by Alex Kershaw
20: ONE DAY IN MAY
In the Thielbek’s hold: The Thielbek was a 2,815-ton freighter.
the deck and thrown overboard: Max Arthur, “RAF Pilots Tricked,” The Independent, London, October 16, 2000.
kill them all, but how and when: Kurt Rickert, May 17, 1946, at No. 1 C.I.C. Neumunster, National Archives UK.
“assembled in the Baltic Sea”: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
“enemy naval formations”: Ibid.
as if he were in a slaughterhouse: George Martelli, Agent Extraordinary, 245. 204 “breathe some clean air”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
given orders to sink any German boat afloat: A British army investigator, Noel Till, reported in June 1945: “The Intelligence Officer with 83 Group RAF has admitted on two occasions; first to Lt H. F. Ansell of this Team (when it was confirmed by a Wing Commander present), and on a second occasion to the Investigating Officer when he was accompanied by Lt. H. F. Ansell, that a message was received on 2 May 1945 that these ships were loaded with KZ prisoners but that, although there was ample time to warn the pilots of the planes who attacked these ships on the following day, by some oversight the message was never passed on….From the facts and from the statement volunteered by the RAF Intelligence Officer, it appears that the primary responsibility for this great loss of life must fall on the British RAF personnel who failed to pass to the pilots the message they received concerning the presence of KZ prisoners on board these ships.” National Archives UK, WO 309/1592.
“cannon round at one ship”: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/raf-pilots-tricked-into-killing-10000-camp-survivors-at-end-of-war-634445.html.
to the edge of the deck: Phillip Jackson, interview with author. Then he lowered himself into the cold water. He started to swim for his life. He was lucky because he was not in the target path. After a while, he realized the Thielbek had been severely damaged, because it started listing.
dropped down into the water: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
small town called Neustadt: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
from the port of Lübeck: Ibid.
began to return to the shore: Ibid.
begged and screamed for their help: Ibid.
21: HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE
green tank, its treads clanking: National Archives UK, WO 309/1592.
a plank but “in difficulties”: Phillip Jackson, letter to family, May 8, 1945.
beaches strewn with bodies: Benjamin Jacobs and Eugene Pool, The 100-Year Secret (Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2004), 143.
Neustadt to get some rest: Ibid.
“I’ve escaped and I’m alone now”: Radio France International, November 11, 2010.
“Then come with us”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
he needed to contact relatives: Ibid.
“How can that be?” asked Gicheny: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
of vital use to the Allies: George Martelli, Agent Extraordinary, 247.
washed-up victim to another: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
Some were around Phillip’s age: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
clearly run out of ammunition: Daily Telegraph, March 18, 1982.
with a severed finger: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
“Your husband and son in Germany”: Loraine Riemer, private papers.
deportees from France had not: Stéphane Simonnet, Atlas de la Libération de la France, Des Débarquements aux Villes Libérées (Paris: Autrement, 2004), 68.
“and it is tragic”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
“whole family had died”: Maisie Renault, La Grand Misère, 170.
among them for war criminals: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
“got to killing a German”: Ibid.
“when they arrived in a camp”: Ibid.
“the camp to normal life”: Ibid.
“going from zero to infinity”: Ibid.
Hitler to Paris in June 1940: Ibid. It was difficult to express great emotion. He had used the time in the British army as a “cooling off period.”
then the metro to the Place de l’Étoile: Ibid.
waiting for him at Number 11: Ibid.
happier to see her son: Ibid. Phillip too was overjoyed. Being back at 11 Avenue Foch was scarcely believable. He had been so very lucky to get home. “I had seen people beaten, killed, and many dead bodies,” he would later recall. “For the last four days at Neuengamme, I had carried corpses in wheelbarrows from one place to another. Death was all around. I had lived with it every day, slept beside it. It had become normal.”
22: JUSTICE
“camel hair coat with leather pockets”: National Archives UK, KV2/2745.
“cell was below that of Göring”: http://livreblanc.maurice-papon.net/interv-Helmut.htm.
“with dogs and guns”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
was tagged as number one: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
to testify in English: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
people stood at attention at Neuengamme: Ibid.
“number nine, and number ten”: Ibid.
“placing of the prisoners on the ship”: National Archives UK, W0309/1592.
“the love of all that is human”: Gunther Schwarberg, The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984), 102.
a rope around Pauly’s neck: National Archives UK, WO 235/162.
“know not what they do”: Gunther Schwarberg, The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm, 104–106.
the Special Air Service, the SAS: National Archives UK, KV2/1131.
“condemned to death immediately”: Ibid., WO/235.
“without a brutal disposition”: Ibid.
worked at 84, Avenue Foch: Ibid.
“You will stop this comedy”: Sarah Helm, A Life in Secrets (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 355. On April 28, 1947, Kieffer wrote a final letter asking for clemency: “I beg you to mitigate the death sentence in view of my three minor children who, after the death of my wife 18 months ago, are without a mother. I also beg you to consider that my 71 years old mother lost a son in Czechoslovakia in Febuary this year and has not had any news from another son of hers from Russia for a whole year now.”
“Moggele, I bless you in my last hour”: Ibid., 366.
personally accounted for after the war: Conveniently for those who had run SOE’s F section, namely Vera Atkins and Maurice Buckmaster, Kieffer took to his unmarked grave many secrets, namely the identity of “BOE 48,” arguably WWII’s greatest double agent: Henri Déricourt, whose treachery had destroyed the Prosper network and resulted in the deaths of many brave British agents. When the French tried Déricourt in 1948 for treason, neither Atkins nor Buckmaster testified in person for fear perhaps that the full extent of their bungling might be revealed publicly for the first time. For lack of reliable evidence, the prosecution case collapsed and Déricourt walked free. In 1962, having made a fortune smuggling opium, he was killed in a plane crash over Laos.
“my counterpart in the war”: http://livreblanc.maurice-papon.net/interv-Helmut.htm.
hands of the French: Carmen Callil, Bad Faith, 389.
“deported to the East, were murdered”: David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich, 271.
EPILOGUE: LES INVALIDES
“to still have each other”: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
“skipped from child to adult”: Ibid.
full-time in Enghien instead: Ibid.
faithful maid for over a decade: Ibid.
a boy at 11, Avenue Foch: Ibid.
“Je ne regrette rien”: Francis Deloche de Noyelle, interview with author.
“happy ending,” he stressed: Phillip Jackson, interview with author.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALEX KERSHAW is the New York Times bestselling author of several books on World War II, including The Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, and The Liberator. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
www.alexkershaw.com
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