by Noreen Riols
After he left I was handed a letter he had written to me. It was a beautiful letter. He gave me his father’s name and address, which was his home base, and asked me to get in touch with him. I never did. Perhaps it was discretion on my part, but more likely shyness. I still couldn’t understand why, out of all the women Bill had met, he had chosen me.
That afternoon after our lunch together he left me at the door of the office. I don’t think we even said goodbye. Then, with a smile and a wave, his hand raised to his maroon beret in a final salute, he leapt on a bus. It was the last time I saw him. I was left with a little cameo of a perfect love. Perfect, perhaps, because it had been so brief.
But that was life during the war. One took the rough with the smooth, eagerly grasping happiness with both hands. We lived the fragile moments to the full . . . and hoped for the best. It was all we could do. And, should our worst fears be realized, we picked up the pieces and carried on.
Some of my friends married when their future husbands in the Armed Forces were on embarkation leave, about to sail to an ‘unknown destination’, either the Middle or Far East. And that was hard. Five days was the most anyone in the Armed Forces could hope for as marriage leave; often it was only three. To have to part from your young husband after such a brief spell, knowing that it would be a very long time, probably not until the war ended, before you would meet again, was heartbreaking. But those brides had the consolation of knowing that, although far from home, their husbands would not be alone. They would be travelling with friends in their regiment, or squadron, or on board ship, comrades who would often be in the same situation as themselves. The wives left behind could track their husbands’ journeys by listening to the BBC’s bulletins or watching the Gaumont British newsreels which usually went out several times a day before every cinema programme. And once their husbands arrived at their ‘unknown destination’, the destination became known, and they could follow the regiment’s or the ship’s movements through these same news channels. They could write to them, giving them family news, telling them how much they loved them, how much they missed them, knowing that the letters would be delivered. And hopefully they themselves would receive letters in return. They might not arrive very frequently, and often only in batches, and would certainly be censored, but at least there would be some communication. They were not completely cut off.
The anguish they felt at parting was acute, but it was different from that of a woman who married an agent, because, once he had left, and been infiltrated into enemy-occupied territory, all communication between them ceased. He went alone, cut off from all he held dear.
Chapter 13
The refusal of MI6, and others, to cooperate with, or even to recognize the existence of, SOE resulted in lives being lost unnecessarily, since operations under the auspices of SOE were often duplicated, causing mayhem and confusion. A classic example of this is the Frankton affair, the story of the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’, an incredible feat, orchestrated down to the last detail by Major ‘Blondie’ Hasler of the Royal Marines. It involved more than six months’ secret, intensive training, in which twelve marines took part, and only four survived. It was a tremendously daring and courageous venture, where loss of life could so easily have been avoided had the SOE agents planning the same operation scheduled for the following night, but to be carried out from inside the port of Bordeaux, been involved, or even been informed of the canoe intervention planned to take place from the estuary, which had been authorized by ‘Combined Ops’.
On Remembrance Day 1942, the submarine Tuna slid down the Clyde, carrying with its crew six canoes and twelve Royal Marines commandos. On an evening early in December, ten of the marines were lowered in five canoes into the dark, swirling waters at the mouth of the Gironde estuary. The remaining two, unable to disembark with their comrades since their canoe had been damaged en route, returned to Scotland with the Tuna.
The mission of the ten remaining commandos was to make their way, silently paddling their canoes by night, to the port of Bordeaux and place limpet mines under the six German warships anchored there. Five days later, only Blondie Hasler and his crewman Sergeant Bill Sparks were still alive. Two marines were drowned on the first night; four others managed to make it to the shore, after their canoes capsized: two were arrested on landing, the two others managed to get away but were later caught. Although in uniform, and therefore entitled to be treated by their German captors as prisoners of war, all four were shot. The two remaining marines, Bert Laver and Bill Mills, who had lost sight of Hasler’s canoe some days before, made it alone to the entrance of the port of Bordeaux, where they then linked up with Hasler and Sparks, who had already arrived. They managed, with Hasler, to place the limpets, but Laver and Mills were captured and shot.
Blondie Hasler and Bill Sparks hurriedly scuttled their canoe and escaped. But they were soaking wet and totally unprotected. They no longer had any supplies, money or change of clothes, and more than once had to resort to stealing food in order to remain alive. Had it not been for the charity of the occasional French farmer on whose door they dared to knock, they would certainly have been captured and executed like their fellow marines. As it was, knowing no one and not speaking French, the two of them made a horrendous journey on foot by a circuitous roundabout route to avoid towns and villages and crossed the Pyrenees at night. They finally arrived back in England late the following April, almost six months after their departure.
In September 1942, unaware of the Combined Ops venture, Buck sent orders to Claude de Baissac, organizer of the Scientist réseau, to make preparations to go into action against the shipping in Bordeaux harbour. Charles Hayes, a demolitions expert and sabotage instructor, was parachuted into the réseau on 26 November 1942 to prepare a complicated series of limpet attacks on the blockade runners (German destroyers) anchored in the Gironde; a large amount of ammunition arrived shortly afterwards. De Baissac had an extremely efficient local agent, Jean Deboué, a wealthy self-made man who owned the Café des Chartrons situated right on the quayside, a wonderful ‘lookout post’, which served as de Baissac’s temporary HQ. The ammunition, which had recently arrived from London, was hidden in the cellars of Deboué’s country house at Lestiac. The entire Deboué family was involved in the operation, since Suzanne, his eighteen-year-old daughter, acted as de Baissac’s courier.
Deboué also had many contacts among the workers at the port and had recruited some who worked on the quayside and others who actually worked inside the ships doing repairs and were therefore in a key position to place explosives in a place where they would do the greatest damage. The whole operation was highly organized and had been meticulously planned. There were about fifty local recruits involved and, with the saboteurs actually working inside the ships and not outside, as Hasler was obliged to do, the sixty pounds of explosives Hayes intended to use would have been more than enough, and could have inflicted far greater damage on the warships had it taken place. Sadly, the damage Hasler and his team inflicted on the warships was minimal, and, with the usual German efficiency, within a few days it was easily and swiftly repaired.
Scientist’s operation, which was ready and about to take place when the marines’ Operation Frankton aborted it, would have been carried out more efficiently and been far more successful. Instead, Claude de Baissac and his team, who were gathered, prepared and waiting to attack, were left angry and confused when they heard these sudden explosions coming from the blockade runners in the harbour. It would also have spared the useless loss of young lives which the Hasler operation had incurred. In addition, Mary Lindell’s escape line, which would have taken Hasler and Sparks, the only two survivors, through Tarbes and into Spain and would have been quicker and safer, began only three hundred metres from the port. Had they known of its existence and used it, with luck Hasler and Sparks could have been back home in England in time to celebrate the New Year!
The complete story of the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ is told in Paddy Ashdown’s book
A Brilliant Little Operation, published in September 2012, and in a documentary based on the book which was televised in November 2011, with Lord Ashdown giving the commentary.
But the story does not end there. Early on the morning of 14 October 1943 the Deboué family and Charles Hayes were at the house in Lestiac, upstream from Bordeaux, where the ammunition, parachuted in for use in the operation against the blockade runners, was still stored, when Madame Deboué noticed Germans prowling around the gardens and approaching the house. The family alerted, they stationed themselves at an upstairs window and began firing. Hayes and the Deboué son held the enemy off for about three hours, firing until their ammunition ran out, by which time Charles Hayes had been badly wounded. Suzanne apparently held up his right arm when it received a bullet in order to enable him to keep firing. And when he was also hit in the leg and bleeding profusely he sat on a chair, and Suzanne held up his left arm, his right arm now being useless, to enable him to reach the end of the ammunition.
Madame Deboué, also wounded, got out through a back door but was later captured and taken to a prison hospital. Escaping from there, she wandered in the vines near the village for days, refusing to go back to Lestiac, since both she and her husband had been convinced that all the villagers were collaborators. She was discovered by the local priest, who took her in and cared for her until the end of the war. Jean Deboué, Charles Hayes and Suzanne were captured. Jean Deboué was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, from which he returned, minus a leg, an embittered man. Charles Hayes was executed, probably at Gross Rosen, in August 1944, and Suzanne, who had refused to answer any questions put to her by the Gestapo, was sent to work in a German officers’ brothel, from which she returned at the end of the war, not surprisingly, also very bitter.
Although there was a sixteen-year gap in their ages, Suzanne had fallen madly in love with Hayes, who had promised to come back to Lestiac after the war and marry her. She did later marry and have a family, but remained convinced that Charles Hayes would one day return to make her his wife. Refusing to believe that he had not survived, she pined for him for the rest of her life.
When he was researching his book, Lord Ashdown went down to Lestiac to meet Suzanne, by now well into her eighties, and being cared for by her son, Yves Leglise, named after Charles Hayes, whose codename was Yves. Her son warned him that his journey might be fruitless, since his mother was losing her mind. But Paddy went all the same. On his way back to London he stopped over in Paris and came to lunch with us when he told us about his visit.
Suzanne had cowered in a corner, refusing to speak to him. ‘But, Maman,’ Yves had pleaded, ‘this gentleman has come all the way from England just to see you.’
But her only response was to glower at Paddy and say, ‘He’s not English. He hasn’t got an English face.’
‘That’s probably because I’m Irish,’ Paddy laughed. But she wouldn’t be cajoled, insisting that he was German, convinced that he was a member of the Gestapo come to arrest her. Paddy had asked Yves if there was anything his mother particularly liked which he could bring her. ‘She loves macaroons,’ Yves had told him. So Paddy offered her the macaroons he had brought. She apparently grabbed them and stuffed them into her mouth all at once, terrified lest anyone else in the ‘concentration camp’ should snatch them from her hand. Paddy later heard from Yves that his mother had sunk deeper and deeper into dementia and one day had escaped from the house and disappeared. Was Suzanne searching for her lover? She never forgot Charles Hayes, or gave up hope, refusing right to the end to believe that he was dead, convinced that he would one day come back and marry her. All attempts to find Suzanne or her body have now been abandoned. A tragic family. . . or just another casualty of war!
Sadly, Suzanne Deboué was not the only person who had been unable to pick up the pieces after the war and face reality.
Every year at Valençay, where we meet to commemorate the memory of those F Section agents who did not return, Mlle Fontaine, a sad, pathetic figure, used to join us. I never saw Mlle Fontaine smile. She always came to the ‘Brits’ dinner’ held in an old auberge the evening before the ceremony, and always provided the wine. And very good wine it was. She was brought by a couple who were devoted to her and cared for her until the end of her life. He was a chef and his wife a nurse, and every year they drove Mlle Fontaine to Valençay for the commemoration.
When we gathered in the bar before dinner Mlle Fontaine used to drift in, her eyes searching the assembled guests for a new face. When she spotted one she immediately latched on to him or her, waving under their noses a faded sepia photograph of a young man. ‘Do you know my fiancé? Did you ever meet him? Can you tell me where he is?’ she would plead.
Most of us could give her the answer. But it wasn’t the one she wanted to hear, and she would drift on to the next person, holding her faded photograph. Jean Renaud-Dandicolle, her fiancé, had escaped to England in 1943, been recruited by F Section and trained as a radio operator at the same time as Marcel Jaurent-Singer. In 1944, as ‘René’, Renaud-Dandicolle was parachuted into France near Caen. On 7 July a detachment of German soldiers was seen surrounding the farm where ‘René’ and a few members of the réseau had spent the night. René gave the order to disperse, but only one of the men managed to dodge the German gunfire and escape. René, together with the farmer and his wife who had sheltered them, was captured, taken away and never seen again. In all likelihood they died of their wounds, but since their bodies were never found, there was no actual proof of death.
Marcel Jaurent-Singer, who went to visit Mlle Fontaine when he returned to France and kept in touch with her, said she was an intelligent woman who had held an important post in local government. He is convinced that she knew perfectly well that her fiancé was dead and would not return. She was informed of this years earlier. I only met her in later life, after she had retired, when she was a pathetic figure living in the past, like Suzanne Deboué, refusing to face reality, clinging to the hope that she might one day find someone who could give her news of her fiancé’s whereabouts. Perhaps, living alone after her retirement, she had let herself slide into this fantasy world, convincing herself that Renaud-Dandicolle was still alive, out there somewhere waiting for her, if only she could meet the person who could give her news of his whereabouts.
One year her ‘couple’ arrived alone, but they still brought the wine. Mlle Fontaine had sunk into dementia. The following year they came to tell us that she had been taken to a nursing home, where she could be given professional care. She has since died: a sad, lonely, pathetic woman. A wasted life, in fact.
As I have already remarked, we cannot know in advance what our reactions will be if faced with tragic circumstances. Some survived, some didn’t and became merely ‘casualties of war’.
Could Mary Herbert be put into this category? Perhaps not. She had arrived by felucca at Cassis on the south-west coast of France on 31 October 1942 together with Odette Sansom and George Starr. Mary was sent as a courier to Claude de Baissac’s Scientist réseau in early November shortly before the aborted operation on the German blockade runners in Bordeaux harbour. But a few months after her arrival, de Baissac was recalled to London for rest and debriefing. He left without knowing that Mary was pregnant by him. The pressures and tensions agents in the field laboured under meant that there were many unofficial ‘love affairs’. In most cases these affairs were not serious and rarely came to anything once the agents returned to base. In Mary’s case, it was apparently deliberate. She was thirty-nine years of age when she arrived in occupied France and realized that time was running out for her. And she wanted to have a child.
When Mary’s condition became obvious and she was no longer able to carry out her duties, Lise de Baissac looked after her until Claudine (after Mary’s codename) was born, after which Lise returned to London. One morning, while sitting up in bed in Lise’s flat, feeding her baby, Mary was surprised by the Gestapo, who burst into the room and arrested her. Claudine was
placed in an orphanage and Mary was taken to Gestapo HQ. She succeeded in convincing them that she could not possibly be an SOE agent since she had just given birth to her daughter, sticking to her cover story that she was a widow whose husband had abandoned her in Alexandria – her knowledge of Alexandria and the fact that she spoke Arabic gave authenticity to her story – and in the end they believed her and let her go. They had mistaken her for Lise, the agent they had really come to arrest.
She managed to find baby Claudine and, with the help of two old ladies Lise had introduced her to, found accommodation in Poitiers with a couple who agreed to take in her and Claudine as lodgers. There she laid low until she left for England. When she returned, Claude recognized the child as his and married Mary. But it was a marriage of convenience in order to give Claudine a name, an arrangement which suited them both until 1960, when they divorced. For their daughter’s sake, in spite of the fact that Claude later married, they remained in close contact, and Claudine remembers having a very happy childhood, loved and cared for by both her parents.
Mary never remarried and in January 1983, at the age of seventy-nine, she was found hanging from an apple tree in her garden. She left no note and had given no signs of being anxious or depressed, and there was no obvious reason for what appeared to be her suicide, though both Claudine and her cousin Clothilde, Claude and Lise’s niece, another Mauritian now living in Paris who has become a friend of mine, vehemently refute the idea. Unfortunately, although they both refuse to believe that Mary committed suicide, they can offer no other explanation. It would be interesting to know what the doctor who signed her death certificate thought.
