Churchill's White Rabbit

by Sophie Jackson

  Meanwhile the usual politics had Forest almost tearing his hair out. He had composed a damning report of Sophie and Baudet after his experiences in France, but there were supporters of the pair in London who refused to believe the allegations. Instead they set out to blacken Brossolette’s name and, by extension, Forest’s. Even the officials Forest was reporting to were torn by the remarks. Forest knew all this but could do nothing about it. Instead he was put in an office interviewing prospective candidates for the Jedburgh teams SOE was forming.1

  He was also increasingly troubled about Brossolette’s safety in France. There was no doubting now that the Germans were actively searching for him and he needed to be rescued as soon as possible.

  He was not the only one who was concerned. In December 1943 the Free French decided that it was time to bring back Brossolette and another agent, Emile Bollaert. Forest was given the task of organising the rescue operation and relished the chance to finally be doing something that could directly benefit his friend. He arranged for two Lysanders carrying four agents to France to pick up Brossolette and Bollaert before returning home.

  On 10 December he drove to Tangmere airfield with the four nervous new agents. The Lysanders were ready and waiting for them, but the door of the plane was as far as Forest could go. He wished the men well and, despite poor weather, the aircraft took off on time. There was nothing Forest could do but wait for their return, hopefully with Brossolette safe and sound.

  It was impossible not to have some concerns about the dangers of the operation. Every time an aircraft took off on operations during the war there was a high chance that it would not be coming back. Forest was a realist. He knew the risks, the many things, both mundane and disastrous, that could go wrong and cause the mission to abort. But he had to cling to the hope that soon his friend would be safely back in England.

  Five hours passed and then the whine of an engine indicated the return of one of the Lysanders. Forest got up anxiously, but when the door opened he was disheartened to see the same agent he had wished-well only a few hours before, exiting it. The bad weather had deteriorated during the flight and it had been impossible for the pilot to make out the landing site. In the end he had had to return without landing.

  There was still the hope for the second Lysander and Forest sat down to wait again. Two more hours passed, making it seven since the second Lysander had taken off. The time far exceeded the amount of fuel the aircraft had had for the journey and there was no longer any doubt that some accident had befallen it. Forest returned to London disappointed and more worried than ever about his friend.

  As usual it took a couple of days for news about what had happened to filter in. The second Lysander had never even made it to the landing site. It had been shot down in a hail of anti-aircraft fire, killing the pilot and his passengers. The agents had never even had a chance to begin their work in France.

  News on Brossolette was equally discouraging. While waiting at the landing site he heard that his safe house had been raided by the Germans, so when his aircraft failed to show he had to flee back to Paris. With the weather in England getting worse there was no hope of launching another mission soon and Brossolette was getting desperate.

  In a message sent to London, Brossolette indicated that he was making arrangements with SIS (MI6) to get home on one of their cross-Channel naval operations. Forest was not pleased with this news and tried to convince his friend to hang on for another three weeks when the next moon period would enable him to send more Lysanders. For the time being Brossolette relented and agreed to wait.

  It is hard to imagine the terror that hung over Brossolette in those last few days. Constantly on guard and with the dread that another Lysander operation might prove similarly abortive, he spent his days hiding from sight and watching his back. The burden of the fear must have become overwhelming – no surprise then that eventually he could take the situation no more and again started pursuing SIS sea routes for his escape.

  Forest was unaware that Brossolette was reneging on his promise – he was working hard to have himself sent back to France to replace his friend as well as doggedly promoting the Maquis cause for greater numbers of parachute supply drops. There was nothing lacking in Forest’s determination and the culmination of his efforts was an interview with Prime Minister Winston Churchill to plead his case. In fact there had already been long discussions in Whitehall about the irregular drops being delivered to the Maquis and Forest’s opinion on the matter probably helped Churchill get the personal insight into the problem that enabled him to win the debate. The very next day Churchill was sending direct instructions that the amount of supplies to the Maquis should be increased and that not even bad weather should stall SOE’s endeavour to arm their secret army.

  It was brilliant news for Forest, but his jubilation was short-lived. Arriving for work one day he was told that Brossolette had been arrested trying to use one of the SIS sea routes. Forest later recorded: ‘The blow was stunning. For a few seconds I was numbed, then my brain began to function again, thoughts came rushing through my head, in a flash I relived all our adventures.’2

  Though angry that his friend had disregarded his advice, he was hardly surprised, knowing the dangers that Brossolette faced. More importantly his mind raced about what to do for the best. It seemed the Germans were currently unaware of the significance of their arrest, but it would only be a matter of time before the dye Brossolette used to mask his distinctive white streak would fade and his real identity would become clear. He had to do something to rescue his friend and as his conscience tortured him about leaving his comrades behind for the safety of London, he began to plan his third mission.

  What really happened to Brossolette? At the beginning of February Brossolette and Bollaert managed to secure passage on a SIS vessel. As is apparent he had already waited far longer than the three weeks Forest had begged him for and with the Germans snapping at his heels he could hardly be blamed for looking for another way to escape when his promised Lysanders seemed to have forgotten him. One night in February the pair boarded the Jouet des Flots, a small cargo vessel working for SIS, at Brittany. The plan was that the vessel would sail them all the way to Cornwall, but what happened next was pure bad luck.

  When coming into shore in the depths of night the captain of the Jouet des Flots misjudged the tides and the vessel struck the bottom and sprang a leak. Even so, it should be able to limp to England, so the thirty-one passengers boarded and hoped for the best. It was not to be their night. The sea was stormy and in the heavy swells the engine became flooded and then failed, and before long Jouet des Flots was sinking. Her captain managed to beach her at Feunteunot Creek, near Plogoff, before she was lost completely and his entire passenger list was disembarked once again.

  Fortunately the local resistance were well organised in the area and they rescued Brossolette and temporarily housed him at a local inn, planning to move him inland the next day. As promised a car called for Brossolette and Bollaert and they set off inland, tired and frustrated. It was not long before they ran into a German roadblock. The car’s papers and the false ones of the two agents were perfectly in order and could not be faulted, but the Germans on duty that day were clearly suspicious and after close questioning they found a crack in the men’s seeming ordinariness: they had no papers granting them permission to be in the Special Coastal Security Zone.

  It was an appalling oversight. Somehow missed in the panic to get away, the vital missing papers placed Brossolette directly in the Germans’ hands, even if, for the time being at least, they were unaware of his significance. Whether SIS or Brossolette himself were to blame for the error, it was a foolish mistake. There was at least some consolation that the arresting Germans believed his false identity of Paul Boutet.

  Rescuing him was imperative. Forest was desperate to save his friend, but loyalty would not be enough to sway his superiors into allowing him to go back to France. He had to make it clear to them how dangerous it woul
d be to the resistance as a whole if Brossolette was identified: ‘If I got caught, I knew all that there was to know about the underground but, even more dangerous, I knew a very great deal about our staff planning. Supposing I talked under torture, I could give away a tremendous lot of information.’3

  With arguments like this Forest made it clear that Brossolette had to be extracted, no matter the risks. On 15 February the draft plan for Forest’s newest operation, Asymptote, was submitted to the head of RF Section. Significantly it ignored Forest’s intentions to rescue Brossolette and instead emphasised that this was another fact-finding mission designed to reinforce the security of the networks and ensure that they did not fall apart after the arrests of Brossolette and Bollaert as they had done after the loss of Jean Moulin. Forest decided that it was safest not to quibble about the wording; once in France he could do as he pleased, the important thing was getting there.

  In the midst of all this, Barbara was conveniently left in the dark. She had devoted herself to Forest’s work with SOE, learning French, entertaining his colleagues and even joining the BCRA, but increasingly she found it hard to accept her lover’s attraction to danger. No sooner did she have him home to safety then he was yearning to be back in the action. Was it so wrong that she resented the loyalty he had for Brossolette when it seemed to completely override the loyalty he had to her?

  It was no wonder then that Forest failed to tell her about Asymptote. Years later, with the war behind him, Forest realised the emotional agony he had put Barbara through, but at the time he was caught up in the whirlwind of events and nothing could deter him from returning to France. Was he right or wrong? Perhaps neither, or perhaps both. In wartime, loyalties inevitably become torn and for every serviceman that risked his life, whether at sea, in a plane or on land, there was a loved one waiting in misery at home for them to return, or not. Forest had his duty and for that he would risk Barbara’s love.

  The first she knew of his intention to go back to France was when the wife of a BCRA officer phoned her and asked if she would like to visit once Forest had gone abroad. Understandably Barbara was furious. Accosting Forest with the information, he played on the age-old excuse ‘I was going to tell you’ and did his best to avoid her wrath. Barbara could not be appeased however, and in utter fury told him that even if he returned from this mission she would not be there to welcome him back. With the arrogance that was a prevalent part of Forest’s character, he told her equally bluntly that he was certain she would be waiting for him. With this discord still playing on his mind he finished his preparations for his mission.

  There was an atmosphere of apprehension surrounding the preparations for Asymptote. Forest’s friends made efforts to dissuade him via Barbara, but their currently tempestuous relations made her in no fit state to persuade him. It did not help her state of mind that even senior members at the BCRA were convinced that Forest was heading for his death if he journeyed to France.

  They were not the only ones with concerns. Forest was riddled with his own doubts and a deep sense of foreboding enveloped him: ‘For the first time, I had a feeling of impending disaster. I had a premonition that this time I would not get away with it…’

  He even felt compelled to make a will, something he had not even considered before, but Forest was not usually a superstitious man and he pushed the doubts aside. Even so he asked to be issued with a Welwand, the latest in SOE’s extensive catalogue of unique weapons. The Welwand, popularly known as a Sleeve Gun, looked like an uninspiring stick but was designed to be an assassination weapon or a last-resort device if an agent was captured. Attached on a lanyard up the agent’s sleeve so as to be hidden, it could be easily released by detaching the lanyard from a button on an agent’s belt, which enabled the Welwand to slip into his hand. Preloaded and with a silencer, the gun would fire a single shot without ejecting the bullet cartridge or making a noise. Forest acquired one of the latest models, which fired a .32 bullet, and hoped for Barbara’s sake that he was never in a situation requiring its use.

  There were more concerns about the outcome of his mission when continual bad weather forced SOE to consider sending Forest outside the normal moon period. This would mean he would not benefit from moonlight to guide his path or help him find his reception committee. Despite the risks he agreed to the arrangement.

  He was destined to fly on 24 February, and he ate a farewell meal with Barbara. A number of his friends came to see him off, only increasing his dread that something would go wrong on his mission. He had an overwhelming desire to run back to Barbara as he got into the car, and had a terrible anxiety in his stomach that he would never see her again, but then he was on his way to the airfield and to his newest mission.

  There was nothing auspicious about Forest’s latest mission. Loaded into a Halifax with another agent, codenamed Trieur, the flight over the coast was the usual run of anti-aircraft flak. It would have been easy for Forest to let his mind slip back to that mission in December when the Lysander and its cargo of agents perished in the storm of German fire. But the Halifax ran into no difficulties and it wasn’t long before they were circling over the landing site at Clermont-Ferrand.

  Parachuting in moonlight was not exactly easy, but in the darkness of an almost moonless night it seemed impossible. Forest hooked himself to the static line and stared down at the reassuring lights of the reception committee. The despatcher on the aircraft had told him it would be a 20 second drop, which at least meant the ordeal would not last long. A hand fell on his shoulder to signal that the Halifax was in position and Forest launched himself through the hole. Seconds can seem like minutes during such a drop. Forest was counting steadily, his mind focused on preparing himself for a smooth landing. As he reached 13 seconds he smacked into the ground with a force like a car slamming into a wall. Forest was knocked unconscious by the surprise impact. The pilot had misjudged his distance and instead of flying at 500ft had clearly been much closer to the ground. When Forest came round it was to be greeted by the concerned face of the reception committee organiser and a sharp pain in his ankle. Unsure whether he had broken anything he managed to hobble with the reception committee to a secure farmhouse, half a mile away. Trieur had dropped safely in the next field and joined them shortly.

  The injury to Forest’s ankle proved to be a sprain and, although by the next morning it was swollen, it had not dampened his determination to reach Paris as soon as he could. Along with Trieur he was bundled into an old bus driven by a French farmer and escorted along rutted icy roads at breathtaking speed. Along the way novice agent Trieur had a heart-stopping moment when gendarmes entered the bus to check their papers. Fearing that there might be something incriminating on his SOE forged papers, or that he would be searched and his hidden revolver and sabotage plans discovered, he could barely contain his nerves as the inspection proceeded. Glancing over his shoulder at Forest he realised with envy that his fellow agent had managed to fall asleep and had to be woken to present his papers. Of course Forest was the master of catching forty winks whenever he could, knowing that any moment he might be called upon to perform some exhausting feat of espionage or escape.

  Paris loomed. Forest lost no time in contacting his old colleagues. A BBC message had informed them of his imminent return and they were delighted, though apprehensive. Maud welcomed him with open arms; she was one of his bravest and most loyal followers. Jacqueline Devaux was persuaded to find a safe house for Trieur, who had entered Paris with no contacts aside from Forest. He was alarmingly unprepared for his adventure and Forest spent some time giving him hard-earned advice from his previous experiences. Finally settled in his flat at Neuilly, he began his legitimate mission objectives, while also surreptitiously planning his Brossolette operation.

  Morale among the resistance had sunk again. That hardly surprised Forest, but it had less to do with the arrest of Brossolette and more to do with the lack of arms being dropped from England. There had been no new supplies in months and this had led t
o feelings of despondency and discouragement. How could a resistance movement remain active without the necessary weapons and money to fuel them? Forest fell into the consolation role, telling his comrades about his meeting with Churchill and the prime minister’s promise for 200 planes a month to be sent on missions to France. He had no idea if SOE would stand by such orders, but he had to give his followers some hope and, at least for the time being, they were satisfied that things would improve.

  That is, all but the communists were satisfied. They had other grievances to air to Forest. Why were their operators, despite being well trained and efficient, not being allowed to work on reception committees? Biting his tongue over the communists’ refusal to work with SOE yet expecting everything in return, he put them in touch with some of his colleagues so that they might share in the supplies. More than ever, in this tense political minefield, he missed the cool composure and sour wit of Brossolette, who was so able to cut through all this nonsense.

  For a new mission Forest needed a new identity. In fact he had several, but his most comprehensive, the one that would hopefully stand up to Gestapo inspection, was that of Squadron-Leader Dodkin. SOE always put a great deal of energy into cover stories, knowing that they could often be the key to a man’s success or failure in the field. It was always advisable that an agent take on an identity he was familiar with – there was no point pretending to be a dentist when in real life the operator was a greengrocer, that would only lead to complications and blown cover at some point – so it was logical for Forest’s new identity to be an RAF man.

  He borrowed his cover from an actual living person. Squadron-Leader Dodkin was on the operational flying list, however he had been grounded permanently and there was no way he could end up back over France, but the Germans did not know that. So Forest spent several hours with Dodkin learning his life history, picking up his mannerisms and any useful titbits of information that would turn him into a believable replica. It was not common practice for agents to swap identity with a real person, but as Forest pointed out, if he was arrested the only way he could avoid torture and interrogation was by claiming that he was in uniform and thus had to be treated as a prisoner of war rather than a spy. This was a very complicated point in the regulations of war. In general terms, if a man was arrested in his military uniform he should automatically be deemed a prisoner of war and thus would forego the appalling treatment meted out to supposed spies. He could also not just ‘vanish’, and the Red Cross would have to be informed of his presence. It was a loophole in the rules of warfare that the Gestapo were constantly trying to outmanoeuvre.