Tag: SOE Hungary

Alexander Vass: SOE Hungarian Section wireless operator

Alexander Vass was born in Limburg, Germany, he spoke fluent Hungarian and was a child when his family moved to Canada and became naturalised Canadians.

 In early 1943 Vass enlisted into the Royal Canadian Medical Corp and several months later he came to the attention of SOE’s Hungarian Section who were looking for agents who could speak fluent Hungarian and after passing selection and training in England he went on to pass the wireless and security course at Thames House in Oxfordshire.

Vass and three other agents boarded a converted Halifax bomber of 148 Special Duty Squadron RAF to be dropped by parachute north of Lake Balaton in western Hungary and after the aircraft failed to return it was assumed all had been killed.

Several months after the war it was discovered the Halifax had been intercepted by German night fighters and Luftwaffe documents stated the aircraft exploded after hitting the ground and all the crew were killed.  After three SOE agents were liberated from a German prisoner of war camp Alexander Vass was not among them and the three surviving agents later described what happened.

They were not aware the aircraft had been lost because the agents had been dropped before its interception. One agent named Broughay said they had been dropped at the wrong location and landed in a forest and he found himself about 30 feet up a tree and there was no way of concealing their presence. After splitting up into two groups he and Vass avoided enemy forces for over 24 hours but were eventually captured, stripped searched and interrogated. They were then taken down a hill where the other two agents were in custody and were told they would be shot. The three agents were then taken to a Secret Police Headquarters were the interrogation continued and the following morning were put into the back of a lorry and were greatly relieved after finding themselves at a German Prisoner of War Camp controlled by the Luftwaffe.

During an allied air raid sometime in December 1944 a bomb hit the camp and Alexander Vass was killed.

Alan Malcher

Hanna Szeenes, wireless operator who served with SOE Section ME76 (Hungarian Section)

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Hanna Szeenes was born to a Jewish family in Hungary on 17 July 1921 and her father died when she was six. In 1939 she decided to emigrate to what was called the British Mandate of Palestine to study agriculture and in 1943 enlisted into the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force which was the female branch of the RAF during WW2 which had been established in 1939. After training she came to the attention of SOE discrete talent spotters, and she agreed to undertake hazardous missions.  After completing agent training and selection she attended the wireless school before joining SOE Section ME 76 also called the Hungarian Section.

On the night of 14-15 May 1944 Szeenes and two male agents parachuted into Yugoslavia to assist partisans fighting in Hungary and after crossing the border they became separated and Szeenes was arrested by the Hungarian police loyal to the Arrow Cross Party (NYKA) led by Ferec Szàlasi which was loyal to Germany. After her arrest she was stripped and strapped to a chair, whipped, punched and clubbed for three days during which she lost several teeth but refused to reveal her radio codes. She was then sent to a prison in Budapest where the torture for information continued. After her mother was arrested and her interrogators threatened to kill her, she still refused to give them her codes.

On 7 November 1944, 22-year-old Hanna Szeenes was executed by firing squad. During her time in prison, she kept a diary which also contained poems she had written, these were published in Hebrew by her family in 1946 and the following is one of the last poems she wrote before her execution:

“One- Two- three… Eight feet long

Two strides across the rest is dark

Life is a fleeting question mark

One-two-three… maybe another week

Or the next month may still find me here

But death I feel is very near. “

After the war her body was buried at Mount Hertz Military Cemetery, Israel.

Alan Malcher