Churchill's Band of Brothers

by Damien Lewis

  With thousands left to starve and with their homes requisitioned by the invaders, the largest Nazi-run ghetto of the war was established in Minsk, enclosing some 80,000 Jews within its limits. They were used as slave labour in German-run factories and on construction projects, but increasingly efforts to work the Minsk Jews to extinction gave way to the professional killers. Via the efforts of the Einsatzgruppen – the Nazi death squads – over a millions Jews would be exterminated across Reichskommissariat Ostland, and the entire Minsk ghetto would be wiped off the face of the earth. In one horrifying episode, the ghetto’s orphanage was emptied and the children buried alive in a pit of sand.

  But Minsk had also became famous for its spirit of resistance: some 10,000 of the city’s inhabitants had managed to escape to the surrounding forests, from where they waged a highly effective guerrilla war, with support from the Soviet equivalent of the SOE. By the time the Soviet Red Army and the Resistance forces retook Minsk, in early July 1944, of the city’s original 300,000 inhabitants, fewer than 50,000 – one-sixth – remained.

  Clearly, some amongst those captured at Bresles had practised their dark arts at Minsk, targeting the city’s Untermenschen, those the Nazis classed as ‘sub-humans’ – Jews, communists, homosexuals, Resistance fighters and anyone else who had stood against the Nazi machine. Worse still, ‘they were proud of their murderous work’, Vaculik noted. At the sight of the Minsk hangings photo, he felt swept up in a fierce rage. His mind flipped back to the interrogations and torture at the Avenue Foch, and what had followed thereafter: ‘I saw again my dead comrades sprawled in the woods.’

  Vaculik turned on the SS colonel, his eyes blazing. ‘Where were you going?’

  At first the man refused to speak. ‘A German officer does not answer the questions of a terrorist.’

  ‘I am a British parachutist,’ Vaculik shot back at him, teeth gritted murderously. ‘I have been tortured by your people and I escaped from one of your execution squads, along with my companion here, Corporal Jones . . . We came to France in our red berets. You took away our uniforms in order to shoot us and pretend that we were really terrorists.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ the SS colonel stammered, his face a deathly pale now.

  ‘No, you didn’t. But you’ve done the same to plenty of others. And what about him?’ Vaculik nodded towards the SS captain. ‘He’s the fellow on the pretty Minsk photo, isn’t he? In any case, you’ll do perfectly well.’

  Turning to Rouilland and the others, Vaculik asked them to bring picks and shovels – enough for each of the captives. They were to be made to excavate their own graves.

  ‘You’ll each dig a deep hole,’ Vaculik ordered the SS colonel.

  ‘We’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he stammered.

  ‘Then you’ll be shot.’

  ‘But that’s against the laws of war.’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk of the laws of war,’ Vaculik retorted, disgustedly. ‘You’ll do as you’re told or else.’

  ‘Let me have a crack at ’em,’ Jones pleaded, his hand gripping his weapon.

  ‘No. Let them dig their own graves.’

  As the captives set to work, Vaculik, Jones, Rouillard and de Rouck discussed what exactly they should do with the prisoners. Jones had made his views abundantly clear. Vaculik was all for roping them to the nearby trees, once the digging was done, so they could stare into what they believed were to be their own graves for a good few hours. After that, they should be locked up under guard, to face justice once the day of liberation was at hand, which couldn’t be long now, from all the reports they were hearing.

  But Rouillard objected. ‘Too dangerous. Bump them off straight away and they can’t talk.’

  Eventually it was decided to leave the captives roped to the trees, but with armed guards to watch over them. It was dark by now, and all were in need of sleep. They’d decide the captives’ fate come morning, when they should be in a far better frame of mind to talk, having spent a night staring into their own graves.

  Back in Bresles, Vaculik, Jones and Rouillard were woken in the small hours. There had been a shock development at the woods. Together they hurried through the darkened terrain, the moon hidden behind thick cloud. They reached the site of the ambush, only to find the guard bound and gagged. He’d been rushed by unknown assailants, he explained. For a moment, all feared that the captives had escaped, but Jones discovered otherwise.

  ‘We’re too late,’ he announced, having been to check. ‘They’re all ruddy well dead. The lot of ’em. Come and see.’

  The three men headed for where they’d left the prisoners. A grim sight met their eyes. Each figure was slumped forward, his head hanging down on his chest. Each had been ungagged before having a bayonet thrust into his chest. With no other option, Vaculik, Jones and Rouillard untied the corpses and rolled them into the graves that they had dug earlier, throwing in the soil to cover them.

  ‘Have you any idea who could have done it?’ Vaculik asked Rouillard. In spite of everything, he felt deeply unsettled by what had transpired.

  Rouillard shrugged. ‘Some of our own people, I should think.’

  As no one else had any suggestions all fell silent, and they finished the grisly task of the burials. The Germans were in the habit of visiting savage reprisals on civilian populations, whenever sabotage work or related activities came to their attention. The French Resistance tended to act in kind. Few doubted that it was some amongst the Bresles partisans who were responsible for tonight’s dark acts of murder. But there was a war to be won, and as all concluded, ‘dead men tell no tales’.

  With the BBC radio reporting the liberation of Paris, the arrival of Allied troops could only be a matter of days away now. In the interim, Vaculik and Jones had to prepare their band of fighters for what they knew was coming. Increasingly, columns of retreating German troops were crawling through the town, moving mostly at night in an effort to avoid Allied warplanes. But a squadron of heavy Tiger tanks had taken up defensive positions in Bresles, positioning themselves as close as possible to civilian homes, and with German troops billeted all across the town.

  At one stage, Vaculik was woken early in the morning by the woman in whose house Jones was staying. German soldiers were in her kitchen demanding a bed, she blurted out in terror, and ‘the Englishman’ was still asleep upstairs. What was she to do? There was a back entrance to the house, with a hole in the garden wall that Jones should be able to squeeze through, Vaculik explained. If she could get him out unseen, Vaculik would be waiting. The woman went off trembling, but minutes later the plan had been executed to perfection, and a semi-dressed Jones was whisked out of harm’s way.

  ‘If this goes on I’m going to have all my hair shaved off,’ Jones swore. ‘I’ll just go nuts otherwise.’ Being a redhead did tend to make him stand out.

  When flights of Hurricanes and Typhoons roared over the town, the pilots realised they couldn’t attack the German armour, for fear of killing the townsfolk. By hiding amongst the civilian population the enemy troops and their tanks were escaping unscathed. A means would need to be found to unseat them, Vaculik and Jones reasoned. They set a plan of battle: even as Allied forces advanced on Bresles, so the Resistance would rise up in the enemy’s rear. All were ordered to ‘hold themselves in readiness for immediate action’.

  It couldn’t be long now, and Vaculik, Jones and Rouillard looked forward to their day of vengeance.

  Chapter 19

  On 31 August 1944, American troops advanced towards Bresles. In one day of fierce fighting, the town’s main church would get pounded by artillery barrages, as the opposing forces fought for every inch of territory. American soldiers, Resistance fighters and the townsfolk of Bresles would lose their lives, as would German troops, but by the end of that day the battle-scarred French town would lie in Allied hands. One small band of men-at-arms, striking in the enemy’s rear, would play their part in enabling the Allied breakthrough, and at their vanguard would be the rump of the
SABU-70 raiders.

  But before that could happen, news of SABU-70’s dark fortunes would finally filter through to all at SAS headquarters, including to the man who had sent them off on their ill-fated mission, Lieutenant Colonel Mayne. In the interim, the SAS commander had himself parachuted into France, to take the helm of Operation Gain, for the mission’s overall leader, Major Ian Fenwick, had been killed in fierce action against the enemy.

  On 7 August some 600 German troops had surrounded Major Fenwick’s forest base, but in a textbook example of guerrilla operations his men had managed to slip the enemy’s noose. Fenwick was absent on a jeep-based mission at the time, and the following morning he was misinformed that dozens of his men had been killed, including his very capable second-in-command, Captain Cecil ‘Jock’ Riding. Enraged at the news, Fenwick had set off without delay to investigate, little realising that the progress of his lone jeep was being shadowed by a German military Fieseler Fi 156 Storch spotter plane.

  On the approach to the village of Chambon, an elderly woman had waved Fenwick to a stop. The SS were in the village and they had been forewarned of Fenwick’s approach. They were preparing to ambush his speeding vehicle. Not only that, but they had rounded up all the men and boys of Chambon, who had been herded into the church, with threats that unless information was handed over about the saboteurs, all were going to be shot. Fenwick remained utterly undeterred, declaring to the elderly Frenchwoman: ‘Madame, I intend to attack them.’

  No doubt his subsequent actions were driven by the rage that he felt at the supposed loss of so many of his men, but they were very likely also inspired by the knowledge of what horrors the inhabitants of a small French village were facing. Regardless, with himself at the wheel, and SAS Corporals William Duffy and Frank Dunkley manning the guns, Fenwick steered the lone jeep towards Chambon at top speed.

  They hit the initial ambush doing 60 mph, according to Corporal Duffy, ‘all guns blazing’. The SS, in well-prepared positions, met fire with fire. Fenwick was almost past the first of the enemy’s guns when a 20mm cannon round struck him square in the forehead, killing him instantly. ‘Major Fenwick fell across the wheel,’ Corporal Duffy reported. ‘I felt the blood, which I found later was his . . . just like water sprinkling on my face, and he flopped at the same moment . . . from then on I lost consciousness, I was hit.’

  Driverless, the jeep careered onwards, coming to a final rest in a nearby patch of woodland. In the process two Resistance figures riding in the vehicle were killed, and Corporals Duffy and Dunkley were injured and taken captive. Dunkley would be executed by the SS, along with two other Op Gain captives, Troopers Leslie Packman and John Ion. As for Duffy, with the aid of brave French medical staff working at the hospital where he was sent to be treated, he would execute one of the most audacious escapes of the war.

  With Fenwick dead, leadership of the surviving Operation Gain raiders had fallen to twenty-eight-year-old Captain Jock Riding, who would go on to win a Military Cross for taking command of the mission under such difficult circumstances. On 10 August, Mayne himself would parachute into France, carrying with him a wind-up gramophone, plus some records by the Irish singer-songwriter Percy French, including ‘The Garden Where the Praties Grow’ (‘pratie’ is Irish slang for a potato), and ‘Come Back, Paddy Riley’, plus his all-time favourite, ‘Mush! Mush Mush! Tural-i-addy’, a fine Irish song about drinking and fighting.

  After so long spent behind the lines, and having lost a commander of Fenwick’s stature, ‘the morale of certain of the men cracked a trifle’, Captain Riding would report. Mayne recognised that the fighting spirit of his men would need stiffening, and he was there both to raise morale and to steady the ship. At their new forest base he played the homely Irish ballads on his gramophone and sent out reconnaissance patrols, seeking targets, calling in RAF airstrikes to hit the most vital ones. Not long after he deployed, their area of operations was liberated by advancing US forces, many of whom could not countenance that British ‘jeeping’ parties had been operating for so long so far behind enemy lines.

  On 28 August, Captain Riding and Sergeant Almonds were ‘captured’ by US forces, who simply refused to believe they were who they claimed to be. Riding and Almonds explained that the jeeps had been parachuted behind the lines, and that this was actually the first time they had ever been stopped, when buzzing around the French roads at night in their heavily armed vehicles. The American commanding officer scrutinised the pair with obvious disbelief, promising they’d be taken before General George S. Patton the next day, to explain themselves.

  Sure enough, the following morning they were driven to the nearby US Army HQ, to face ‘Old Blood and Guts’ Patton himself. A statement was read out to the American general, outlining just who Riding and Almonds claimed to be. At the end of it the American general eyed the two men. ‘If you’re Brits, you’ll be okay,’ he growled. ‘If not, you’ll be shot – even if I have to shoot you myself.’ They were promptly handed over to Patton’s British liaison officer, who was eventually persuaded of the veracity of their story.

  Mayne himself would go on to have his own altercation with the famously hard-charging US general. In France, the SAS commander had felt hunted, having to keep constantly on the move. He’d admitted that at times he was scared. But Mayne never became paralysed with terror: he always kept a grip on it, mastering his fear and using it to fuel his fighting spirit. Upon the liberation of the city of Le Mans, Mayne, together with Mike Sadler, drove through the streets firing off their guns in a wild celebration. For their pains, they were arrested and taken before General Patton. Mayne mastered the situation in an instant, asking of the US commander: ‘I hope we didn’t frighten your men?’ Making it quite clear that of course his men hadn’t been scared, General Patton let the two SAS officers go with a suitable warning ringing in their ears.

  Days later, Mayne was flown back to Britain, knowing fully well what a heavy price the enemy had paid at the hands of his raiders. SAS operations in France that summer had caused havoc and carnage across a wide swathe of territory, especially when working in partnership with the Resistance. Reports estimated that some 3,500–4,000 enemy troops had been killed; 15–20,000 enemy had surrendered, as a result of such actions; 750–1,000 vehicles were damaged or destroyed; fully 25 trains were blown up; and it proved impossible to enumerate all the railway lines put out of action.

  In addition, the morale boost to the Resistance, and the corresponding adverse impact on the morale of the enemy, spoke volumes. In fact, ‘the greatest single value of SAS activities’ was seen as being the morale effect, plus the gathering of crucial intelligence. But a heavy price had been paid by those killed in action, and – as was increasingly becoming clear – in the dark fates of those men taken captive. In late August ’44, Mayne would receive the first, definitive proof of the fate of one of his captured patrols – news that would shape the fortunes of the SAS in the months and years to come.

  On 15 August, SAS Troopers Norman and Morrison – jumpers ten and eleven in the SABU-70 stick – learned that US troops had arrived in their vicinity. They’d been hiding out in the woods around the town of Saint Chéron for fully thirty days. On hearing the news, the two men ‘dug up their uniforms, had them dried at the farm . . . and set off in search of the Americans’. After a brief interrogation at the US Army headquarters, they were dispatched to the coast riding in a captured enemy truck, and then placed aboard ‘a homeward-bound ship’.

  At ‘approximately 2230 hours on Monday 19 August’, Norman reached Fairford camp, the base from which he had set out, having spent forty-three days behind enemy lines. After a brief stopover in London, Morrison would join him. Theirs would be one of the longest escape and evasions in SAS history. Of course, one of the first things that Trooper Norman was able to do was to alert all at Fairford to the fate of their wider patrol. In a report entitled ‘Operational State of SAS Troops 22 Aug. 1944’, the first intimation of the ill fortune that had befallen Captain Garsti
n and his men was noted: ‘2 offrs 10 ORs in NORTH GAIN area are possibly missing’.

  Of course, even with Norman and Morrison’s eyewitness testimony, the remainder of Garstin’s stick could only be listed as ‘possibly missing’. Their true fate remained unknown. But even that was progress of sorts. Prior to Norman and Morrison’s miraculous return, Garstin and his men had simply disappeared into the void, as far as all at SAS headquarters had been concerned. ‘After they jumped that was the last we saw or heard of them,’ reported Captain Sadler, who’d seen the SABU-70 raiders off from the Stirling that had dropped them.

  When not parachuting into France, Colonel Mayne had become something of a welfare officer for 1 SAS, writing a seemingly endless stream of letters to the parents, wives and other close family of those he had dispatched into harm’s way. He did so with a simple elegance of phrase and a heartfelt empathy – especially with those killed or missing in action – that might seem surprising for a man with such a fearsome reputation. But all he did during his time in the SAS was out of a deep compassion for his fellow warriors: to stand tall in their view, to stand firm at their side, and in an effort to bring them home.

  Colonel Mayne felt each failure – each loss – very personally. When he learned of Captain Garstin and his stick’s fate, he vowed that something had to be done. These were men that he had in many cases recruited personally, and had twice – some might argue three times – dispatched behind enemy lines, on some of the most challenging missions. Their loss did not sit lightly on his shoulders.

  Shortly after Norman and Morrison’s return, Colonel Mayne charged Mike Sadler, together with Major Harry Wall Poat, another of the SAS originals and Mayne’s second-in-command, to investigate the fate of Garstin’s patrol. They were to leave for France post-haste, to visit the areas where the SAS personnel had ‘disappeared’, in an effort to investigate what exactly had happened. Even now, a year before the end of the war, Mayne and his fellow SAS commanders had an eye to a full and proper reckoning.