Churchill's White Rabbit (14 page)

From his superiors’ point of view, the reports, though rather dogmatic, were logical, and Churchill’s advisor Sir Desmond Morton felt that Forest was a sensible and level-headed fellow, though dismissed him slightly as being pro de Gaulle.

At least there was one office in which Forest’s belief in de Gaulle as the uniting force of France was not so easily dismissed. On 20 May 1943 Forest was summoned to a meeting with the illustrious general himself. Forest’s name had been noted in Passy’s report on the Seahorse mission for the BCRA and the general was keen to meet the ‘White Rabbit’ who had sparked such attention from his subordinate. Forest did not know what to expect arriving at de Gaulle’s room; he was not a man easily intimidated by authority but his first impression of the general was of an immense man, with a gruff manner of talking. He later said he felt like a pygmy standing before the gigantic de Gaulle. It was as much the general’s presence as his stature that impressed this feeling of grandiosity upon Forest.

De Gaulle wanted to know Forest’s feelings on France and was somewhat surprised at the strength of ‘Gaullism’ in his country, but he was also impressed by the bravery and determination of the SOE agent. Before Forest left, de Gaulle awarded him the Croix de Guerre, a significant French medal awarded for heroism. It was a special privilege for Forest to be recognised by his home country, but it caused some problems, as British officers were not allowed to wear foreign medals. Eventually Hutch had to get involved to persuade the authorities to give Forest permission to wear it. Later Forest heard that he had been awarded the Military Cross (MC). He bought the purple and white ribbon, Barbara sewed it to his tunic and the BCRA threw him a celebratory meal, only for an Air Ministry official to inform him that there had been a mistake and he not actually been awarded the medal. The ribbon had to be removed from his tunic and it would be another year before he would be properly awarded the citation.

This bureaucratic error forced Forest into another diplomatic controversy. The French expected him to wear his MC and after the debacle with the Croix de Guerre, it would not look good to try and explain the error. Instead Forest returned to his habits of subterfuge and kept one tunic hidden at his office with the MC ribbon still stitched onto it. Every time he had a meeting with the French he wore this tunic, and during the rest of the time he wore an undecorated spare. If he accidentally bumped into one of his French colleagues when not wearing the decorated tunic, he explained it away as that he hadn’t had the time to sort out all his different tunics with the decoration.

The return to desk work, which had at first seemed such a welcome break from the strain of undercover operations, now began to test Forest’s patience. He had consoled Barbara before Operation Seahorse with promises that it would be his one and only clandestine mission. Now he realised he would have to break that promise or go insane running from office to office and arguing with an array of detached bureaucrats.

Forest could never be labelled as unambitious. If his scheme with Molyneux’s yacht had been far-fetched, his next idea was positively mad. The British had learned that Grossadmiral Karl Doenitz, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, was prone to making regular trips from Paris to outstations in Cherbourg and Angouleme with only a small escort for protection. Forest came up with a dramatic scheme to attack Doenitz’s convoy on one of these visits, hold up the three escort cars and kidnap the Grossadmiral and bring him back to England. Forest suggested that he would work with Gilbert Vedy or the CDLL on the plan and submitted his ‘quite feasible’ proposal on 18 June. Unsurprisingly the audacious idea was turned down.

Meanwhile the resistance situation in France suddenly deteriorated. Delestraint, who Forest had deemed a liability to have so high up in the resistance, was arrested by the Gestapo on 9 June. Three days after Forest had submitted his failed proposal, Jean Moulin also fell into the clutches of the Gestapo.

Moulin’s capture came about partly through bad luck and partly through betrayal. A fellow resistance member, Rene Hardy, was tried twice and acquitted for his supposed betrayal of Moulin. Someone gave away the location of a meeting of the top leaders of the resistance to the Germans on that fateful day. Ironically the Germans were 45 minutes late and should have missed the conspirators. But unfortunately Moulin had also been delayed by 45 minutes. Had he been earlier or later the Gestapo may have never captured him, but as it was, his luck had run out.

Moulin was interrogated by the notorious Klaus Barbie, known as the ‘Butcher of Lyon’. The interrogation was brutally efficient – too efficient. Moulin never recovered from his initial torture and later interrogations only compounded his injuries. He died on 8 July while his captors were frantically trying to ship him to Germany.

It was a disaster for the resistance. Forest had been right, Moulin’s presence in the formation of the secret army had been too overpowering, making him indispensable; without him things began to fall apart. The circuits the men had been involved with were compromised and there was no knowing what had been said by the captives (the resistance was realistic about the chances of any man staying silent under prolonged torture). The networks broke themselves apart as people began to panic.

Two men were left holding the resistance reins: Capitaine Claude Bouchinet-Serreulles and Jacques Bingen. Bouchinet-Serreulles was an inexperienced young French army officer who had previously served in London as one of de Gaulle’s aides. He had been pressing for some time for a more active role and after rudimentary training in the clandestine life he was landed in France on the night of 15–16 June. By 19 June he was in Lyon and meeting with Moulin, and two days later he was effectively trying to fill Moulin’s boots and failing. Two months later Bingen arrived in France, landed in by Lysander on 15–16 August. Bingen found the more active role he had been pressing for to be more dangerous than he had imagined. A former head of the Free French Merchant Navy and aide to de Gaulle, he had been originally delegated to look after the Unoccupied Zone. Now these two novices were desperately trying to hold together the fragmenting French resistance.

Bouchinet-Serrulles and Bingen sent optimistic reports of their work back to London, but other reports quickly indicated the opposite. The plans for a secret army among the resistance were stuttering and dying. While the reception committees for supply or agent drops were still operating efficiently, information on the paramilitary side of operations was worryingly minimal. Regional military officers were complaining that they were not being supported by the resistance and it seemed that if something wasn’t done soon the whole organisation would crumble and have to be rebuilt from scratch.

Abruptly Forest found himself on a new mission with Brossolette. This time it was to save the resistance. Filled with excitement as well as trepidation, Forest took on his new codename of Tirelli, along with a new identity and false papers. As he memorised his brand-new persona and prepared for another parachute drop, he could only wonder what fate had in store for him on Operation Marie-Claire.

Notes

1
.  Professor Pasteur Valery-Roudet, a descendent of the famous chemist and microbiologist.

2
.  Seaman,
Op cit
.

– 9 –

Dinner with Sophie

ON 13 JULY 1943 discussions were underway to resolve the calamity in France. Passy was eager to get back to deal with the situation and hoped that Forest and Brossolette could be spared to assist him. The main matter they needed to deal with was contacting the various resisters, particularly FANA and Capitaine Bouchinet-Serreulles, who had come into some doubt over his glowing reports of the success of resistance. With the loss of Moulin it was vital to get someone inside quickly who could act as damage control.

Codenames were already being considered. Forest had been given the signal ‘Marie-Claire’; Brossolette would be ‘Marie-Claire II’. Bouchinet-Serreulles had been codenamed ‘Sophie’ and SOE was determined to catch up with the elusive figure who they disparagingly labelled ‘Moulin’s understudy’.

Meanwhile the BCRA had given them their own affectionate tags: ‘Magino’ and ‘Briand’. Add to this the new Tirelli identity that Forest had to learn, as well as the a previous set of papers under the name Thierry, and it was a lot of lies to keep straight in his mind. Forest did not have long to reflect on all this new information, as on 18 September he had a call at 1 a.m. to confirm that the mission would go ahead that night.

In the early hours of that Saturday morning, as Forest contemplated his next adventure, Barbara was fraught with worry. There could be no illusions between them that there was a very high risk of him being captured. Forest tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that SOE had introduced a new system of codes that made message sending even more secure. The ‘one-time pads’ as they were known had codes printed on slips of silk, which were used once and then destroyed. As long as his code pad kept in line with SOE’s control version then there was no problem.

He tried his hardest to convince Barbara that every feasible security precaution was being undertaken and that she mustn’t worry for him, but both of them knew the dangers he faced. When morning finally came, Barbara was trembling with nerves and insisted that Forest go to a photographer in Baker Street to have his portrait taken as a keepsake for her. Both of them knew it was meant for if he never returned, but despite the morbidity of the project Forest agreed and by lunchtime Barbara knew that she at least would have a memento of her lover if the worst happened.

At 4.30 p.m. an SOE car appeared. Forest said his farewells to Barbara and she saw him off, praying his luck would hold out, before slumping back into her flat and noting ‘feeling terrible’ in her diary. For Forest, some of his gloom was alleviated by being back with his team. The car picked up Brossolette, who had dyed his hair salt-and-pepper shades to cover his white streak and had dispensed with his moustache, and then Hutch clambered into the car tinged with a little dose of envy, as he too would have liked to be in the thick of the action.

The weather looked unpromising as they arrived at Tangmere airfield, causing Forest to wonder if this flight would be as abortive as his first one to France. Flight-Lieutenant Peter Vaughan-Fowler was there to greet them. He was an old friend of Forest’s as he had been the pilot who had picked him up in a Lysander at the conclusion of Operation Seahorse. Jovially he took them to dinner, with no one quite able to shake the feeling that the exercise had a ring of a condemned man’s last supper to it.

The night was still thick with fog and cloud, but the urgency of the matter convinced the men that the flight should be undertaken. At 11.30 p.m. Forest and Brossolette bundled their luggage into the converted gunner’s cockpit and wedged themselves in after it. Hutch stood on the runway to bid them farewell. Forest, crammed next to Brossolette, hoped the man travelled well, as he doubted this was going to be the easiest of flights.

Take-off was smooth enough, though the impenetrable fog threatened to force them to land immediately. Vaughan-Fowler was keen however, and had faith in his skills. Undaunted, he flew them over the fields and houses of England and on to the Channel. What came next surprised them all. As they reached the French coast, feeling confident in their camouflage among the clouds, a sudden explosion went off near them.

Suddenly they were surrounded by explosions. The Germans had somehow noticed their presence in the fog, perhaps radar or sound locators had given them away, but whatever the cause the exploding shells lit up the clouds around them in vibrant pink hues. Vaughan-Fowler knew the enemy had to be firing blind – they were hoping that a lucky shell would hit, he was hoping it would not. He was sufficiently shaken by the explosions to start taking evasive action and Forest clung to his seat as they rocked, soared up, swept down, twisted and turned through the night sky until the anti-aircraft batteries had been left safely behind.

The cloud finally began to break and below them Vaughan-Fowler glimpsed Poitiers and was glad to tell his passengers that the end was in sight. As the time slowly ticked on to 1.25 a.m. Forest caught a glimpse of three lights on the ground set out by their reception committee. Elated, Vaughan-Fowler exchanged signals to ensure the site was genuine, and then came in for landing.

Forest noted in his mission diary: ‘Arrival: 01.30hrs. 19th September 1943, at a ground in the region of Angouleme called Serin.’
¹

By now Forest was used to the fact that things never went smoothly. The first problem proved to be just getting their luggage out of the plane: it had become firmly trapped under the seats during the flight and it took some pushing and pulling to free it. The reception committee looked on anxiously during the proceedings, they had already taken note of the large consignment of cargo the plane had delivered: a consignment they had not been expecting. They would have to hide it somewhere quickly, a daunting task with so few of them.

The luggage finally gave up its hold on the plane and Brossolette and Forest turned to their hosts to learn of the new problem. The reception committee had only brought a single car for transporting everybody and with a second Lysander landing and two more agents and numerous packages tumbling out it was obvious that there was not going to be enough space for everyone. This might not have been a problem had the safe house not been 40 miles from the landing site. Hasty discussions took place with the only conclusion being that the cargo would be transported first in the car to a disused house about 15 miles away. Once safely stored the car would return for the agents.