Chapter 8

May 1942 – November 1944

In late May, I received orders to return to my previous role as a radio operator, but this time at the SOE’s new radio centre in Grendon Underwood. I dug out my WAAF uniform and reported for duty. I kept my physical fitness by running and, as I searched my emotions, I found my trip to occupied France had evaporated my guilt and shame – but the scars from my earlier failure remained; beneath them lingered the remnants of those dark, destructive creatures that had so nearly consumed me. With my demons at bay, I forged some friendships with a few of the girls I worked with. They tried to set me up with a few men, but I decided I had no time for romantic entanglements until after the war: I wanted to get back to France.

I remained at Grendon Underwood until November 1943, when they recalled me to Baker Street.

By this time, everyone knew that the invasion was coming – and I’m sure the Boche knew this too, but they had to guess where and when the blow would fall. They had to defend a coast from the Spanish border to Norway on their west flank and along the northern Mediterranean to the south – where they’d already lost ground in Italy.

The work of Section F ratcheted up. SAS (Special Air Service) patrols needed briefing about France and the Maquis. They had created mayhem and chaos behind enemy lines in north Africa and once the invasion started, they’d do the same in France. I went to various places in southern England – never on a military base – staying with each patrol for several days to brief them as they worked up for this task. They would operate independently from the Maquis, but they still needed to understand something about France and the Resistance: I provided that.

But there had been no mention of my direct involvement on the ground. The idea of returning to France to participate in its liberation stirred visceral fear of capture and what would follow ... and yet I felt this irresistible need to go. Liberation also seduced me with elated visions of playing a part in it. Upon self-examination, I discovered I feared breaking under interrogation and betraying the cause. I did not fear the death that would follow.

Did my death truly matter so little to me?

After weeks of dithering, in January I summoned the courage to beard Mr Buckmaster in his Baker Street office.

“Sir – a word, please?”

Mr Buckmaster’s eyes narrowed – I think he knew what I wanted to talk about. “Come in, Miss Roberts.” He waved me to a chair in his office. “How can I help you?”

I struggled, trying to find a way to start. “Umm ... sir, I ... er...”

Mr Buckmaster smiled. “You want to go back to France?

I nodded.

He leaned back in his chair. “Well, we need you to finish your work with the SAS.”

“Yes, sir. But after that?”

He breathed out through steepled fingers. “You’ve done – and continue to do – your bit.”

I remained silent. I wasn’t sure about that. The operation to Bruneval had been a walk in the park compared to some of the whispered stories I’d heard.

We stared at one another before he leant forward with a sigh. “Okay, Colette. I’ll think about it.”

My stomach tightened. “Thank you, sir.”

“No guarantees, mind.” His face held a friendly glower. “Now, off you go and finish getting the SAS sorted.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Working with the SAS had its moments. They held themselves in high esteem and some thought I must be there for their carnal benefit. Most backed off when turned down, but a few pushed harder. As I always took part in the physical jerks and unarmed combat training with them, the persistent men realised, despite my small size, I could defend myself if they tried it on – and my aptitude with explosives impressed them. Word percolated through the groups and I heard myself referred to as the Ice Maiden – and the amorous advances petered out.

As winter became spring, talk of the upcoming invasion dominated and my work with the SAS groups continued. Then in April with the SAS groups trained, I went to Manchester for my delayed parachute qualification, which meant a possible operational role for me. The faint beat of butterfly wings started in my stomach.

We commenced our training by jumping off walls onto palliasses and then graduated to jumping off the back of a slow-moving truck onto grass. We got hung in a parachute harness inside a hangar and learned how to control the parachute by pulling on the shrouds. For our qualifying jump we boarded a Stirling. If you refused to jump, according to rumours, they’d send you off to some terrible job in the middle of nowhere. Eight of us sat there as the aircraft accelerated down the runway and climbed to our drop location, each of us communing silently with our nerves as the noise made conversation impossible.

The red ‘ready’ light came on and we lined up, hooking on our static lines. The jump master checked us over. When he slid back the door, the rushing air roared as loud as the engines.

Green light.

I was number four. When number three jumped I took the position, hands on either side or the door. The airflow buffeted me and I gripped harder.

Smack.

The jump master’s ‘go’ signal practically pushed me out of the plane – but I managed to push off with my feet, salvaging some of my pride. Sky and land whirled for a long moment of confused falling before the opening parachute jerked me upright. Below and behind I saw the chutes of the preceding jumpers and I grabbed the shrouds to try to steer myself into wind. The heath below accelerated towards me and I adopted the landing position, hit and rolled. The chute dragged me across the ground propelled by the wind, but I heaved on the shrouds to collapse it, helped by a gorse bush that snagged one side.

With its voluminous folds gathered somewhat securely in my arms, I headed for the waiting truck, waddling like a duck due to the parachute harness.

“Well done, Miss. Put your chute in the trailer.”

I smiled at our instructor and doffed the harness, piling it and the chute into the cavernous trailer. Back at the base, they presented us with our parachute wings and hustled us off to the station to get trains to our postings. My orders had me headed back to Baker Street and Section F where I received orders to return to France, liaising with the Maquis in the Vosges, northeast France.

After some weeks of briefing and coding practice, I jumped from a Wellington on the night of 25^th May 1944 near Saarebourg, west of Strasbourg, along with cannisters of equipment: arms and explosives for the Maquis. This time, I was Marie Gilles – a seventeen-year-old orphan from Strasbourg.

The parachute drop and link up with the Maquis went like clockwork. I retrieved my radio and bags from one of the cannisters dropped with me before the Maquis whisked them away. Two Frenchmen – Alain and Georges – led me off into the wooded hills. They had fled Saarebourg to avoid the forced labour draft. They based themselves in various dilapidated woodsman’s huts scattered though the forested hills south of the town. We only stayed two nights in any one place, using dead letter drops to communicate to and fro with our information sources. Some people in this region close to the German border regarded themselves as German not French – which made things complicated and dangerous.

On 6^th June, the allies landed in Normandy and the Vosges started to hope for liberation as the Allies first gained a beachhead and then ground their way inland through the Normandy boccages.

Alain and Georges picked up information from the dead drops and occasionally met with their contacts, returning with reports that I coded and transmitted. There were rumours that the Boche might reinforce the Vosges – but we had no solid information. In one message, I sent back the location of a concentration camp at nearby Natzweiler into which Maquis prisoners disappeared, never to be seen again.

Radioing back information presented problems, in part because the hills restricted the radio signal but also because the wooded, hilly terrain with few tracks and no roads offered few easy escape routes. Many routes were little better than animal tracks, but Alain and Georges knew the wooded hills well and found safe transmission locations for me; I sent my short messages, recorded any response and we scooted off. We knew the SD had listening vans based in Saarebourg, but they had to stay on the few roads. One of the return messages told us the SD knew of a new transmitter in the Vosges. All we could do was shrug at the news and carry on, moving locations after each transmission.

By mid-August, the allies had broken out, stormed across France and liberated Paris. The Nazis were streaming back towards Germany in a retreat that was almost a rout. Our excitement rose and we talked about welcoming allied troops. We fed back what information we had about troop movements as the Nazis retreated.

The radio came with a hand-powered dynamo to recharge the battery, but on 20^th August it stopped working after Alain dropped it. We cranked the dynamo, heard it whirring – but no current came. I now had a radio with enough charge for one transmit and listen session.

I hefted the wretched object in my hands. “We need to charge the batteries and get this fixed.”

Georges shook his head. “That means a visit to a town with a repair shop we trust.”

“Is there such a place near here?”

Alain and Georges exchanged a look.

“I think so, in Saarebourg.” Alain rubbed his chin. “If we move near to Arzviller, we can slip you into town from there.”

Georges looked long and hard at Alain. They couldn’t enter the town as the Boche watched out for able-bodied men for the forced labour program.

Georges frowned. “Frederic’s garage? Is he still there?”

Alain shrugged. “It’s been some months, but I’ve not heard it’s closed.”

Georges’ face clouded with doubt.

Alain stared back at him. “But we’d have heard if something had happened.”

Georges sniffed and turned to me. “Why not radio for another dynamo?”

I pondered our options. “Perhaps – but that uses up the battery and it might take a week to send a new dynamo. That would leave us with no way of transmitting again until it arrived.” I thought hard. “It’s better to get it fixed and charge the battery in town at the same time. That way there’ll be enough charge to ask for a replacement dynamo if they can’t fix it.” They sent a Eureka homing beacon as part of my equipment, which made accurate drops easier.

Despite much discussion, no better plan emerged. Overnight, we moved close to Arzviller, a small village not far from Saarebourg.

Outside Arzviller, I met Sylvie, a woman in her twenties. She would take me to the garage and introduce me to Frederic. I left the radio and silk coding cloth as too dangerous to carry into town, removing the battery to take with us. We then spent some hours in the forest gathering sacks of pinecones. We hid the battery and dynamo in two of these, wrapped in old clothes and placed amongst the pinecones. The townsfolk purchased and used pinecones as kindling.

Sylvie and I set off towards the town along the quiet, dusty road pushing a handcart carrying the sacks of pinecones with the two important ones at the bottom. It was a warm day and we were soon sweating from our exertions. About halfway to town, a Wehrmacht car drew ahead of us, and stopped. An officer climbed out and sauntered back to us, leaving the driver standing beside the car.

“Hello, pretty girls.” He leered at us, speaking French with a thick German accent.

Sylvie and I exchanged a glance. I was conscious of our pistols, hidden on a shelf at the back of the cart.

“Come, come, pretty girls.” He smiled as his eyes roved greasily over us. “Nothing to say to a handsome officer?”

Sylvie wiped the sweat off her brow with a cloth from the back of the cart. “We need to get to Saarebourg, sir. Our families depend on us selling these pinecones there.”

“Are you refusing my company?” His eyes narrowed.

Sylvie shook her head. “No, sir.” She glanced at me. “Why not share a glass of wine with us in town when we get there?”

The officer stood surveying us for a moment, his face darkening. He grabbed a sack of pinecones, upending it onto the road. “No here. Now.”

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Colette

Robert Hart

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Robert Hart

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