They Fought Alone

by Maurice Buckmaster

Rée, Harry 1, 2, 3, 4

  Renée (Virginia Hall) 1, 2, 3

  Rex 1

  Templer, General 1

  Theophile, Abbé 1

  Third Reich (1933–45) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Abwehr 1, 2, 3, 4

  Gestapo 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

  Schutzstaffel (SS) 1, 2

  Sicherheitsdienst 1

  Todt 1

  Timken Ball Bearing Factory 1

  Trotobas, Michael (Sylvestre) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

  United Kingdom (UK) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Air Ministry 1

  Bletchley Park 1

  Cambridge 1, 2

  Coventry 1

  First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) 1, 2, 3

  government of 1

  Guilford 1

  London 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37

  Ministry of Economic Warfare 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Portsmouth 1

  Royal Air Force (RAF) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

  Bomber Command 1, 2, 3, 4

  Scotland Yard 1, 2

  Treasury 1

  War Office 1, 2, 3, 4

  Whitehall 1

  United States of America (USA) 1 American Tactical Air Force 1

  Vichy French 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Milice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

  de Vomécourt, Pierre (Félix) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Wake, Nancy 1, 2

  Warsaw Patriots 1

  Watney, Cyril (Eustache) 1, 2

  Wilkinson, Edward (Alexandre) 1

  Wilkinson, George 1

  Wilma, Princess 1

  Yveline 1, 2, 3

  Yvette, Pierre Embrasse 1

  Maurice Buckmaster, Head of F Section.

  Vera Atkins, initially Buckmaster’s PA but swiftly promoted to intelligence officer.

  Pierre de Vomécourt, the leader of F Section’s first circuit, Autogyro. He was captured in April 1942 and spent the rest of the war in Colditz.

  Virginia Hall, the American who led the Heckler Circuit.

  Richard Heslop, head of the Marksman Circuit.

  Michael Trotobas, head of the Farmer Circuit.

  Andrée Borrel, second in command of the Prosper Circuit. She was executed by lethal injection in Natzweiler concentration camp.

  Peter Churchill was the head of the Spindle Circuit around Cannes. Odette Sansom was his courier. They were captured and sent to separate concentration camps but survived to marry in 1947.

  Peter Churchill’s fake identity card.

  Noor Inayat Khan, wireless operator for the blown Prosper Circuit and then the Cinema-Phono Circuit. She was captured, tortured and executed in Dachau in September 1944.

  Yolande Beekman, wireless operator for the Musician Circuit. She was captured and taken to Dachau with Noor Inayat Khan and two others and executed there in September 1944 (pictured at her 1943 wedding).

  Violette Szabo, who parachuted twice into occupied France. She was captured shortly after D-Day and taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was executed aged twenty-three in February 1945.

  Francis Cammaerts, head of the Jockey Circuit.

  Christine Granville, the Polish courier who bribed and cajoled Cammaerts and his SOE colleague Xan Fielding out of jail.

  Pearl Witherington, head of the Wrestler Circuit.

  Jacqueline Nearne, courier for the Stationer Circuit.

  Tony Brooks’s Playfair card.

  Tony Brooks, head of the Pimento Circuit.

  Roger Landes, head of the Scientist Circuit and then the Actor Circuit.

  The FANY memorial at St Paul’s Church, Wilton Place, Knightsbridge.

  The SOE memorial at Valençay to the ninety-one men and thirteen women from the SOE and the FANY who died to free France.

  Copyright

  This edition published in Great Britain in 2014 by

  Biteback Publishing Ltd

  Westminster Tower

  3 Albert Embankment

  London SE1 7SP

  First published in Great Britain in 1958 by Odhams (Watford) Ltd.

  Copyright © Maurice Buckmaster 1958

  Maurice Buckmaster has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

  ISBN 978-1-84954-772-7

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Set in Garamond by Soapbox