Chapter 20
As evening faded to darkness Farran found himself alone. The sporadic sounds of fighting drifted across to him – the final mopping-up operations. It was a starlit night and he was cold and beyond exhausted. He was forced to trudge his weary way back to Secchio, his horse being nowhere to be found. Now and again he stopped to drink from a muddy puddle, so desperate was he to quench his thirst.
As he stumbled along in the dark Farran ran into a familiar figure: it was Colonel Monti, the ‘commander-in-chief’ of the Reggio partisans. Immaculate as ever, he sat astride his big brown mare, wearing riding jodhpurs and with a smart crop in hand. Farran saluted, and Colonel Monti informed him that he was riding out to join the battle.
‘Mon colonel, the Germans are utterly defeated,’ Farran informed him, in his best schoolboy French, the only language that he and the colonel shared. ‘We have driven them back across the river.’
Colonel Monti looked incredulous. He asked Farran to repeat himself, as if unable to grasp that it might be true, or perhaps fearing that he had misunderstood Farran’s French.
‘The Germans are beaten,’ Farran told him, by way of the simplest explanation he could muster. ‘It is a great victory.’
The colonel stared, wide-eyed with amazement, before whipping his steed around and cantering off towards the front. Farran could appreciate the colonel’s consternation. The victory was unprecedented. It just went to show what irregular forces could achieve when given the right leadership and the self-belief that was so crucial to any battle.
Following the dramatic turn-around, Farran – together with John Lees – decided it was time to shout it from the rooftops. If the partisans could hear of their exploits earning widespread renown, it would stiffen their spirit for future sorties. And as Farran well knew, with Allied forces poised to punch through the Gothic Line, soon the partisans would be called upon to hit the enemy hard. Boosting their morale right now was critical.
John Lees sent a plea to Macintosh to that effect: ‘Please ask PWB to broadcast on ITALIA COMBATTE a programme praising the REGGIO . . . formations. A mention of the counter-attack on Easter day when three coys of Germans were chased back over the R. SECCHIA . . . leaving 20 dead and 30 prisoners would do. I really want this as the MODENA AND PARMA DIVS have been mentioned, but never my lads.’
‘PWB’ was the Psychological Warfare Bureau, the Psychological Warfare Division by another name. The Modena and Parma divisions were neighbouring bands of partisans. Notably, while stressing the challenges of replacing such a towering figure as Mike Lees – ‘It was difficult taking over without anybody who really understood the form’ – John Lees was already referring to the partisans as ‘my lads’. He’d got his feet well and truly under the table at Secchio and he’d led the spirited counter-attack from the front.
As for Mike Lees, he was about to begin a journey of epic proportions, one that would determine whether he would live or die.
The maverick SOE agent and his resistance leader guardian, Antonio, had set upon a plan of unprecedented audacity to spirit him away to the hills. Recognising that Mike Lees couldn’t survive such a back-breaking journey hidden under a heap of manure, they’d decided to resort to a spot of inspired thievery and bluff.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and in that spirit Antonio had got his men to hijack a German field ambulance. The first Lees knew of this was a visit by Antonio, shortly after dusk on 3 April. One glance at the man’s face told Lees that he was bringing good news.
‘You must be ready at dawn tomorrow morning,’ Antonio announced. ‘An ambulance will take you into the mountains, speeding you through the checkpoints.’
Lees was overjoyed. By his reckoning he had six days left to save his leg. If they could get the Storch in to the landing zone to rendezvous with the ambulance, he might just make it. To that effect he scribbled two notes for Antonio to deliver via courier. One was to Farran explaining their plans, and asking him to contact Florence and request the aircraft. The other was to Charles Holland, asking him to make ready the airstrip.
It was the early hours of the following morning when Lees awoke to footsteps on the stairs outside his room. As his hand went to his weapon, the door opened softly. A candle spluttered by his bedside, throwing the mystery visitor into faint light and shadow: to Lees, it looked suspiciously like a man dressed in the full grey of a German army uniform.
‘Who is it?’ Lees barked a challenge.
By way of answer there was a short, throaty laugh, as the figure pushed the peaked forage cap up from his forehead. ‘Sir, your ambulance awaits!’ he announced. It was Antonio.
Under the cover of darkness Lees and Gordon were loaded aboard the waiting vehicle – a square-bodied truck, iconic red cross symbols as tall as a man emblazoned across its roof and side. This was only stage one of the journey, Antonio warned. If they made it across the plains, blagging their way through the German checkpoints, they could get only so far into the hills. Eventually, Lees and Gordon would have to transfer into a bullock cart, for the going would be too difficult for the truck. Even so, as they set forth into the pre-dawn darkness Lees felt buoyed by a spirit of hope.
But even as that hijacked ambulance rumbled through the dark streets of Reggio Emilia, so an urgent cypher message was winging its way to London from SOE Florence headquarters. It made clear that even should Lees survive the coming journey and escape, he was about to face a witch-hunt . . . regardless.
‘In a recent engagement Capt Michael LEES rpt LEES wounded in leg as a result of an attack made by him contrary to orders. It is thought possible he may have acted under orders issued by Major FARRAN of SAS, but matter will be fully investigated on his return. As LEES’ condition said to be critical am attempting exfiltration by special Op on 5th, rpt 5th.’
Even if Lees’ life and his leg could be saved, he was seemingly being rescued in part so that he could face the music. Farran, likewise, was far from exonerated, despite having rallied the defenders of the Secchia valley. There were others of Lees’ brothers-in-arms who were facing dark troubles the likes of which none might have reasonably foreseen.
As Lees settled back in the ambulance for the ride of his life, so Paul Morton, the Canadian reporter with whom he had shared the Operation Flap mission, was also in the line of fire.
In early April 1945 a query arrived in London from SOE’s New York office, which used the cover name of the Inter Services Research Bureau (ISRB). ‘A newspaper correspondent called Paul Morton has been writing articles and making broadcasts . . . describing his experiences after being dropped in occupied territory in Northern Italy. If he has in fact been employed as an agent, some of his statements are indiscreet . . .’
A flurry of further messages arrived at the SOE’s London headquarters, questioning Morton’s ‘indiscretions’ and his credentials. ‘I note from our records MORTON was employed in July, 1944, as an attached correspondent with MARYLAND. Will you kindly advise . . . if he was, in fact, dropped in Italy and whether he was given any authority to write articles and make broadcasts . . .’
Morton’s problem was that he was now peddling an ‘inconvenient truth’ as many saw it – that the Italian partisans, communists included, were taking the fight to the enemy with spirit and panache. Even as the Italian resistance was being called upon to rise up and help sever the Gothic Line, fear of ‘Reds’ taking over meant that such exploits were to be downplayed. The schizophrenic flip-flopping of Allied policy – both to simultaneously support and subvert the Italian resistance – continued. Indeed, in April 1945 BLOs were still telegraphing from the field berating the lack of weaponry drops, due to the ‘political winds of change’ turning against them.
Those trying to garner support for the partisans were to be subjected to a witch-hunt. For Morton, it was to be of a signal savagery. Not content with spiking his stories, his ten-year stint as a reporter with the Toronto Daily Star came to a sudden end. Morton was sacked, with no credible explanation as to why. Quietly, secretly, a report had been written accusing Morton of making up his tales of operations behind the lines, branding him a liar and rendering him utterly unemployable. By April 1945 his reputation had been comprehensively mauled and lay in tatters.
Fortunately for Roy Farran, the fact that he was needed by Allied commanders, the Americans first and foremost, rendered him immune to such predations – for now. He was about to be called upon to rouse his Allied Battalion to spearhead an assault on Highway Twelve, one of the key resupply routes feeding the Gothic Line. In short, Farran, despite his rather flexible interpretation of orders, was seen as being indispensable. By contrast Mike Lees, badly wounded and out of action, was fair game.
Even as he fought for his very life, considerable efforts were being devoted to nailing him. A flurry of messages sought to prove that he had received the signal to stand down the Botteghe raid, and that it had been deliberately ignored. One read: ‘A personal message was sent to Major FARRAN and Capt LEES advising them that the attack should be postponed . . . Confirmation that Capt LEES and Major FARRAN received this signal [to stand down] was given . . . 26 Mr 45.’
Another provided London with a searing indictment of Lees’ supposed record in the field. ‘This officer gave considerable trouble from the time he was first infiltrated. He was resentful of all orders . . . and his attitude towards these is typified by the extracts from letters written by him in the Field (attached as Appendix “B”).’
Some of Lees’ more colourful and forthright messages were appended to that report and they made for damaging reading. In short, the knives were out for him. Farran, meanwhile, received Lees’ hand written message about his escape by hijacked German ambulance with a surge of hope: maybe his friend was about to be plucked to safety, after all?
At the same time – 5 April 1945 – Farran received urgent orders in the field. He was warned that the main Allied offensive to breech the Gothic Line had begun, but that it had run into ferocious resistance. He was urged to take his Allied Battalion and make all efforts to hit and harass enemy traffic on Highway Twelve, the main supply route for two German divisions manning the key section of the Gothic Line. There was no time to delay.
Thankfully, a fresh pair of hands had just been parachuted in to boost Farran’s command. On 4 April 1945 Colonel Hardt’s DC3s had flown yet another resupply mission over the Secchia valley. Along with the crates of mortars, heavy machine-gun rounds, grenades and ammunition, they’d parachuted in a distinctive figure – Karl Nurk, the Estonian big game hunter, irregular warfare veteran and fluent Russian speaker.
In recent months Nurk had been serving with the Special Boat Service, operating across the Aegean, the stretch of sea sandwiched between Greece and Turkey. But Farran’s summons – that he needed Nurk as his bridge to the Russian partisans – had duly plucked him out of the Aegean and parachuted him into the skies over Secchio.
Farran was overjoyed. ‘No longer would I have to rely on Lieutenant Stephens’ interpretation of Modena’s German.’ Nurk ‘had all the likeable qualities of the Russian émigré – recklessness, a taste for wine, women and song and a perpetual sense of drama . . . He immediately made great friends with Modena and on the first night I heard them singing Russian songs together at a very late hour.’ Nurk wasn’t a Russian émigré, of course. He was Estonian and had fought against the Russians in the Winter War. But he was the bridge that Farran longed for.
There was another key reason that Farran had agitated to have a man like Nurk – a fellow major – join him, as he prepared to launch an all-out offensive against the enemy. Tellingly, with Mike Lees gone, command of the Allied Battalion had become something of a lonely occupation. Not any more. ‘A born adventurer, ’ Farran wrote of Nurk, ‘he was as gay as his reputation and equally fearless. I felt I had found a kindred spirit.’
Striking Highway Twelve was a daunting proposition, even as a classic hit-and-run exercise. But Farran had been called upon to do so much more. He was tasked with moving the Allied Battalion lock, stock and barrel onto the plains, to savage the enemy’s supply lines. It was a herculean task, breaking down all of their defensive positions and mobilising their heaviest weaponry. Even Lieutenant Harvey’s 75mm howitzer, Molto Stanco, was to be brought to join the hotchpotch convoy that was being assembled – led by Hans the German deserter’s captured truck and scores of lumbering ox-carts.
By 7 April Farran intended to move to within striking distance of Highway Twelve, and to somehow hide by day and attack at night, when the road tended to be chock-full with German military traffic. But to get there, the column would have to cross ‘appallingly rugged country, and would, therefore, be in no condition for an immediate attack. They had to be fresh for the actual raids,’ Farran cautioned, ‘because utmost care would be needed for the final approach . . .’ Highway Twelve ran along the top of an exposed ridge and there were no convenient gullies or defiles from which to mount ambushes.
By removing the Allied Battalion Farran knew that he was leaving the Secchia valley vulnerable. He was warned of such by Colonel Monti, who felt as if he were deserting them. In part to deflect any reprisals, Farran charged Kirkpatrick, his piper, to execute a last-minute tour of the villages, playing at every opportunity, so as to stamp the indelible signature of ‘Britishness’ on all that had transpired. Kirkpatrick’s was to be a whistle-stop tour, and Farran was just about to have delivered the means to make it happen.
On the night of 5/6 April 1945, Farran invited the key resistance figures – Colonel Monti, Gianni, Don Carlo, Barba Nera, Eros – to watch a truly awesome display of Allied military might in action, all orchestrated by Scalabrino, his veteran drop-zone enforcer. In part, it was to reinforce in their minds that for Italy, the hour of liberation was now at hand. Now was the moment to rise up and seize back their country.
It was well past midnight by the time the drop zone – a round-topped hill, whose sides fell away to sharp gullies – was ready. Next to the Casa Balocchi DZ, this was the next-best field, and it lay close to the exit of the valley – the route by which Farran’s Victory Column would head, to hit Highway Twelve. But that also put it well within sight of the nearest enemy positions.
As Farran and the resistance leaders stood waiting, wrapped up against the night chill, his veteran W/T operator, Corporal Cunningham, employed a radio-homing set to guide the incoming planes. Known as the ‘Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar’, it consisted of an airborne receiver and antenna system fitted to an aircraft, to detect a radio signal transmitting from the ground-based ‘Eureka’ unit. The Rebecca calculated the range and position of the Eureka, based upon the timings and direction of the signal.
Bang on schedule the faint throb of straining aero-engines echoed through the dark skies. Farran yelled for the flares to be triggered and the signal fires lit. The ghostly silhouette of an aircraft roared overhead, but it wasn’t the kind of warplane that Farran was expecting. For an instant he wondered whether to douse the signals, in case it was a marauding enemy night-fighter. But just as quickly it was gone again, the heavens reverting to a starlit stillness and silence.
For Farran the wait became nerve-racking. Was this crucial piece of theatre to end in an embarrassing no-show? Some fifteen minutes behind schedule the distinctive laboured throb of heavily laden aircraft filled the skies, as a flight swept in at a lower and more purposeful altitude. Farran ordered the flares lit again. Steering a path between the high peaks, the flight of aircraft emerged from the darkness carrying their highly unusual payloads.
As the first plane thundered in, the underside of its fuselage was illuminated in the flares’ harsh glare. It was a Halifax heavy bomber, but crammed into its bomb-bay was the square bulk of a Willys MB jeep, the bomb doors held open to accommodate the bulky cargo. The Halifax turned sharply and came in for its drop-run, making a beeline for the hilltop DZ. Moments later the black silhouette plummeted from the aircraft and parachutes blossomed in the air above it, one suspended from each corner.
But one of the chutes failed to open properly. It bunched up like a sack of damp washing, crushed by the jeep’s slipstream. The vehicle flipped crazily, the other chutes became entangled, and moments later there were a series of harsh ripping sounds as the parachute silk was torn asunder, leaving the jeep plummeting towards earth like some kind of giant demented bomb. Screeching like a banshee the vehicle streaked towards the watchers, careering into the centre of the DZ right in the midst of the signal fires.
Thankfully, no one was hurt, but when Farran turned to reassure his distinguished guests he found that they had fled. He managed to round them up again, and in short order a second jeep was dropped, this one behaving impeccably. It swung to earth gently, suspended on its four chutes, landing with a faint crash on its sprung carriage – a bespoke steel pan fitted with springs. Within moments the DZ crew had freed the jeep from the pan, fired it up and were roaring away to clear the ground for the next load.
Four jeeps were dropped, not including the first that had broken free and torn itself to smithereens. The last was released in broad daylight in full sight of the nearest German garrisons. The drop had done wonders to stiffen the nerves of the partisan leaders and it must have been morale-sapping in the extreme for the enemy. Masses of ammo accompanied the jeeps – chiefly mortar and howitzer rounds. With the vehicles to hand, Farran had a sense that they could mount the kind of fast, mobile shoot-and-scoot warfare a target like Highway Twelve called for. It hadn’t escaped his notice that with such mobility and grunt they could tow Molto Stanco into battle, pretty much at will.
Farran’s Victory Column began to take shape, as those commanding the valley’s perimeter defences were called in. Parachutist Murphy was dragged back from his position in the shadow of Monte Pena; Parachutist Wooding and Corporal Larley returned from their frontier outposts; and finally, Lieutenant Eld was pulled back from his front-line defences. Modena’s Russians marched into the muster point, as did the choicest Garibaldini and Green Flames units. The guns on the jeeps were cleaned and they were fuelled for action. Molto Stanco was delivered by Lieutenant Harvey, who had collapsed the Cisa Box, breaking the big gun down into its constituent parts. It was reassembled and hitched to a jeep.
A trailer was parachuted in, to be towed behind a jeep piled with howitzer shells. Scores of ox-carts were requisitioned by Barba Nera, and heaped high with provisions, kit and weaponry. Likewise, mules grumbled under heavy burdens. By his deadline – 7 April – Farran’s Victory Column was all but ready, one jeep remaining to be dropped in. He left David Eyton-Jones – whose feet had still not fully recovered from his frost-bitten ascent of Monte Cusna – to take charge of the last jeep.
As Farran set out at the head of his Victory Column, it was to be Eyton-Jones who was to see the first action. Shortly after his jeep was parachuted in, a US warplane plummeted from the sky with its starboard engine on fire, crashing in sight of their position. In its wake three parachutists drifted to earth, landing in an open field in clear sight of both Eyton-Jones and the enemy.
The young SAS lieutenant didn’t hesitate: he mounted up the newly arrived jeep to ride to their rescue. Even as he set out, a German Kubelwagen – a Volkswagen light military vehicle and the Germans’ nearest equivalent to the jeep – raced towards the downed airmen from the opposite side. Knowing that his jeep boasted some serious firepower – a Browning and a pair of Vickers K machine guns – Eyton-Jones didn’t baulk. Understandably, the US airmen found it hard to believe that either force racing towards them could be friendly. This far behind the lines surely they had to be Germans.
As Eyton-Jones slammed his jeep to a halt, three figures came out of hiding with their hands held high. Even as his jeep-mounted weapons menaced the Kubelwagen, Eyton-Jones urged them to climb aboard. ‘I called over that I was British,’ he recalled, ‘and would they get into the jeep, as I could see a German car with troops heading towards them.’ The American pilot seemed confused: ‘Aw, gee, my navigator must have got it all wrong.’ Eyton-Jones told him otherwise. ‘I assured him his navigator was quite correct, they were in German-occupied territory.’
With all aboard, Eyton-Jones ferried the bewildered US airmen back to comparative safety. After celebrating their miraculous salvation, Eyton-Jones charged Fritz Snapper to smuggle the airmen back through the lines, with an escort of McGinty’s Arrows to speed them on their way. That done, he formed up at the head of the supply column of bullock carts, and on Barba Nera’s orders they got underway, heading for the plains.
Hours later they were reunited with Farran’s advance party. The SAS major formed his forces up into four distinct units. The first, Sun Column, consisted of five SAS plus Modena’s Russians – now swelled to one hundred fighting men. Sun Column was a potent outfit, and it was assigned to hit the section of Highway Twelve where it linked up with the Gothic Line and where battle was likely to be at its fiercest. Accordingly, it was the most heavily armed, boasting Molto Stanco, three mortars, a heavy Browning machine gun, plus fifteen Brens.
The second unit, Moon Column, was commanded by Jock Easton, and consisted of twenty-five SAS plus thirty of the finest Garibaldini. Equipped with two Vickers machine guns, three mortars and ten Brens, its job was to raid the mid-section of the highway, where it cut across the plains. Star Column came next, consisting of five SAS plus sixty mixed Italian partisans, armed with three mortars, one Browning and fifteen Brens. In Farran’s mind, Star Column was the weakest of the three. It was tasked with striking Highway Twelve at its most vulnerable point, where the roadway ran out of the foothills.
Finally, there was Farran’s own command, Eclipse Column, which consisted of four jeeps and ten SAS. It was configured as a fast, hit-and-run force, which would strike at the kind of heavily defended targets that would put the fear of God into the enemy. With Eclipse Column in particular Farran had one aim foremost in his mind: if he could strike fast enough and with suitable potency, he hoped to convince enemy commanders that Allied forces had broken through the Gothic Line, so prompting a hell-for-leather retreat.
As the Victory Column wound its way out of the foothills, Farran ran his eye along its length: it straggled for many miles. Whoa Mahommet had been found again, and he trotted his diminutive steed this way and that, feeling an immense sense of pride. What they had achieved here, seemingly from nothing, was little short of a miracle. Just weeks back the partisans had been demoralised and in disarray. Now, they were setting forth to drive out the enemy invaders.
The SAS members of the Victory Column seemed in particularly high spirits. Even though he lacked a horse, Major Karl Nurk seemed happy to stick close to the Stafettas. The men sang as they marched, and Kirkpatrick gave the occasional blast on his bagpipes, though he was apparently lacking in treacle with which to lubricate the bag (treacle preserves the skin, while allowing moisture to wick through). Farran’s men, dusty, unshaven and wearing mud-spattered and ripped uniforms, gave a cheer from beneath their faded red berets.
‘They were the cream of this rag-tag army,’ Farran remarked, ‘and I loved every one of them . . . there were no finer troops than these.’ After weeks of training with and fighting alongside the SAS, the Italian partisans were also in fine fettle, as were the Russians. Just how fine his motley force might prove Farran was about to discover, as they crossed the Secchia and moved deeper into bandit country.
It was evening by the time Barba Nera’s entire one-hundred-strong bullock cart convoy had managed to ford the river, with Eyton-Jones and his jeep to the fore. Farran formed the force up as one defensive unit and they set up camp for the night. But having made contact with headquarters, there was worrying news. Cunningham delivered a long message, which had taken an age to decode. In essence they had been ordered to strike at Highway Twelve with no delay.
‘Our orders were clear for once,’ Farran remarked, ‘and, having contravened instructions over the [HQ] attack . . . and my very presence on the wrong side of the lines, I did not dare delay our advance . . .’ He called his commanders together, to deliver the unwelcome news. Tired as they were, they would have to push on through the gathering darkness, moving far beyond the territory they had covered when striking at the Botteghe HQ.
Though they faced a gruelling night march through uncharted terrain, spirits remained high. ‘As we moved into unknown country, I felt the same excitement as I knew the men felt,’ Farran remarked, ‘and began to watch from every vantage point for signs of the enemy.’
From his own vantage point, Farran’s fellow Botteghe raid commander was also watching anxiously. In his mountain-top position, Mike Lees searched the skies for a tiny, fragile-seeming aircraft, which might pluck him to safety.
Tantalisingly, the impossible promise of salvation beckoned.