Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

by Giles Milton

  Gubbins could count on the support of dozens of circuits working right across France. The one founded by Harry Ree in the Franche-Comté was superbly effective. Operating under the codename Stockbroker, its saboteurs were bold almost to the point of recklessness, causing immense damage to Hitler’s war machine. They were well placed to prevent extra supplies of weaponry being delivered to Normandy.

  There was the Jockey circuit in Provence; Scientist in Bordeaux; and Armada in north-east France. This latter group had pulled off some spectacular coups, crippling one of the Nazis’ principal armaments factories and destroying the canal system that linked the Ruhr with the Mediterranean. They had also assassinated a dozen senior Gestapo officials.

  And then there was Pimento, a highly competent circuit working around Montauban in southern France. It was composed of a dedicated group of cheminots or railway workers and led by Tony Brooks, a sparky twenty-one-year-old with a cheerful disdain for the Nazis’ military might. Brooks was looking forward to future operations with all the zeal of a new-converted missionary. He was particularly pleased when Baker Street managed to deliver him (as requested) a large quantity of ground carborundum. It looked innocuous enough: a thick heavy-duty axle-grease. But Brooks knew that it contained an abrasive so powerful that it would wreck the inner workings of any machine. He was intending to have some fun with his magic grease, for he had found a most enticing target, one that the Germans had foolishly neglected to place under armed guard.

  Colin Gubbins’s biggest headache was supplying these willing volunteers with enough explosives. Over at the Air Ministry, Charles Portal consistently declined his requests for more planes. This, said Joan Bright, led to ‘inter-departmental warfare of exceptional ferocity’. In the end, Winston Churchill swung his weight behind Gubbins and ordered Portal to massively escalate the air support for the French resistance. The weeks that followed saw a five-fold increase in the quantity of weaponry being dropped by parachute. By late spring, when plans for the Allied landings were advancing rapidly, some 4,000 tons of explosives had already been dropped into France, with a great deal more on the way. It was enough to play merry havoc with the occupying German Army.

  General Eisenhower’s decision to include sabotage and guerrilla warfare in his strategic planning for D-Day now placed Gubbins firmly in the spotlight. ‘Transforming vision into reality’, was how Joan Bright described his role. He was entrusted with plotting the destruction of targets ‘that comprised strategic industries, power stations and rail and canal communications’. If these were hit, and hard, they would seriously hamper the German Army’s capacity to defend the Normandy coastline.

  Gubbins was given a second role that was to prove of even greater importance. He was to create elite guerrilla teams who were to be parachuted into France at the time of the Normandy landings. Their task was potentially game-changing: ‘attacking vulnerable points and connections and preventing the Germans sending reinforcements to the beachheads’.6 If successful, they could swing the military balance into the Allies’ favour.

  Gubbins already had a great deal of experience in establishing small teams entrusted with hit-and-run missions. It was exactly what Gus March-Phillipps’s force had been created to do three years earlier. Now, this principle was to be replicated on an altogether grander scale. Gubbins was to set up ninety highly trained teams, each comprising three men, who were to be parachuted behind enemy lines. Their mission was so dangerous that it was to require the services of men who were not only uncommonly brave, but who also relished the chance to get their hands dirty.

  * * *

  Among the potential recruits summoned to Baker Street was Tommy Macpherson, a young Scotsman whose family was known to Gubbins. Macpherson was unclear as to why he had been called to this anonymous-looking office block, but was happy enough to chat about his wartime adventures, unaware that he was supplying Gubbins with exactly the information he wanted to hear.

  Macpherson had quite a story to tell, for he had seen enough action to put most men off war for life. He had signed up for the Scottish Commandos, taken part in the disastrous attempt to assassinate Rommel and been imprisoned in Italy’s notorious Camp 5: ‘the camp for bad boys’, as he called it. He escaped, was recaptured and then escaped again, this time from a prison camp in Austria. By the time he made it back to his native Scotland, he was already missing the war. ‘I was feeling refreshed and ready to re-enter the fray.’7 This was music to Gubbins’s ears. He thanked Macpherson for his time and said he would be contacted in due course. Macpherson left the Baker Street offices not ‘at all certain what the interview was about’.8

  He was one of a stream of young men who passed through the Baker Street headquarters in the early months of 1944, aware of little more than the fact that they were being vetted for some sort of highly dangerous mission. Gubbins personally conducted the interviews, for he was acutely conscious of the importance of selecting the right men. Joan Bright continued to see him in snatched moments after work and noticed that his grief over young Michael had been transformed into a deep sense of purpose. Each interview he undertook, each new recruitment, ‘was a virtuoso performance’, she said, in which he was brutally honest about the risks that lay ahead. Few declined the opportunity to serve under him, for he had ‘a gift of inspiring confidence and in many cases a loyalty amounting to devotion’. They looked upon him with something akin to hero-worship and he, in return, found it ‘gratifying to be accepted by these intelligent and dashing young men, not only as their commanding officer, but as a battle-scarred member of their own tribe’. Yet he found this intense personal leadership ‘emotionally exhausting’. Joan, of course, knew why: ‘Michael’s death had been a tragic reminder of how blindly war destroys its victims.’9

  The elite teams that Gubbins was recruiting were to consist of 300 men – British, American and French – who would operate in specialist units of three (ideally one from each nationality). The name of these teams, Jedburghs, was chosen at random from a Ministry of Defence codebook. Tommy Macpherson felt it was singularly appropriate, since ‘the Borders town of Jedburgh was home to the sorts of rugged scampers I’d like to be sent into battle with.’10

  Each new recruit was whisked off to Milton Hall, an imposing country house near Peterborough, where they learned of their role as a ‘unique fighting force’ that would help to determine the outcome of the war. Dropped by plane behind enemy lines, their task was ‘to stir up the resistance, harass enemy movements and tie down as many German divisions as possible’.11 In short, they were to stop Hitler’s reserve divisions reaching Normandy.

  There was no time for endurance training in Arisaig. Instead, Eric Sykes was brought down to Milton Hall in order to teach them all the usual tricks: the Japanese strangle, the baton cosh and the rock-crusher, as well as how best to dislocate a man’s spine. ‘The finishing touch is a quick snap upwards and backwards,’ he would say.12 The victim would never walk again.

  The Milton Hall course was a distillation of everything that had been learned over the previous four years: silent killing, sharp-shooting and knife-fighting. Once completed, the men were put through George Rheam’s intense sabotage programme. They were also trained in the use of limpets, clams and ‘a variety of dirty trick gadgets for exploding car tyres, destroying the bearings of tanks, anti-personnel mines of one kind or another, and similar’.13 At one point a big game hunter from Africa was brought in to show them how to kill farm animals and guard dogs by slicing through the windpipe, ‘the head pulled back and the neck bone severed’. Done correctly, it could be achieved ‘without a single sound from the beast’.14

  As the sabotage course reached its conclusion, Macpherson was told that he had passed with flying colours and was being promoted to major in charge of his own three-man team. It was now up to him to pick two other men for his little unit, which was given the codename Quinine.

  His first choice was one of the more colourful trainees at Milton Hall. Michel Bourbon, as he was kno
wn to his comrades, was actually Prince Michel de Bourbon-Parma and was related to many of the most illustrious dynasties of Europe. He had been taken to America in 1940, when the Nazis overran France, and packed off to school. But Michel was hungry for action and enlisted in the army when he turned sixteen. After a brief induction in America, he was shipped to Britain for more specialist training, first in the Scottish Highlands and then at Milton Hall, where his verve and derring-do made a particularly deep impression on Macpherson. ‘Exceptional,’ he said. ‘A man of great courage and determination, whose unbreakable good humour and genial calm can transform into epic spates of Gallic volatility at any moment.’15

  Macpherson’s second recruit was Arthur Brown, a wireless operator, whose task would be to keep them in touch with London. ‘Clearly very able,’ noted Macpherson as he observed his skill at signalling. Brown himself was rather surprised to have survived the course, since most of his friends had been rejected. ‘Week by week, those who displayed character weaknesses or, in one way or another, showed themselves unlikely to stay the course, were quietly weeded out and sent back to their units.’16 This was a mission for which only the very finest were selected.

  There was one last matter that Macpherson had to attend to before his team was deployed and that was to visit General de Gaulle and pick up his authority to operate in France. It was a formality, but an important one: Macpherson headed to the Hyde Park headquarters of the French government-in-exile to receive his papers. ‘I hear you’re going to France,’ said de Gaulle as Macpherson was ushered into his presence. ‘I won’t wish you luck. I disapprove of your mission and that of your colleagues. No one should be going to France without my command.’17

  Somewhat taken aback by de Gaulle’s lack of gratitude for a guerrilla mission that might cost him his life, Macpherson mumbled something about taking orders from his superiors. De Gaulle nodded and reluctantly authorized the paperwork.

  On his return to Milton Hall, Macpherson and his two comrades were supplied with their last piece of kit: the cyanide pills that were to be taken in the event of their capture. Prince Michel was told ‘to pop the pill in our mouth, hold it in our cheek and if it became necessary, we were to bite down and take a deep breath’. Within a few seconds, it would be ‘goodbye Charlie’.18

  * * *

  In the days that preceded the Allied landings – in barns, cellars and underground hideouts across France – Gubbins’s saboteurs sat huddled next to their clandestine wireless sets listening to the coded messages personnels transmitted by the BBC. These would tell them exactly when to go into action.

  For many, the signal came in the early hours of 6 June, when the first Operation Overlord vessels were already crossing the English Channel. Gubbins himself spent that night in his office in a state of nervous excitement, aware that the ultimate showdown was entering its definitive stage. ‘On the house opposite my window, the wind-cowl on the chimney was flying round at fantastic speed. The invasion had already been postponed twenty-four hours owing to the weather but now the incredible armada was on its way, come hell or high water.’19 It was the make or break moment: Gubbins had staked everything on his saboteurs being able to stage hundreds of devastating hit-and-run operations.

  It was an equally nerve-racking time for the men and women on the ground in France. At last, after months of preparation, the destruction could begin. Under the cover of darkness, teams crept out into the blustery night, their knapsacks filled with explosives. Bridges were blown, vital junctions destroyed and all the roads leading to Normandy scattered with tyre-busters. The railways were hit particularly hard, with the system cut in almost 1,000 places. Gubbins would later learn that this was more than the British and American air forces had achieved over the previous two months.

  Every devious device invented by Millis Jefferis’s team at the Firs was put into action as a systematic campaign of destruction got under way. Limpets, clams and L-Delays were all used to target installations of vital importance to Hitler’s army. But this was merely the opening overture. As a weak dawn broke through the sky on 6 June – a squally day in northern France – and the greatest amphibious force in history began landing on the beaches, the German divisions stationed inland were to find that it would be a day of many unwelcome surprises.

  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was in overall command of the defences of France’s northern coastline. He had long argued of the importance of throwing every possible resource against the anticipated Allied landings. Indeed he believed it a strategic imperative to prevent the Allies from establishing a bridgehead in Normandy. To do this would require troops that were stationed across France.

  One of his most formidable fighting forces was the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, commanded by General Heinz Bernard Lammerding. The Das Reich was stationed at the town of Montauban, just north of Toulouse, having been moved there six weeks earlier on the grounds that it would be conveniently placed to intervene on both the southern and northern coasts of France, the two possible areas where the Allies might land. Feared as much as it was respected, this crack division was one of the great SS forces of the Third Reich. It had fought with distinction (and horrific brutality) in the mighty battles of the Eastern Front and its commander, General Lammerding, had proved particularly ruthless, liquidating entire villages whose inhabitants stood in his way. It represented one-tenth of the entire German armoured strength in the west and had the potential to push the Allies back into the sea. Not only did it have more than 200 heavy tanks and assault guns, but its recruits were inspired by its illustrious military record. General Lammerding himself had already won two Iron Crosses. If he could kick the Allies from the Normandy beaches, he would surely win a third.

  Moving such a huge division was a logistical nightmare. Heavy tanks could not travel by road over long distances: they were slow, guzzled fuel and their tracks ripped up the tarmac surfaces and rendered them impassable. They needed to be transported to Normandy on flatcars – transporters – that had been specially designed to sit low on the track in order that the tanks could pass through the numerous tunnels of the Massif Central.

  The importance of these flatcars had not gone unnoticed by young Tony Brooks and his network of saboteurs in the Pimento circuit. For weeks, he had been waiting to use his pots of carborundum, the sticky axle grease laced with abrasive. Now, in the hours before the Allied landings, his time had finally come. Tipped the wink by Baker Street, his team – which included two young sisters, one sixteen, the other fourteen – launched their highly idiosyncratic war of sabotage against the Das Reich division. Brooks had located every tank transporter in the Montauban region. Now, under the mantle of darkness, his fellow saboteurs siphoned off the axle oil, replaced it with carborundum and then vanished into the night.

  Amid the spectacular explosions that took place on that night in June, Brooks’s contribution seemed too small to be significant. But he knew differently. His sticky paste was to give General Heinz Lammerding a surprise he would never forget. And it was not the only surprise being prepared for the general.

  * * *

  Tommy Macpherson and his two comrades were handed their orders on 5 June, just a few hours before the Allied landings. Each Jedburgh team had been assigned its own geographical area in which to operate, and his was to be in the Massif Central, just to the north of Montauban. His three-strong group was dropped by plane and met by a ‘reception committee’, a local partisan group, who could help them identify the most important targets for destruction.

  Macpherson was the first to jump from the Halifax, closely followed by Michel Bourbon and Arthur Brown. The plane’s pilot had correctly identified the landing ground and the men landed ‘smack-bang among our host’, illuminated by the light of a gleaming moon. As Macpherson unstrapped his parachute, he overheard one of the partisans calling to his leader: ‘Chef, chef, there’s a French officer and he’s brought his wife.’ Macpherson smiled to himself. ‘I was wearing my Cameron Highlander’s uniform, with a
battledress top and kilt, and over that my jumping smock.’ The young lad saw the kilt, mistook it for a dress and thought Macpherson was a woman.

  Macpherson’s first impression of the local resistance was positive. Their leader, Bernard Cournil, was ‘a splendid, large, jovial fellow of great courage and initiative’. It was he who had organized the dropping zone and he, too, who had brought four ox-drawn carts to help transport the nine metal containers of explosives that had also been parachuted from the plane. They were to be hidden in woodland owned by a taciturn and toothless peasant named Monsieur Puech, ‘as strong as one of his own bulls and enormously reliable to his friends’.20

  After a few hours’ rest, Macpherson and his two comrades were introduced to the other members of the resistance. They were disappointed to find that the group consisted of ‘a dozen rugged, ill-armed men with no contacts of any sort’.21 This was not a force equipped to fight the Nazis and Macpherson immediately realized that if he was to wreak carnage, it would be entirely down to his own initiative. ‘Unless things changed radically,’ he said, ‘we weren’t going to be causing the Germans any discomfort at all.’

  Over a cup of acorn coffee, he quizzed Bernard Cournil about strategically important railway lines in the vicinity. Cournil said the one most used by the German Army was the Aurillac to Maurs branch line, just seven miles away. Macpherson decided to blow one of the bridges as a warm-up exercise, killing any German guards if necessary. ‘We certainly had the means to do so,’ he said. ‘In the containers that had dropped with us there were Sten guns, rifles, ammunition, a bazooka, a small two-inch mortar with ammunition and a couple of smoke bombs, a crate of grenades and, finally, the Army’s favourite light machine gun, a Bren gun.’