British born David Sibree returned to England on 5 December 1942 from North Africa where he was serving since 1937 with the French Foreign Legion and wanted to join a commando unit but because he spoke fluent French his details were sent to SOE.
A few days before the start of his agent training and selection (20 April 1943) Sibree was arrested by the police after a drunken fight in London which meant his temperament made him unsuitable to be an agent (long-term undercover missions) but considered useful for what SOE called coup-de-main missions. These were missions of short duration similar to commando raids after which they were extracted from the country.
Operation SCULLION ll arrived in France on the night of 16/17 August 1943 to sabotage the Les Telots oil refinery near Autun after a previous operation called SCULLION l had failed. Apart from David Sibree, the team consisted on eight other British operatives, four French, one American, one Canadian and an agent named George Demand had landed four days earlier to prepare the ground. The team damaged the refinery with explosives but there are differing views of how effective the operation was.
According to documents, after the raid only two members of the team, Captain Dormer and Sergeant Birch, escaped to England . The others were captured and known to have been in Frésnes Prison as late as November 1943 before being deported to Flossenburg Concentration Camp in Germany.
Sometime in 1944 all were executed over a period of time, it is believed two were shot and the others were hanged.
Alan Malcher
Alan Malcher 