Hunting the Hangman

by Howard Linskey

  Moravec halted for a moment and looked at each man in turn, searching for a reaction.

  ‘Before you enter into a final commitment, I need to understand if you have any doubts about the nature of the task. This is an assassination, pure and simple, with no room for sentiment or old-fashioned notions of military honour. Are you both prepared to do what is required?’

  Kubiš was familiar with Heydrich’s name through the extensive rumour mill among the Czechs training with the SOE. Each new arrival had his own tale of cruelty involving a relative, neighbour or friend.

  ‘The way you describe the situation in Prague, Heydrich has made himself a legitimate target,’ said Kubiš.

  Gabčík nodded. ‘He is a criminal, a murderer. Murderers are executed.’

  ‘It is important you have no misgivings. Once in the capital it will be too late for second thoughts and I can only send men who are truly dedicated to success. I need agents who will fulfil this mission come what may. It really is that vital.’

  When no other observations were forthcoming, Moravec moved on. ‘I assume you have questions.’

  ‘Is Heydrich well-guarded?’ asked Gabčík, keen to get as much detail from his superior as possible.

  ‘He is not surrounded by bodyguards for the majority of the time, preferring for the most part to travel with just one driver-escort. However, you must always remember you are in a city wholly controlled by the Nazis, with large detachments of SS troops, minutes from all major locations. You can expect an extensive network of spies and, regrettably, paid informers from the civilian population. Remember, not everyone is sad to see the Germans. There are always people who prosper – even from occupation. You must proceed with extreme caution at all times. My advice would be to act as if you were in Berlin.’

  ‘So it may be possible to get close to Heydrich,’ reasoned Gabčík, ‘but how do we get away afterwards, with no help from the resistance, if the whole city is crawling with SS?’

  Moravec took a moment to formulate an answer. He stared down at the blotter in front of him as if the words he needed were etched on it, then straightened and caught Gabčík’s eye.

  ‘That will be part of your plan of action. We will offer advice and assistance but you will be on the ground, so only you can make a judgement on how to kill Heydrich and then make an escape.’ Gabčík and Kubiš remained silent. ‘I will not lie to you about your chances. We have contemplated this mission for some time now and have reached the conclusion that it may be possible to kill Heydrich; difficult but possible. However, we have also concluded that the likelihood of escape following the assassination is slim.’

  There was a silence for a moment that seemed to stretch out before them while each man waited for the other to speak. It was finally broken when Gabčík began to feel a twinge of defiance. Moravec’s uncharacteristic honesty demanded a positive response or they may as well both return to normal duties there and then.

  ‘Slim,’ he said quietly, ‘but not impossible.’

  Was that a half smile from Moravec?

  ‘Prague is a big city,’ added Kubiš, ‘two men could easily lose themselves there.’

  ‘Excellent, then I can assume you are both committed to the mission?’

  ‘You can count on us, sir,’ and Gabčík meant it.

  Even Moravec seemed a little moved at their simple haste to serve the nation.

  ‘I will speak with you again soon. For now, you will report to Major Strankmüller. He will oversee the completion of your training. It is vital we get you both through more night jumps. That will be all for now. Dismissed.’

  ‘Sir!’ they replied in unison, saluting together, before turning on their heels and marching smartly from the room.

  Moravec was left alone to ponder the suitability of Strankmüller’s Joes. They both seemed resolute but did they entirely appreciate the risks involved? He had deliberately tried to expose them to the cold reality of the mission, sparing them nothing, but perhaps they had failed to take his words seriously enough. Did they both fully grasp the notion that attacking Heydrich was very likely to be their last act? For a moment Moravec was assailed by doubts. What right did he have to send these men to their sure and certain deaths? Then he reminded himself he too had made sacrifices for his country. Had he not flown out of Prague in a blinding snowstorm, taking eleven of his finest operatives with him, the very night before German tanks rolled in? Had he not placed the well-being of his country before even his family? How could he forget the tender, unsuspecting face of his wife, as he kissed her on the cheek that morning, knowing he would not be returning to her? His mind went back to the moment more than a year ago, when he had walked to the back of the plane, pretending to do a final head count of his men, before selecting a seat in the furthest part of a commandeered KLM flight. There, alone for the first time in days, he dropped his head into his hands and silently wept as he left Prague and his uncomprehending wife behind him.

  With the memory of her gentle face, and the bitterness of tears he would never admit to shedding now fresh in his mind, he told himself he had earned the right to ask these men to risk their lives. That is what I did he challenged the departed soldiers silently – what are you prepared to do?

  12

  TEN WEEKS LATER

  ‘I am particularly anxious for a successful operation or two’

  Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare,

  responsible for the SOE

  Gabčík was about to explode. Kubiš could sense it. He knew the symptoms well enough. First the pacing, a restless movement that took him from one end of the safe house to the other and back again as if he was trying to find something but it was eluding him. Then the sighing, the head shaking and the grim face combined with the exaggerated frustration when an everyday occurrence served to confound his friend; a mug upended by accident or a tin can that refused to open, which would quickly lead to an eruption of temper. Kubiš knew the true cause of Gabčík’s anger and it wasn’t tin cans that refused to obey orders.

  ‘Ten weeks!’ Gabčík would incredulously remind him. ‘Ten weeks, Jan, and we are no closer to our mission!’

  Actually, it had been two months, two weeks and four days since Kubiš had taken the train to London to team up with Gabčík. He was just as aware of the inexplicable delay as his friend. They had trained until there seemed little point in training further; with all kinds of weapons under every envisaged scenario. Then, once they had peaked, when they reached a level of operational effectiveness that simply could not be exceeded, when they were ready to go and go soon… nothing.

  Jan and Josef were forced to wait in growing frustration until a plane could be found to drop them over Prague.

  ‘I am telling you, Jan, this mission is never going to happen! Never! They can’t even get us over there!’ It was a familiar rant by now. ‘You remember what Moravec said to us in one of the Prague briefings, you remember?’ Kubiš assured Gabčík that he did indeed recall those hopelessly naive words.

  ‘We will get you on a plane in the next few days!’ and his face was a picture of incredulity. ‘We were supposed to go in days not ten weeks!!’

  ‘We’ve been through this. It’s not Moravec it’s the RAF, they won’t give us a plane.’

  Kubiš was beginning to tire of the same rant from Gabčík about the inability of the Czech Secret Service, or the British SOE, to prise a plane from the Royal Air Force. Josef would invariably conclude that all involved were failing to do enough, and their mission to Czechoslovakia should naturally take precedence over all other concerns, such was its vital nature.

  ‘The British, they don’t see it like that. They’ve been fighting the war all this time, virtually by themselves, and they think they can win it their way.’

  ‘What, by bombing the hell out of Germany? That’s not going to win the war.’

  ‘Maybe, Josef,’ he c
onceded, ‘but try telling the British that, when the RAF is sending hundreds of bombers over every night and losing a good number.’

  Gabčík waved his hands in frustration. ‘If they are losing so many they can surely spare us one!’

  It was a ridiculous argument and they knew it. Kubiš didn’t even understand why they were bickering but Gabčík needed to vent his frustration somehow and he did have a point. Without a plane from the British there would be no Operation Anthropoid. Both men, if they were to admit it, had begun to doubt they would ever be sent on the mission.

  Flight Lieutenant Ron Hockey walked briskly across a runway stained white by a sharp morning frost. A bitterly cold wind cut through the unequal RAF tunic he wore, chilling his torso, and he picked up the tempo in an effort to warm himself. Drawing closer to the aircraft he began to make out the muffled voices of his crew, as they went about the pre-flight checks to their new and untried aeroplane.

  The Handley Page Halifax stood in patient expectation before an enormous hangar, set to one side of the runway at RAF Northolt – where it had undergone recent adaptation. The work was designed to convert it from a bomber plane to an aircraft capable of transporting groups of parachutists hundreds of miles before dropping them behind enemy lines.

  The process had caused a frustrating delay. First Hockey was told the Halifax was ready, then it was not – then it was ready but in need of further alteration, and Hockey lost another day – while they removed the bomb bay doors and replaced them with a plywood hatch, which would open up on command, so he could send another fearless Joe spiralling down into the ether. Finally, there was a problem with the winching gear needed to bring in the static lines and Hockey’s frustration turned to anger, as more precious hours were lost.

  The equally impatient airmen in his crew had been waiting a period of time variously described as an eternity, a purgatory and till hell freezes over, depending on which member of the crew was offering his opinion. Conventional wisdom even began to suggest that the maintenance unit worked for a new and secret section of the RAF known as Flight Prevention.

  The postponement led to hours idling in the dispersal hut at Northolt, which served as an impromptu mess area for crews in transit. Here they played cards, brewed up for the umpteenth time, read every word from the day’s newspapers and ate endless pieces of toast. Occasionally, bulletins filtered back on the progress of their aircraft like news of an overdue baby. And still they waited.

  Finally, late one afternoon, Hockey heard from the ground-crew grapevine that his aircraft was approaching completion and he wasted no time in pressing for its release.

  ‘My plane ready yet at all?’ He had been foolish enough to enquire with no preamble.

  ‘It’s not your plane, Hockey,’ answered the officer in charge of the maintenance crew. ‘I think you’ll find it belongs to His Majesty King George. If and when you do get a brand new Halifax from me, it will be strictly on loan.’

  With that, the precious paperwork that would see the Halifax released into his paternal care was finally produced. Hockey gratefully received RAF Form 700 – the aircraft log book – for serial number NF-V L9613 – and realised that implausibly his long wait was finally over. Back at the hut he had insisted on an early start the following morning.

  ‘You can all get some sleep in the afternoon. The quicker you complete the pre-flight checks the quicker your heads will hit the pillows.’

  This statement did not entirely satisfy the six men from 138 Special Duties Squadron who made up Hockey’s regular crew. Their body clocks had failed to fully adapt to rising at dawn after weeks of night flights in their old aircraft, and they were further aggrieved when Hockey let an immense draught in through the opened hut door as he left.

  All of that was forgotten once the crew was finally allowed to fuss purposefully round the new plane the next morning. When Hockey drew nearer to it the bomber’s dark grey silhouette grew ever lighter as the sun slowly rose above it. Pilot Officer Wilkin, his second in command, grinned at him as he reached the plane.

  ‘Got us a nice new Halibag there, sir?’ he said approvingly.

  ‘We’ll see, looks alright but we’ll know for sure when we’re at 12,000 feet.’

  ‘Better than a bloody Whitley, sir, that’s all I’m saying.’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the men. Wilkin had flown in a ‘Flying Coffin’ before and had no desire to ever again experience a channel crossing in the carthorse slow, cigar shaped bomber.

  Sergeant Holden appeared, cheerfully handing each man a steaming mug of tea. Hockey thanked his navigator and wrapped frozen hands around the mug’s comforting heat. He let its warmth pass through him before lifting it to his chapped lips with both hands and sipping its contents.

  Hockey took a step back and surveyed his new bird. It didn’t look at all half bad at that and he felt an impatience to get into the air after the long wait for a serviceable new plane. He was also conscious of repeated delays to his Czech mission. It was theoretically possible he could drop the entire party tonight. The whole thing would depend on the Met office, of course – there were less than half a dozen days a month when a flight could be undertaken into Czech territory. The weather had to be favourable at both ends of the journey and they must avoid the vast banks of cloud that covered most of Central Europe if they were to find their way at all. But, if the run of luck he was having held out, he could give it a shot.

  If Hockey did receive a favourable weather report they could conceivably assemble everyone at short notice if he could get the Halifax to the right location. He was contemplating the solution to this as he strode deliberately away from the Halifax, glancing back at it from time to time, enjoying the effect of the newly risen sun glistening against its freshly painted roundels.

  ‘Tangmere,’ he said to himself absentmindedly as he walked off through the hangar amid the faint, familiar smell of petrol, sawdust and engine oil. ‘That ought to do it’.

  What was Tangmere? A man’s name, a place, a code word? Moravec pondered the answer to his own silent question as he watched Strankmüller.

  The Lieutenant Colonel’s deputy was holding the phone to his ear in rapt attention, and something in his manner told Moravec to close the reports he was analysing and place them back in his desk drawer. Perhaps it was the look of complete absorption on Emil’s face as he listened so intently, with the minimum of interruption, save for the occasional Yes, that’s right, or I understand or emphatic certainly that had Moravec convinced something momentous was afoot. He had waited impatiently as Strankmüller grabbed for a pencil, tore a piece of paper from his notebook then jotted down a brief note.

  ‘Tangmere,’ he had heard Strankmüller say the word aloud as he wrote, and been none the wiser.

  Strankmüller finally concluded and hung up the phone. The head of Czech intelligence understood his deputy’s moods and mannerisms, could read him as easily as the files he had just discarded, and he knew exactly what Strankmüller was going to tell him even before he turned to utter the words.

  ‘It’s on,’ he said.

  On 28 December, Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabčík were informed by a call to Stanhope Terrace that they would be vacating the safe house which had been their home for weeks that very night. Kubiš answered, took a brief message from Strankmüller then beamed at his disbelieving comrade. Gabčík had been wrong and so had he – this mission was going to happen. Their long wait was finally over.

  13

  ‘I have been chosen for a mission.

  I will carry it out come what may’

  Diary entry of Jan Kubiš

  Moravec stood to one side of the Humber staff car, detached from the spectacle he was witnessing. President Beneš walked the grounds of his headquarters – Gabčík and Kubiš either side of him, the three men in private conversation together. The Lieutenant Colonel felt oddly superfluous.

 
Hearing the mission was finally underway, Beneš had insisted on speaking to his volunteers personally. They were met by the President; a bundle of nervous energy who guided them from the building almost as soon as they had entered it. Moravec was surprised to be told, ‘František, if you wouldn’t mind I would like a few moments alone with the men.’ So he had elected to wait for them by the car. Moravec lit up a smoke, puffing at his cigarette self-consciously through a gloved hand and waited for his president’s private briefing to conclude.

  He correctly forecast Beneš would be keen to reinforce the importance of the mission. The President would understandably assume resolve would need to be strengthened – and some form of justification required for the appalling risks the men would soon be taking. Moravec smiled to himself at the thought, for he had spent not a little time with Gabčík and Kubiš of late, and knew the response Beneš would receive. There would be no need for further encouragement. At first Moravec had been slightly distrusting of his agents’ unfettered enthusiasm. Was it some form of front, designed to fool a senior officer? And, if so, what did they really think of the mission? Were they more cynical in private? But no, after a time the Lieutenant Colonel realised they were simply two honest and determined men who believed wholeheartedly in this fight against the Nazis and he reprimanded himself for his own cynicism. There were good men left after all, it seemed.