Francis Cammaerts

Cammaerts began extensive training with SOE in October 1942.[2]^: 49–51 Training included fieldwork experience in the New Forest, Scotland and Manchester. Cammaerts was considered by some of his training officers to be lacking in physical skills, and 'more intellectual than practical'. Nevertheless, he was considered to be above average in all areas. He was given the rank of captain and the code name Roger, and flown into occupied northern France in March 1943. More than a dozen SOE circuits were active in France at that time. Cammaerts was assigned to the Donkeyman network or circuit, then operating in the upper Rhône Valley, but his reception party from Donkeyman and the Carte network drove him first to Paris, with a dangerous disregard for security that alerted him to the risks of such behaviour. Cammaerts concern was heightened by his appearance. He was 193 cm (six feet, four inches) tall with feet so large his nickname in France was "Big Feet." He spoke French with a noticeable Belgian accent. Cammaerts worries about security were confirmed one day after he arrived in Paris when Carte leader, André Marsac, was arrested by the Germans. Cammaerts fled Paris by train to Annecy[2]^: 3–5

Near Annecy in the village of Saint Jorioz he met with Odette Sansom, Adolphe "Alex" Rabinovitch, and Auguste Floiras of the Spindle network. Once again his antenna warned him of the poor security of Spindle and he departed after two or three days for Cannes. Rabinovitch declined to work with Cammaerts because his "appearance was too English" and he spoke French with an "atrocious" accent, but gave him the address of a safe house in Cannes. Floiras would soon join Cammaerts and become his best friend and wireless operator; Sansom and several other members of the Spindle network were arrested and imprisoned shortly after Cammaerts departed Saint Jorioz. He spent a month in Cannes establishing his cover story as a teacher recovering from jaundice.[2]^: 66–75[4]

Cammaerts worked primarily in rural areas. SOE networks were more secure in rural areas which had a much smaller presence of German soldiers and milice, the pro-German French militia, than large urban areas.[5]

In the words of the official historian of the SOE M.R.D. Foot, impeccable security, the hallmark of the best SOE agents, characterized Cammaert's survival as an SOE agent for two tours totaling fifteen months, far longer than the average agent served or survived in France. [6] Cammaerts never stayed in the same house for more than three or four nights, he avoided hotels as their registers were checked by German and French police, and he also avoided large train stations which frequently had check points. He never told anybody his plans, nor made appointments nor visited unknown addresses without careful reconnoitering. He did not communicate in writing or by telephone, nor did he know the real names of the people he worked with, only their field names. He had a squad of seven or eight men who followed and investigated potential recruits before they were contacted and he divided his recruits and associates into cells of no more than 15 persons each and discouraged contact between cells. Cammerts told his agents to always have a credible reason for being where they were if stopped by a German patrol.[7][2]^{: 77–81, 92} [8]

While seeking air-tight security, Cammaerts said that he always informed the families in the places he spent nights, usually rural farmhouses or in villages, that he was English and left them no doubt of the danger they were in by hosting him. He was always received, he said, with "open arms." As in the case of others who operated in enemy-held territory for prolonged periods, he gave a great deal of credit to the ordinary French citizens who had provided him and his colleagues with safety and comfort. In the BBC TV series Secret Agent, broadcast in 2000, Cammaerts said, "The most important element was the French housewife who fed us, clothed us and kept us cheerful."[9]

Disillusioned with what he had seen of the Carte Organization and the Spindle network, Cammaerts organised his own circuit (Jockey). He worked initially in the area of Montélimar. His first associate was wireless operator Auguste Fioras, a man as cautious as Cammaerts himself. The first message the pair sent to London was on 27 May 1943. Fioras would transmit 416 wireless messages to London during 1943 and 1944, a record for SOE wireless operators.[10]

In the latter part of 1943 Cammaerts established several small semi-autonomous groups of resisters to the German occupation.[2]^: 77 They were located along the left bank of the Rhône between Vienne and Arles and eastwards through the hinterland and into the Alps. He traveled around on a motorbike visiting each group. By the end of 1943 Cammaerts had ensured that his Jockey circuit was ready to play its part in any sabotage that might be required. In November 1943 he was recalled to London for debriefing, and, while there, he raised the problems among the SOE agents working in France, often at cross-purposes, some under the command of General Charles de Gaulle's headquarters and others, many of them French citizens, under the command of SOE's French section.

On his return to France in February 1944, Cammaerts' aircraft crashed on landing, although he was unhurt.[2]^{: 114–116} He went on to check that his Jockey circuit was operational and later visited the 3,000+ group of Maquisards (young Frenchmen who had fled to the Vercors plateau to avoid being sent for forced labour in Germany). In April 1944 he informed SOE's London headquarters that the Vercors had a finely organised army, but they needed long-distance and anti-tank weapons. Cammaerts' Jockey circuit played its part following the Normandy Landings: they and the other SOE circuits cut railway lines and helped to severely hinder German troop and machinery movements. Cammaerts was appointed head of Allied missions in southeastern France. By this time he had built up an organisation of more than 10,000 people.

The situation in the area of the Vercors plateau did not fare so well, with London having refused Cammaerts' and others' requests to provide the Resistance with heavy weapons. Allied High Command felt, based on the Yugoslav experience, that guerrillas were not trained to stand and fight. Cammaerts understood and was even sympathetic to this view, but he had no control over the belief by French Resistance leaders that, with Allied landings taking place in the north, the war was coming to an end and the Germans were fatally weakened. In fact, Vercors was attacked by two German divisions complete with air support, and German reprisals were ruthless.[2]^{: 148–180} It was a rout and the surviving Maquisards fled to whatever hiding places they could find, with an estimated 600-plus maquisards and civilians slaughtered.[11]

Despite his meticulous care for security, on 13 August 1944, two days before the Allied Operation Dragoon landings in southern France, Cammaerts, Xan Fielding, an SOE agent who had previously operated in Crete, and a French officer, Christian Sorensen, were arrested at a roadblock by the Gestapo at Digne-les-Bains. Cammaerts had received a large amount of money for operations which he divided among the three of them, an action that would prove a mistake. Entering Digne by automobile, they came upon a German checkpoint. Under questioning, Fielding denied knowing the other two, but a young German civilian examining their forged identity papers noticed that the serial numbers of the money each of them carried was in the same series, thus indicating a connection among them. The three were taken to Digne prison and roughly interrogated. They claimed they were involved in black marketing to account for the money. The Germans apparently did not know they had captured Cammaerts, the most important SOE agent in southeastern France, but decided to execute the three suspecting they were associated with the French resistance. m.[12]

On August 17, Krystyna Skarbek, a.k.a. Christine Granville, a Polish-born SOE operative and Cammaerts' lover,[13] managed to get Cammaerts and the others released. She confronted two collaborators, Albert Schenck, a French liaison officer to the Gestapo, and Max Waem, a Belgian interpreter for the Gestapo, telling them that American troops would arrive within hours and that if they did not co-operate she would ensure the pair were handed over to an avenging mob of French citizenry. The collaborators agreed to the release of Cammaerts, Fielding and their French colleague, on condition of the payment of a two million franc ransom, which Skarbek obtained by an airdrop from London. The three SOE agents were to be executed on the evening of the day that Skarbek negotiated their release.[14] The rescue of Cammaerts is fictionalized in the last episode of the British television show Wish Me Luck.

Digne was liberated by the American army two days after Cammaerts was released from prison. The maquis had cleared the way for the Americans and there was little opposition. On August 20, Cammaerts and Granville met the American commander, Brigadier General Frederic B. Butler, at Sisteron who dismissed them as "bandits." Leaving the American army behind, the two proceeded to Gap where the maquis had captured the German garrison. Several hundred Polish soldiers, soldiers in the German army, were among the captured Germans. Granville addressed the Poles with a megaphone and secured their agreement to join the Allied forces, provided that they shed their German uniforms. The Poles stripped off their uniforms. General Butler arrived and disapproved of the proceedings, threatening Cammaerts and Granville with arrest and court martial if they didn't leave. Author Arthur Funk said, "The historian can only wonder at Butler's short-sightedness in ignoring a British officer who knew a great deal about the terrain and the people in it."[15] Later, Cammaerts and Granville received a better reception from Butler's superior officer, General Alexander Patch, who appointed them as the liaison for the Americans with the maquis. The couple continued northward to Lyon and Paris.[16]

Cammaerts' time in occupied France ended in September 1944. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Legion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre and the American Medal of Freedom for his work in south-eastern France.[17]