Alan Malcher Military Historian – Page 7

Stephen Resz (Reiss, Rice) SOE ‘A’ Force

Stephen Rice

Stephen Reiss was a Jew born in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia and was serving with the Palmach in Mandatory Palestine when he was recruited by SOE in 1943 and served under the name Stephen Rice. In December 1943 Rice along with other Jewish agents from Palestine (now Israel) serving with SOE ‘A’ Force were sent to contact the partisans and assist them in overthrowing the pro-German government in Slovakia and detach the country from the Axis powers.

Over 2,000 Jews fought during the uprising and around 500 were killed but the partisans made considerable gains and on 28 August 1943 the Germans decided to occupy Slovakia and eliminate the resistance.

During a major German offensive on 27 October 1944, German forces occupied Banska Bystrica. Rice with other agents and around 40 Jewish Partisans escaped and built a camp in the mountains but were captured after a few days and the Germans shot most of the Jews including Rice. His remains were recovered in 1952 and reburied in the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Alan Malcher

SOE agent Edward Coppin

Edward Coppin

28-year-old Edward Coppin who was known as ‘Ted’, served with the DONKEYMAN circuit and was responsible for organising resistance in the port of Marseille and over time built up a successful sabotage team consisting of railway workers. Apart from derailing trains, in 1942 he was responsible for diverting trains destined for Germany by switching the points and sending them to the Spanish border.

Coppin was arrested at his safehouse on 23 April 1943 but because he used several cover names there continues to be much confusion regarding his fate and a post-war investigation into missing agents failed to identify what happened to Coppin after his arrest.

It is believed Coppin was tortured for information but refused to talk which is evident by the fact no members of his group were arrested but there is scant evidence to support the claim he was executed at Ravensbrûck concentration camp in September 1943, consequently, the fate of ‘Ted’ Coppin is unknown, and Coppin has no known grave.

Alan Malcher

Robert Byerly the widely unknown American who served with Britain’s SOE

The American Virginia Hall and her wartime service with SOE is well known but Robert Byerly is less well documented and is sometimes wrongly described as a Canadian.

When Germany invaded France in April 1940 Robert Byerly who has been noted for being pro-British was living in Paris and because he was a citizen of a neutral country was allowed to leave France and made his way to England and in 1941 enlisted into the Canadian Army and trained as a signaller. The date he was recruited by SOE and passed selection varies according to sources, but it is known he arrived in France by parachute on 8 February 1944 near Poitiers to work as the wireless operator for SURVEYOR circuit. His infiltration was arranged by PHONO circuit but unknown to London the circuit had been infiltrated and Byerley along with two other agents were dropped to waiting German soldiers.

Under German supervision Byerly was forced to use his wireless to contact London and within the body of the message inserted a ‘bluff check’ and left out the ‘true check’ to warn London he was sending under duress. As was standard practice London maintained contact with Byerly to create the illusion he was of use to the Germans and hope he would not be executed, but his transmissions suddenly stopped, and was not heard again. After the war it was discovered that sometime during the summer of 1944 Robert Byerly was transported to Gross-Rosen concentration camp where he was executed a few days later.

Alan Malcher.

Roland Alexandre SOE

Roland Alexandre was born in France but educated in England and worked as an aircraft fitter at General Aircraft Ltd at Feltham Middlesex and joined SOE on 23 December 1943 and used the cover name Roland Esnault. He was sent to France to build clandestine circuits in the Nantes and Anger area after the original circuits had been destroyed by the Gestapo and his new network of circuits were to concentrate on sabotaging railways.

On the night of 8 February 1944, he was dropped by parachute with wireless operator, an American called Robert Byerly, and two other agents named Francis Deniset and Jacques Ledoux, onto remote farmland near Poitiers to a reception committee made-up of members from the PHONE circuit but London was unaware PHONE had been infiltrated by the SD and the agents were dropped to German troops.

Typical of the confusion surrounding the fate of missing agents there are several conflicting reports regarding his fate. Alexandre was last seen alive on 11 September 1944 and witnesses said he had been greatly illtreated which often meant he was tortured for information, and it is believed he was executed at Gross-Rosen concentration camp. The fate of the other agents is also surrounded by conflicting information and requires further research.

Alan Malcher

SOE X Section (Germany)

Otto Pichl and Ernst Hoffman were Sudeten Germans, but their nationalities are also listed as Czechoslovakian? After passing selection and training they were assigned to X Section, the country section responsible for Germany and arrived in eastern Germany by parachute on the night of 8- 9 May 1944.

The only clue to their missions is Hoffman’s cover story of being a Luftwaffe ground crew and after arriving in Germany they were not heard of again.
After the war it was discovered that Ernst Hoffman was captured by the Gestapo and shot and before being captured Otto Pichl swallowed his ‘L’ pill (Cyanide capsule), and a note was found by his body saying “I have Jacksch’s mission {?}. Long live freedom” and was buried by the Germans without being identified. Both men are listed on the Brookwood Memorial in England.

Lepa Radic Yugoslav Partisan, Order of the People’s Hero

Radic was born to a Bosnian Serb family on 29 December 1925. In February 1943 she was captured during a firefight against the 7^th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prince Eugen and was tortured for several days but refused to provide the names of other partisans and was sentence to death by hanging.

After the noose was placed around her neck a German officer said he would spare her life for the names of members of her group and Radic loudly replied “I am not a traitor to my people. Those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping out all the evildoers to the last man.” Lepa Radic was 17 years old when she was publicly executed on 11 February 1943.

Alan Malcher

HMS Fidelity Royal Navy Special Service Vessel

HMS Fidelity (D57) was formerly the French merchant ship La Rhin. In 1941 Fidelity was used by SOE (Special Operations Executive) to transport agents and equipment to southern France and during these clandestine missions flew the flags of neutral Spain and Portugal.

Madeline Baynard was the ship’s first officer but to protect her identity she served with the WRNS under the name of Madeline Barclay.

In late 1941 HMS Fidelity was refitted to serve as a commando carrier and on 30 December 1942 was sunk by a German U-boat. Although most survived the attack the U-boat captain followed the Loconia order which forbid allied survivors being rescued and 369 died in the water: 273 members of her crew (including Baynard), 52 Marines serving with T Coy 40 Commando and 44 seamen who had been rescued after their ship had been sunk during a previous engagement.

Alan Malcher.

British Homefront during the Second World War: The London Underground.

London Underground Station during the Blitz

It has been estimated around 177,000 people used London Underground stations as air raid shelters during the German aerial bombardment of London, but the London Underground did not always provide the protection many once thought.

At 8.02 pm on 14 October 1940 a 1400kg bomb hit Balham High Road opposite the United Dairies and created a large bomb crater which a double decker bus fell into, fortunately the bus was empty, and the driver was only concussed. At the time of the air raid around 500 people were using Balham Underground Station as an air raid shelter and were trapped after the explosion destroyed the roof above the northbound platform and tunnel. To protect public morale, it was originally reported that 66 people were killed and all fatalities were recorded as death by drowning after the main water mains and sewage pipes were ruptured and flooded the station. It is Widely believed the death toll far exceeded the official figure and it took several months to recover the last of the bodies.

Balham Underground Stations after bodies recovered.

On 11 January 1941 the central ticket hall at Bank Underground Station received a direct hit from a German bomb: the blast travelled down the escalator onto the platform and parts of the road collapsed onto the concourse killing 56 people.

Bank Underground Station

The greatest loss of life on the underground was on 3 March 1943 at 8.45 pm.

According to eyewitness accounts, after the air raid sirens were heard several hundred people made for the safety of Bethnal Green Underground Station. A young woman clutching a baby fell at the bottom of the staircase and pulled down an elderly man and bodies quickly piled up at the base of the staircase while those at the top were unaware of what was happening and continued forcing their way down the stairs. Witnesses also describe a seething mass of mainly women and children all wearing thick clothes and gasping for air quickly develop… 173 people, overwhelmingly women and children were asphyxiated. There were also allegations that the Civil Defence previously warned of the dangers a requested an anti-crush barrier be installed on the single staircase leading to the platform, but their concerns were rejected and only after the tragedy were their concerns taken seriously and a crash barrier erected after the bodies had been recovered.

Repairs to the staircase after the bodies had been recovered.

Alan Malcher

SOE wireless operator Denise Bloch (12 January 1916- 5 February 1945)

(Image IWM)

On 2 March 1944 Denise Bloch infiltrated central France by parachute and worked as the wireless operator for both Clergyman and Detective circuits which were part of SOE’s clandestine network and began arranging for weapons, sabotage stores, finance and other agents to be sent from London and worked with several reception committees receiving incoming air drops.

It was around 8.20 am on 18 June when her wireless transmissions were located by German direction finders and her Safehouse raided by the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (Security Service of the Reichsführers-SS), or SD, and Bloch along with another agent were captured.

It is known Bloch was tortured for information, but her wireless was not used by the Germans, and it appears Bloch refused to give the SD her personal wireless codes used to confirm her identity to London. It is also known she was transported to prisons in Germany during which she suffered from exposure due to the cold and malnutrition and was eventually transported to Ravensbrûck Concentration camp where she was executed on 5 February 1945 at the age of 29 and like many agents has no known grave after her body was cremated along with many others.

Alan Malcher

The German wireless deception leading to the deaths of three SOE agents sent to France.

AUTHORS NOTE- there are several conflicting accounts and inconsistencies will be found in several official documents which are explained in my forthcoming book.

On the night of 28/29 February 1944, SOE agents France Antelme on his third mission to France, wireless operator Lionel Lee and Madeleine Damerment arrived by parachute near the city of Chartres to start a clandestine circuit called Bricklayer.

It is now believed sometime in late 1943 Canadian agents Frank Pickersgill and Ken Macalister had been arrested during which their wireless and codes were found, and a German operator started playing back their set and because the correct codes were being used no suspicion was raised in London. It was the Gestapo, not the Canadian agents who requested these agents be sent and consequently were dropped to the waiting Germans.

From the post war investigation, we see Antelme was furious and began fighting the Gestapo officers before eventually being restrained and the three agents were taken to Avenue Foch, Gestapo Paris HQ where Antelme refused to talk whilst being tortured. Antelme and Lee are recorded as being executed at Gross Rosen Concentration Camp in Lower Silesia and Madeleine Damerment along with three other female SOE agents were transported to Dachau in Germany where they were forced to kneel before being shot through the base of their necks. Canadian agents Pickersgill and Macalister along with several other SOE agents were executed by slow strangulation with piano wire suspended from hooks in the crematorium at Buchenwald concentration camp sometime in February 1944.

Also see SOE Agents Frank Pickersgill and Ken Macalister Canadian SOE Agents Frank Pickersgill and Ken Macalister – Alan Malcher

Alan Malcher