by Larry Loftis
The SOE Official History Affair
Beginning in the 1950s a number of books were published which criticized the SOE, its effectiveness, and even its integrity. In particular, some alleged that Maurice Buckmaster had been incompetent in his handling of the German infiltration of the PROSPER circuit, and pointed out that the enemy turned no fewer than four F Section radios.
Others attacked the agents themselves. In 1950 six members of the French Resistance signed a letter protesting the accolades and awards given to Peter and Odette. Two of the signatories clearly had an ax to grind: André Girard, the CARTE circuit leader whom Peter had effectively fired; and Baron de Malval, who had been suspected of embezzling SPINDLE funds. In Odette’s debriefing on May 12, 1945, she had stated: “There was some trouble with the Baron de Malval. He was left in charge of some money and when they asked for it, it could not be found. There was some argument and they rather suspected him.”
The letter quietly died but in 1956 de Malval printed and circulated privately Le Journal de la Villa Isabelle, a recitation of Peter’s alleged failures as circuit leader. In it the baron charged that Peter had botched the reception of men and arms in 1943, exhibited poor judgment, and disregarded standard security. As an example of a security failure, de Malval referenced the wireless signal found in Peter’s wallet after his arrest, which the Germans used to arrest the baron:
ON LANDING IN FRANCE THE SEVEN PASSENGERS WILL PROCEED STRAIGHT TO BARON DE MALVAL’S VILLA ISABELLE ROUTE DE FREJUS CANNES.
Edward Spiro, writing after the war as E. H. Cookridge, wrote in Inside S.O.E. that he reviewed de Malval’s documents, found the charges wanting, and surmised the root of the allegations. “The Baron and his wife were kept for many months at the prison of Fresnes,” he wrote. “M de Malval lost the sight of an eye, following the torture he had suffered. It is, perhaps, understandable that he bore a grudge. There is, however, no evidence that these arrests can be blamed upon Peter Churchill’s disregard of security.”
Two years later, in 1958, the original complaint letter mysteriously resurfaced. It was published by the London and Paris press, prompting critical inquiries on both sides of the Channel. Regarding Odette, the challenges came in three scandalous assertions: (1) that her work with SPINDLE had been negligible because she had spent most of her time in bed with her commanding officer; (2) that she survived Ravensbrück because she had an ongoing affair with Commandant Fritz Sühren; and (3) that she had made up the stories of her torture and experience in the Bunker.
All of the charges are refuted by SOE files, but in 1958 those files were classified. It was Odette’s word against theirs, and they went on the attack. Forgetting that Odette was a courier and Peter a circuit organizer, they asked for proof of at least one act of sabotage or act of military significance that Odette or Peter had performed.
Odette’s response was reported in England’s Daily Telegraph on November 24, 1958:
“She [Odette] pointed out that the six men who were making the attack had waited thirteen years before doing so. ‘I know why,’ she said. ‘They are uneasy. And the three men concerned in this thing whose names I know all had a grudge against Peter Churchill. I was not a saboteur, so of course I did no sabotage. I did my job as a courier and it was for that that I got my M.B.E. The George Cross was for my time in captivity.”
The bad publicity, however, had taken root in London; Dame Irene Ward launched a campaign to have Odette’s George Cross rescinded, further stirring the French pot. Ironically, no one could explain how the protest letter was suddenly resurrected after eight years. One of the signatories, Captain Francis Basin, even told a reporter in Paris that he could not understand how it surfaced. “We signed the document in 1950,” he said. “I am mystified that it should now come to light so late.”
While Odette tried to stay above the fray, Peter attacked it head-on, explaining to the Daily Mail that his first assignment was to rescue Captain Basin himself, who was being transported by train in the company of three gendarmes. When Peter had his four French Resistance operatives in place for the snatch, he stated, Basin gave the signal that he didn’t want to be liberated.58 This was the courage of one of the men claiming that Peter and Odette were unworthy of their citations.
As for Odette, Peter was unequivocal in defending his now ex-wife: “I have never known such a brave woman,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “She is an international heroine who faced every imaginable danger. She never shrank from any kind of danger.” And to the notion that Odette’s awards were undeserved, he stated, “It is the most amazing accusation ever made. We may be divorced, but I can still say that but for Odette’s courage under torture, hundreds of others would have been arrested by the Gestapo.”
Peter’s comment was backed up—though no one could see it—by a letter he had written to Colonel Perkins at the War Office on 25 May 1946 to assist in the award of Odette’s disability pension. In it Peter detailed Odette’s knowledge of locations for Arnaud and Lieutenant Colonel Francis Cammaerts, the Gestapo’s torture of Odette to try to gain this information, and statements from Odette’s doctors confirming her torture.
Even more valuable was an affidavit in the SOE files from Cammaerts himself. When Baker Street was investigating Odette’s worthiness to receive her George Cross, Cammaerts had provided testimony on 20 November 1945 that she had saved his life, and the life of Arnaud as well:
I certify that on 17th April 1943, when Ensign Sansom was arrested: ——
(a) The Germans knew of my existence and were most anxious to trace me.
(b) Ensign Sansom was the only person who knew my whereabouts in France.
(c) The Germans also knew that Ensign Sansom had this information.
It is most certain that had she in any way told them where I was, I should have been arrested forthwith. As it was, I remained at the same address for three months, unsuspected and unmolested.
Thanks to Ensign Sansom’s courage and tenacity against determined attempts by the Gestapo, I was enabled to carry on my work without hindrance.
I can also certify that Ensign Sansom knew of contact addresses for Captain Rabinovitch and that none of those addresses were given to the Germans and that Captain Rabinovitch was able to leave France unmolested.
The document and Cammaerts’s identity, however, would remain secret.
Colonel Buckmaster, though, would come to the defense of his famous agents, telling the Daily Telegraph that Odette’s activities were unspectacular by design—she was a courier. If anything she had done before capture was bold or aggressive, he explained, she would not have been properly performing her job, which she did “impeccably.” As for Peter, he added, “What Churchill did must still largely remain secret, but his work in the reconnoitering of means of landing secret agents in France was invaluable and made an entire difference to our operations. That alone would have justified all the decorations.”
With Peter’s and Buckmaster’s rebuttals, the French controversy subsided. In London, however, the matter persisted. Dame Irene Ward continued her push for an SOE investigation, and the rescinding of Odette’s George Cross and M.B.E. Working the political back channels, she sent correspondence to her colleagues in Parliament, including a letter to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on May 6, 1959, urging action.
The response of the officials was cool. Robert Knox, British councilor and future mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, wrote to Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook on May 8, pointing out that: (a) other than the press reports from November 1958 to March 1959, the validity of the award had not been challenged; (b) Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, head of SOE, had sponsored the original recommendation and retained the view that the award was valid; and (c) when a decoration for gallantry had been issued, only misconduct of a very particular nature—such as high treason—would warrant a recommendation for cancellation.
Considering the matter and relevant issues, Brook advised Timothy Bligh, principal private secretary to the prime minister, that
any inquiry into the worthiness of Odette’s decorations was unwise. In a letter on June 1, 1959, he stated:
“There seems to be no precedent for reviewing the grounds for a gallantry award. To reopen this case now on the basis suggested by Miss Ward would in effect call in question the wisdom of the Sovereign’s original decision to make the award.”
Brook advised that the prime minister should send a short response to Irene Ward politely dismissing her suggestion of inquiry.
Prime Minister Macmillan did just that. In a letter to Dame Irene on June 3, he wrote:
“I have studied the enclosed documents, which you sent to me with your letter of May 6. It would be a novel course to try to review, after an interval of 12 years, the grounds on which was made a recommendation to the Sovereign for a gallantry award. I do not think there is any precedent for such a review—or any procedure for carrying it out.”
A week later, the impetus for Ward’s bizarre preoccupation with Odette’s decorations became clear. In a letter to Bligh on June 10, Secretary Brook wrote:
“In this further letter Dame Irene Ward comes out into the open and admits that what really bothers her is that the George Cross should have been awarded to a woman who had a lover. This confirms my view that her representations afford no ground for reviewing the award, even if it were practicable to do so.”
The challenge to Odette’s and Peter’s decorations was officially over.
The attacks on their work and accomplishments, however, were just getting started.
* * *
PERHAPS TO RESOLVE ONCE and for all the myriad allegations and controversies surrounding SOE and many of its agents, the British government commissioned an official history of Baker Street’s operations in France. Its choice for this monumental work was Oxford historian M. R. D. Foot, who began in the fall of 1960.
Strangely, in what some might call academic malpractice, the government prohibited Foot from interviewing the best primary sources: the SOE officers and agents themselves. Who would know better the procedures and decisions made than Colonel Buckmaster and his incomparable assistant, Vera Atkins? And how was Foot to write about events where little or nothing was recorded in SOE files? If the Oxford scholar was unable to speak with eyewitnesses, from what source or material would he establish a foundation?
As any historian knows, reports found in archive files are often inaccurate or conflicting; the only way to formulate what really happened is to review the files and compare them with the testimony of the participants themselves. Using established legal evidence rules such as “closer in time” and “customary recording procedures,” the scholar can weigh, evaluate, and sometimes synthesize various accounts.
Buckmaster, for one, was repelled by the restriction. In a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Boxshall,59 Maurice wrote: “I cannot think that the ban imposed upon the author against meeting me and discussing the more obscure questions can have served either the interests of the historian or of the readers, and I regard it as an unmerited discourtesy.”
Foot compounded the problem by not allowing surviving agents who figured prominently in the book—including Odette and Peter—to review his completed manuscript before publication. He did, however, allow Maurice Buckmaster to review galley proofs, and the colonel challenged several inaccuracies.
Given that a number of SOE files had been lost or destroyed by fire at Baker Street after the war, the decision to not allow key agents a prepublication review was inexplicable. Foot also admitted that the files in Paris were “virtually unavailable” to him, that “good agents kept few papers when at work,” and that “unpublished archives are often contradictory as well as confusing and confused.”
Foot completed his original draft near the end of 1962 and offered it for review to several government officials and his publisher, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Many, particularly those at the Treasury Solicitor’s Office, were concerned that Foot’s critical comments about some agents—including Odette and Peter—invited libel actions. During a discussion of the first galley proofs with Maurice Buckmaster on January 1, 1965, Foot apparently recorded a highly critical notation:
“Buckmaster affirmed to have been horrified when Odette was awarded the George Cross. He had recommended her only for the M.B.E. (which she got). He had no hand in drafting the citation for the George Cross. Odette was capable of disobeying orders. So was Churchill. Sex took the upper hand with the known dismal results. They should both have been court martialled.”
The criticism was shocking on several fronts. First, the statements fly in the face of Buckmaster’s own words in his 1958 memoir, They Fought Alone. Not only does Buckmaster fail to criticize the SPINDLE team, he goes out of his way to commend them. Regarding Peter, he wrote: “Peter Churchill was here, there and everywhere—testing methods of introducing our men into France, recruiting new units and encouraging existing ones—in short, doing the work of ten men.”
And when evaluating the work of his best agents, Buckmaster named Peter first: “Men like Peter Churchill were tremendously valuable, and their dynamism and that of others like them held the organisation together. From the beginning of 1942 these men were the lynchpins.”
Regarding Peter and Odette as a team, he stated: “Peter Churchill and Odette had both been caught somewhat earlier, but the organisation in which they had been most concerned was still able to continue without them, so well had they done their work.”
Equally perplexing is that none of these allegations appears in SOE files recorded during the war. Indeed, Odette had made a grievous error in not leaving the Hôtel de la Poste immediately after receiving the cable from London, but her decision was partially mitigated by orders to find a landing spot for Peter, and her belief that she had several days before Hugo Bleicher would return.
The notion that Peter was capable of insubordination is also puzzling. Judging from Buckmaster’s memoir, Peter seems to be Maurice’s favorite agent, a conclusion supported by Leo Marks, SOE’s chief cryptographer, who wrote: “Buckmaster was deeply involved with all his agents, but Peter was in a special category. He was not only Buckmaster’s friend but a member of his headquarters staff with a detailed knowledge of his forward planning.”
Finally, Peter’s promotion to major seems to confirm the high regard in which he was held by his superiors.
Perhaps most troubling was the assertion that “Sex took the upper hand with the known dismal results.” There is nothing in the SOE files to indicate or even intimate that Peter and Odette were having sex. Neither Buckmaster nor Peter in their works imply such activity.
And Foot appears to have assumed not only sex, but regular sex, based either on a comment from Buckmaster (which seems unlikely, given his lack of evidence) or perhaps from Hugo Bleicher’s account of arresting them. If the latter, Foot seems to have misread Bleicher’s statements, concluding that Hugo found Peter and Odette in bed together on the night of their arrest.
This is not the case. To the contrary, the German contends clearly that they occupied separate rooms. He writes: “Odette opened the door of her room . . . I ceased to watch Odette and looked into the room next door.” (Emphasis added.) Bleicher’s statement is in accord with Peter’s Duel of Wits, wherein he states that they had separate rooms.
Nevertheless, having implied sex, Foot compounds the assertion by suggesting that sex was the cause of the arrest (“the known dismal results”). Worse, Foot, in his early draft, seemed to question the worthiness of Odette’s George Cross by suggesting that there was no evidence of the Gestapo tearing out her toenails, and highlighting this charge by stating that Tickell’s biography was “partly fictionalized” (without indicating which part).
As it turned out, some of the pages of Odette’s debriefing on 12 May 1945 were inexplicably missing—one page ending with “They were to be,” followed by a new section. To Foot’s defense, the extant pages of the May 12 report do not mention the toenail torture. On page 13 the report notes that Odette clai
med not to know the whereabouts of Arnaud and Roger Cammaerts, and that her captors held her hands behind her and burned her shoulder. It includes a detailed description of the Frenchman highlighted in the Tickell biography, and tracks the sequence of Odette refusing to give information and the Gestapo’s frustration and concerted effort to extract more by torture. The page ends with: “the tall thin man said he would think of something else that might make her talk.”
Foot should not have missed, however, the letter on 31 May 1946 from Odette’s physician, Dr. Markowicz, wherein he declared: “Mrs. O. Sansom has been under my care since June 1945. At that time, some nails on her toes were missing; there was on her back a rounded scar of about half an inch diameter, the result of a burn deliberately inflicted.” (Emphasis added.)
Further, Foot should have seen the War Office’s 6 June 1946 recommendation to General Colin Gubbins for Odette to receive the George Cross: “I believe you expressed the opinion that we would have little chance of obtaining a George Cross for Sansom unless we were able to produce concrete evidence that she refused to speak under torture. I am afraid that such evidence is impossible to obtain for, as this torture was carried out in solitary confinement, the only witnesses would be the torturers themselves or the Gestapo interrogators. I hope and pray that these men have long since been shot.
“Circumstantial evidence is given in the statements by Mlle. Herail and Lt. Col. Cammaerts. Miss Sansom was definitely tortured as is evident from the medical certificate, and she did not disclose information regarding her contacts as can be seen from the statement by Lt. Col. Cammaerts and the continued freedom from arrest of those with whom she was working.”
Others noticed these glaring issues, and Treasury Solicitor officials again voiced their fears of libel claims. On April 18, 1966, ten days before Foot’s SOE in France was to be published, the Solicitor’s Office put its objections in writing to Lieutenant Colonel Boxshall:
“I have been through Mr. Foot’s three notebooks and can find no references in them to the Odette Sansom files. It is unfortunate that part of the interrogation of Odette Sansom dated 12th May 1945, and the shorter interrogation of the same date, are incomplete. There has clearly been removed from the main document at folio 326, certain pages at the end. I do not know why or where these pages are. It is of some importance because Foot says in his book that in her formal interrogation on her return she made no reference to this incident at all. I do not see how he can say this if he has not seen the whole of the interrogation. I feel that Counsel for Mrs. Hallowes could make considerable play with this document as it stands at the present.”
