other historians and researchers while the official records are still closed under the 30-year rule laid down in the Public Records Act (PRA). The main criteria for selection of topics are that the histories should record important episodes or themes of British history while the official records can still be supplemented by the recollections of key players; and that they should be of general interest, and, preferably, involve the records of more than one government department. The United Kingdom and the European Community: Vol. I: The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy,1945–1963 Alan S. Milward Secret Flotillas Vol. I: Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany,1940–1944 Vol. II: Clandestine Sea Operations in the Mediterranean,North Africa and the Adriatic,1940–1944 Sir Brooks Richards SOE in France M. R. D. Foot The Official History of the Falklands Campaign: Vol. I: The Origins of the Falklands Conflict Vol. II: The 1982 Falklands War and Its Aftermath Lawrence Freedman Defence Organisation since the War D. C. Watt SOE in France An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940–1944 M. R. D. FOOT Une guerre obscure et méritoire Louis Gros WHITEHALL HISTORY PUBLISHING in association with FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR This edition first published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate London N14 5BP and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 5824 N.E. Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon, 97213-3644 Website: www.frankcass.com This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © Crown Copyright 1966 Copyright revised edition © MRD Foot 2004 Crown Copyright material from the first edition is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO First published in 1966 by HMSO, London. Second impression with amendments 1968. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Foot, M.R.D. (Michael Richard Daniell), 1919– SOE in France: an account of the work of the British Special Operations Executive in France: 1940–1944. – 3rd ed. – (Whitehall histories. Government official history series) 1. Great Britain. Army. Special Operations Executive – History 2. World War, 1939–1945 – Secret Service – Great Britain 3. World War, 1939–1945 – Underground movements – France I. Title 940.5′48641 ISBN 0-7146-5528-7 (cloth) ISSN 1474-8398 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Foot, M.R.D. (Michael Richard Daniell), 1919– SOE in France: an account of the work of the British Special Operations Executive in France: 1940–1944 / by M.R.D. Foot.–Rev. ed. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-203-49613-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-58238-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-7146-5528-7 (Print Edition) 1. World War, 1939–1945 – Underground movements – France. 2. World War, 1939–1945 – Secret service – Great Britain. 3. Great Britain. Special Operations Executive – History. I. Title: Special Operations in France. II. Title D802.F8F6 2003 940.54′8641′0944–dc22 2003055603 Published on behalf of the Whitehall History Publishing Consortium. Applications to reproduce Crown copyright protected material in this publication should be submitted in writing to: HMSO, Copyright Unit, St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ. Fax: 01603 723000. E- mail: [email protected] Contents List of Illustrations vii Preface ix Abbreviations xv Introduction xx Analytical Table of Contents xxvi Maps xxxii Part I: Structure I The Origins of SOE 3 II What SOE Was 13 III Recruiting and Training 41 IV Communications 59 by sea 60 by air 71 by land 87 by signal 94 in the field 103 V Security in France 106 vi SOE IN FRANCE Part II: Narrative VI Politics and the Great Game 119 VII Opening Gambits: 1940–1941 136 VIII Development: 1942 163 IX Middle Game: 1943 209 X A Run of Errors: 1943–1944 258 XI Pressure Mounting: January to May 1944 309 XII A Run of Successes: June to September 1944 339 XIII Aftermath 368 XIV Strategic Balance Sheet 380 Appendices: A Sources 395 B Women Agents 414 C Supply 419 D Notes for Pilots on Lysander and Hudson Pick-up Operations 427 E Report by Jean Moulin, October 1941 437 F Typical F Section Operation Orders 447 G Industrial Sabotage 453 H F Section Activity Diagram 466 I Tables of Dates 468 Notes 472 Index 507 Illustrations Between pages 248 and 249 Note on the illustrations: Only two of the photographs below are professional studio portraits. The rest are either action snapshots, or photographs taken during the war under a hard light for purposes of identification. They are not intended to flatter, but they may reveal. Some Baker Street personalities Gubbins, Buckmaster, Bodington Charles de Gaulle Jean Moulin Early agents Pierre de Vomécourt, Ben Cowburn, Virginia Hall, Christopher Burney 1942 vintage Charles Grover-Williams, Robert Benoist, Michael Trotobas, Gustave Biéler, Brian Rafferty The Prosper circle Francis Suttill, Gilbert Norman, Jack Agazarian, France Antelme, Noor Inayat Khan F’s three colonels Starr, Heslop, Cammaerts Henri Déricourt Four who came back Claude de Baissac, Harry Rée, Harry Peulevé, Yvonne Baseden viii SOE IN FRANCE Ratier workshop at Figeac after treatment Some figures in RF section Paul Rivière, Michel Brault, Yeo-Thomas, Raymond Basset, André Jarrot More RF agents Pierre Fourcaud, Yvon Morandat, Pierre Rosenthal, Paul Schmidt Daylight mass drop in Corrèze, 14 July 1944 Daylight mass drop to the Vercors, 14 July 1944 Worm’s-eye view: removing stores from reception ACOLYTE tackles some points ‘Wizard prang’: a PIMENTO derailment Place de l’Opéra, 25 August 1944 Preface It was long British government policy that the archives of SOE, the wartime Special Operations Executive, must remain secret, like the archives of any other secret service. The reason for this is not, as followers of Commander Bond’s adventures might imagine, that SOE carried on its work after the end of the war, for it was wound up early in 1946. Nor is it true that irresponsible staff officers made such fearful errors that there is a whole discreditable story to be hushed up. There were certainly hair-raising mistakes of several kinds; so there always are, in any service and in any war. A number of writers have fastened on one or two of these mistakes, which bore on less than five per cent of SOE’s effort in France, and inflated them – for lack of balancing evidence – into phantasmagorical sketches of SOE as a kind of Moloch that devoured innocent children for evil motives. On the other side of the account, many of the substantial triumphs have remained quite unknown except to the people who were concerned in them; while some of the success stories published, with fact and fiction closely interwoven, have done the force’s reputation quite as much harm as good. An effort that German as well as allied generals believe shortened the European war by about six months can- not have been quite devoid of strategic value; readers must make up their own minds about whether the price paid for SOE’s undoubted successes was too high. I have taken as my working motto Othello’s ‘nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice’, and have tried simply to explain what happened, without conscious bias in any direction. In the turmoil of under-informed publicity that surrounded what appeared in English about secret operations in France, historians have been overlooked. They have a duty to discover what they can; and a right to be told why so far, as a matter of policy, they have been told so little officially from London. The policy was adopted because much of SOE’s work over- lapped with the work of other secret services, whose contacts, methods, and devices no one in authority wished to reveal. I have done what I can to respect this wish, without compromising with the needs of history or of common sense. While the world is divided between sovereign states, these x SOE IN FRANCE states need intelligence and security; this is simply a fact of current inter- national life, which radicals and idealists can rail against but cannot alter. Little significant difference to the balance of the work has been made by such omissions as discretion has compelled me to make. This book has had a history; in no way comparable for excitement, interest, or danger to the adventures in France that it describes, but one nevertheless which may be worth recording. The project derives from the continuing concern expressed, both in parliament and outside it, that there should be an accurate and dispassionate account of SOE’s activities in the war of 1939–45. This concern led Harold Macmillan, while Prime Minister, to authorise some research. In the Foreign Office, it was determined to find out whether a study could be written of what SOE did in France. I was invited to write it, simply because I knew a little already about French resis- tance and the history of the war, was a trained historian, and was prepared to devote most of my time to the task. In fact, it absorbed almost all my attention from the autumn of 1960 to the end of 1962, when I completed the original draft, and has taken up a good deal of my own time, and much of that of other people, since.