Last Hope Island

by Lynne Olson

  “our passionate love”: Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance, 93.

  “In our war”: Jonathan H. King, “Emmanuel d’Astier and the Nature of the French Resistance,” Journal of Contemporary History, Oct. 1973.

  “The proportion of Jews”: Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940–1944 (New York: Little, Brown, 2014), 311.

  “the lifeblood of the Resistance”: Herman Bodson, Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture: The Role of Local Resistance Networks in World War II (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005), 4.

  “Women have such”: Ibid., 154–55.

  “ninety-nine percent”: Anthony Cave Brown, “C”: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 500.

  “We knew that men”: Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 185.

  “The general appeared”: M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944 (London: HMSO, 1966), 181.

  “the sort of natural authority”: Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 409.

  “the main organizations”: Foot, SOE in France, 180.

  “There is a rising tide”: Michael Stenton, Radio London and Resistance in Occupied Europe: British Political Warfare, 1939–1943 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 176.

  “For my part”: Lacouture, De Gaulle, 349.

  “The British in 1940”: Eric Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream (New York: Atheneum, 1976), 222.

  “has produced violent reactions”: Kersaudy, Churchill and de Gaulle, 225.

  “their uncontested leader”: Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 428.

  “Between Giraud and de Gaulle”: Harold Nicolson, The War Years, Diaries & Letters, 1939–1945, ed. Nigel Nicolson (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 294.

  “The people of France”: Lacouture, De Gaulle, 479.

  CHAPTER 14: “THE UGLY REALITY”

  “could afford to irritate”: Edward Raczyński, In Allied London (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963), 155.

  “little short of genocide”: George F. Kennan and John Lukacs, George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944–1946: The Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 28.

  “with the precision”: Sir Owen O’Malley, “Disappearance of Polish Officers in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” FO 371/34577, National Archives, London.

  “Whether you wish”: Allen Paul, Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Polish Massacre (New York: Scribner’s, 1991), 159.

  “one of the greatest”: John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris (New York: Viking, 1982), 262.

  “neither sought nor cared”: Raczyński, In Allied London, 100.

  “To survive is an obsession”: “Czechoslovakia: The Art of Survival,” Time, March 27, 1944.

  “The Poles are not troublesome”: John Darnton, “The Polish Awakening,” New York Times, June 14, 1981.

  “The Czechs seem”: A. J. Liebling, The Road Back to Paris (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1944), 149.

  “lost all realistic perspective”: František Moravec, Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General František Moravec (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 184.

  “those who kept”: Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937–1948 (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 294.

  “It was futile”: Moravec, Master of Spies, 196.

  “our whole situation”: Vojtech Mastny, The Czechs Under Nazi Rule: The Failure of National Resistance, 1939–1942 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 177.

  “a blond god”: Callum MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, May 27, 1942 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 4.

  “a predatory animal”: Walter Schellenberg, The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 13.

  “This man is”: Laurent Binet, HHhH (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 39.

  “had an ice-cold intellect”: Schellenberg, The Labyrinth, 13.

  “orgy of massacre”: Martin Gilbert, The Second World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt, 1987), 5.

  “any infringement whatsoever”: H. J. Giskes, London Calling North Pole (London: William Kimber, 1953), 25.

  “The epidemic of assassination”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 163.

  “obviously large-scale resistance movement”: Mastny, The Czechs Under Nazi Rule, 186.

  “the Czechs at the moment”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 162.

  “our trained paratroop commandos”: Moravec, Master of Spies, 196.

  “necessary for the good”: Ibid., 197.

  “spectacular assassination”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 118.

  “For everyone politically active”: Ibid., 140.

  “had no intention”: Ibid., 141.

  “This assassination”: Ibid., 156.

  “Why should my Czechs”: Binet, HHhH, 216.

  “[The Führer] foresees”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 176.

  “It is our holy duty”: Ibid., 3.

  “They’re completely mad”: Ibid., 177.

  “seemed almost insane”: M.R.D. Foot and J. L. Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939–1945 (London: Biteback Publishing, 2011), 166.

  “If future generations”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 200.

  “I was in the U.S.”: Ibid.

  “In the delicate matter”: Ibid., 209.

  “the Czechs and all”: Ibid., 200.

  “In view of the trials”: Ibid.

  “Somebody else”: Roderick Bailey, Forgotten Voices in the Secret War: An Inside History of Special Operations During the Second World War (London: Ebury Press, 2008), Kindle edition, loc. 1938.

  “By his death”: Mastny, The Czechs Under Nazi Rule, 221.

  “a complete fabrication”: MacDonald, The Killing of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 206.

  CHAPTER 15: “THE ENGLAND GAME”

  “In London”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4: The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 780.

  “No matter which”: Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941–45 (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2013), 28.

  “the most valuable link”: M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944 (London: HMSO, 1966), 102.

  “so familiar”: “Leo Marks” (obituary), Guardian, Feb. 2, 2001.

  “Every code”: “The Masterspy of Acton Town,” Evening Standard, Jan. 8, 1999.

  “If some shit-scared”: Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 8.

  “performing with the precision”: Ibid., 23.

  “The whole thing”: Ibid., 16.

  “no one will blame you”: “Rivalry in London Led to Deaths of Agents,” SOE and the Resistance: As Told in The Times Obituaries, ed. Michael Tillotson (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), Kindle edition, loc. 1583.

  “I cursed my stupidity”: H. J. Giskes, London Calling North Pole (London: William Kimber, 1953), 178.

  “extremely skilled and dangerous opponents”: M.R.D. Foot, Holland at War Against Hitler: Anglo-Dutch Relations, 1940–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1990), 147.

  “a deep love”: Giskes, London Calling North Pole, 176.

  “no agent”: Foot, Holland at War, 133.

  “this continuous negligence”: Giskes, London Calling North Pole, 200.

  “famous for its long experience”: Ibid., 10.

  “amateurs, despite their training”: Ibid., 92.

  “conveyor-belt”: Ibid., 122.

  “open attacks”: Ibid., 113.

  “unknown criminal elements”: Ibid., 104.

  “I was faced”
: Ibid., 107.

  “fairy tales”: Ibid., 99.

  “all was not well”: Nicholas Kelso, Errors of Judgement: SOE’s Disaster in the Netherlands, 1941–44 (London: Robert Hale, 1988), 196.

  “too bloody perfect”: Roderick Bailey, Forgotten Voices in the Secret War: An Inside History of Speical Operations During the Second World War (London: Ebury Press, 2008), Kindle edition, loc. 3334.

  “People seemed to get”: Ibid.

  “They had a stock”: Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 101.

  “Why were the Dutch”: Ibid., 113.

  “to be in a prison cell”: Ibid., 132.

  “God help these agents”: Ibid., 123.

  “despite deaths by drowning”: Ibid., 124.

  “certainly could not be ignored”: Ibid., 133.

  “SOE will be ready”: Ibid., 148.

  “I did my best”: Ibid.

  “Only one, sir”: Ibid., 336.

  “The attempt of”: Giskes, London Calling North Pole, 136.

  “I’d worked too long”: Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 593.

  “treachery on either”: House of Commons debate, March 2, 1953, Hansard, vol. 512.

  “The truth is more mundane”: M.R.D. Foot, “SOE in the Low Countries,” in Mark Seaman, ed., Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War (London: Routledge, 2006), 83.

  CHAPTER 16: “BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME”

  “Rather lacking in dash”: Ray Jenkins, A Pacifist at War (London: Arrow, 2010), 62.

  “a plodder who”: Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941–45 (Stroud, UK: The History Press, 2013), 199.

  “wasn’t plodding at all”: Ibid., 200.

  “tested the logic of it all”: Ibid.

  “feeling very sorry”: Ibid., 201.

  “I never believed”: Jenkins, A Pacifist at War, 52.

  “I can tell you”: Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 387.

  “during the year 1942”: M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944 (London: HMSO, 1966), 224.

  “brought the optimism”: Jenkins, A Pacifist at War, 51.

  “there was nobody else”: Sarah Helm, A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII (New York: Anchor, 2007), 485.

  “fears and excitements”: Philippe de Vomécourt, An Army of Amateurs (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 185.

  “He was not firm”: Ibid.

  “one of the most exceptional”: Ibid., 10.

  “those whose French accents”: Ibid., 185.

  “the all-important details”: Ibid., 175.

  “If there had been”: Ibid., 126.

  “almost to a man”: Ibid., 108.

  “There appeared to be”: Jenkins, A Pacifist at War, 4.

  “five or six young men”: Ibid., 57.

  “That kind of stupidity”: Ibid., 74.

  “From the moment”: Ibid., 75.

  “Without any”: Ibid., 98.

  “What has continuously”: Ibid., 124.

  “The resistance in France”: Vomécourt, An Army of Amateurs, 18.

  “The French people”: Ibid., 36.

  “I was very much awake”: Roderick Bailey, Forgotten Voices in the Secret War: An Inside History of Special Operations During the Second World War (London: Ebury Press, 2008), Kindle edition, loc. 3069.

  “You couldn’t go ten meters”: Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 236.

  “At the start”: de Vomécourt, An Army of Amateurs, 85.

  “the Prosper folks”: Jenkins, A Pacifist at War, 218.

  “The entire Prosper organization”: Helm, A Life in Secrets, 44.

  “You have forgotten”: Ibid., 37.

  “never wanted to believe”: Ibid., 38.

  “Strategically France is”: Ibid., 50.

  “No one has”: Ibid., 54.

  “not overburdened with brains”: Ibid., 13–14.

  “The Germans seem”: Robert Marshall, All the King’s Men: The Truth Behind SOE’s Greatest Wartime Disaster (London: Collins, 1988), 181.

  “Déricourt’s operation”: Jenkins, A Pacifist at War, 102.

  “Aren’t you the organizer”: Ibid., 221–22.

  “You’re not supposed to be”: Bailey, Forgotten, Kindle edition, loc. 3221.

  “since the armistice”: Marshall, All the King’s Men, 153.

  “typical French backbiting”: Ibid., 154.

  “[Déricourt’s] efficiency”: Ibid., 272.

  “formed the impression”: Anthony Cave Brown, “C”: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 508–9.

  “Make no mistake”: Marshall, All the King’s Men, 121.

  “could be suppressed”: Brown, “C,” 508.

  “A lot of nonsense”: W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden: Or the British Agent (London: Heinemann, 1928), 52.

  “With delight”: Brown, “C,” 512.

  “resistance groups”: Ibid., 552.

  “the blood of the martyrs”: Ibid., 553.

  “the most ridiculous”: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Noah’s Ark: A Memoir of Struggle and Resistance (New York: Dutton, 1972), 70.

  “operating admirably”: Ibid., 86.

  “It’s incredible, incredible!”: Ibid., 121.

  “one of Dansey’s”: Anthony Read and David Fisher, Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies (New York: Viking, 1985), 297.

  “did not dim”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 10.

  “Since September 16”: Ibid., 272.

  “while the Gestapo”: Ibid., 278.

  “Everyone I speak to”: Jonathan H. King, “Emmanuel d’Astier and the Nature of the French Resistance,” Journal of Contemporary History, Oct. 1973.

  “Never in my life”: Fourcade, Noah’s Ark, 278.

  CHAPTER 17: “HEROISM BEYOND ANYTHING I CAN TELL YOU”

  “a girl of radiant integrity”: M.R.D. Foot and J. L. Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939–1945 (London: Biteback Publishing, 2011), 80.

  “it takes less time”: Herman Bodson, Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture: The Role of Local Resistance Networks in World War II (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005), 12.

  “Nothing could have expressed”: Airey Neave, Saturday at M.I.9: The Classic Account of the WWII Escape Organisation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1969), 25.

  “admiration of the girls”: Paul Routledge, Public Servant, Secret Agent: The Elusive Life and Violent Death of Airey Neave (London: HarperCollins, 2002), Kindle edition, loc. 1749.

  “I’d never seen”: “Airmen Remember Comet Line to Freedom,” BBC News, Oct. 24, 2000.

  “the little cyclone”: Airey Neave, Little Cyclone: The Girl Who Started the Comet Line (London: Biteback Publishing, 2013), Kindle edition, loc. 45.

  “a cross-section”: Foot and Langley, MI9, 155.

  “The last decision”: J. M. Langley, Fight Another Day (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2013), 168.

  “always a very sore point”: Ibid., 16.

  “parcels”: Bodson, Downed Allied Airmen, 52.

  “It is not an easy”: Langley, Fight Another Day, 50.

  “I loved them”: “Airmen Remember Comet Line to Freedom,” BBC News, Oct. 24, 2000.

  “I fell in love”: The Bulletin: The Newsweekly of the Capital of Europe, Oct. 19, 2000.

  “I have nothing”: Ibid.

  “They were afraid”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 132.

  “Belgian, Dutch, or French”: Langley, Fight Another Day, 251.

  “kept to her own rules”: Ibid., 136.

  “It seemed incredible”: Ibid., 187.

  “one of the most colorful”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 183.

  “Pour une femme”: Peter Morley, director, “Women of Courage,” television documentary, 1978, Imperial War Museum, London.

  “looked much younger”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 188.

&nb
sp; “she was used to”: Ibid.

  “fearlessness, independence”: Ibid., 189.

  “My godfather died”: Peter Morley, director, “Women of Courage,” television documentary, 1978, Imperial War Museum, London.

  “simply loved titled people”: Ibid.

  “I found this completely ridiculous”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 190.

  “endanger her own life”: Ibid., 192.

  “to use a battle-axe”: Langley, Fight Another Day, 189.

  “I’ve nothing to say”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 191.

  “Spare no effort”: Langley, Fight Another Day, 189.

  “I just wanted”: Neave, Saturday at M.I.9, 195.

  “We’ve got only one”: Ibid., 201.

  “die arrogante Engländerin”: Peter Morley, director, “Women of Courage,” television documentary, 1978, Imperial War Museum, London.

  “In four minutes”: Foot and Langley, MI9, 230.

  “The airmen who come”: “Airmen Remember Comet Line to Freedom,” BBC News, Oct. 24, 2000.

  CHAPTER 18: A GIANT JIGSAW PUZZLE

  “were quite unable”: H. J. Giskes, London Calling North Pole (London: William Kimber, 1953), 138.

  “As fast as”: Tessa Stirling, Daria Nałęcz, and Tadeusz Dubicki, eds., Intelligence Cooperation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2005), 558.

  “We had no illusions”: Giskes, London Calling North Pole, 139.

  “practically all the Allied”: Noel F. Busch, “Ambassador Biddle,” Life, Oct. 4, 1943.

  “We can state”: Stirling, Nałęcz, and Dubicki, eds., Intelligence Cooperation Between Poland and Great Britain, 489.

  “do for Germany”: Ben Macintyre, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies (New York: Crown, 2012), 98.

  “his loyalty is entirely”: Ibid., 32.

  “From their knowledge”: Ibid., 418.

  “studied not only by”: Ibid., 620.

  “the new weapons”: R. V. Jones, Most Secret War (Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1998), 352.

  “no one could say”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6: Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953), 43.

  “a bit of a tall order”: Stirling, Nałęcz, and Dubicki, eds., Intelligence Cooperation between Poland and Great Britain, 475.