Throughout 1943 and into 1944 Jacqueline’s workload became increasingly heavy. The Stationer circuit’s vast area meant that she was constantly on the move, taking and receiving messages, and coping with the ever-increasing number of members joining the Resistance groups.
At the start of the war the BBC had played a large part in keeping up the morale of the people of France with its French-language transmissions; but as the conflict staggered into its fourth year, the population was beginning to tire of the broadcasts, especially those concerning the maquisards, the French Resistance fighters. Every day the BBC would urge young Frenchmen to join the Resistance to avoid being sent to Germany for forced labor, the Service du Travail Obligatoire instituted by Chief Minister of Vichy France, Pierre Laval. The BBC message was, no doubt, well intentioned, but many men had already joined the Resistance and the message was creating as many problems as it solved. The circuits that were already in existence had been operating for a long time, and the fighters were trained and knew what they had to do. The sudden influx of so many young men, answering the calls that were put out on the BBC French service, was causing chaos in some areas. The resources of the established circuits were being ever more stretched and discipline was being eroded, as many of the new recruits were really only offering their services to escape being rounded up, and a good many of them had no interest in working for the Resistance at all, simply seeing it as the BBC had depicted it: a way of avoiding forced labor.
The Stationer circuit was fortunate in having Maurice Southgate at its helm. He would stand no nonsense from these latter-day patriots and soon began to knock some sense into them. Jacqueline too was rather good at dealing with them. Most young men would not have taken any notice of a hardworking but rather shy young woman, but there was something about Jacqueline that was different from most young women and she too was able to bring some sense of discipline to these rowdy groups. She was friendly towards them without being familiar and always behaved professionally, putting off any would-be suitors with a smile and a kind word. She let them know that if they had problems and needed her help she could be called on for assistance, but if she felt that they were trying to take advantage she knew how to deal with them without bruising egos or making herself unpopular. It didn’t take her long to gain their respect and very soon they regarded her with affection. Should the need arise, they would even take orders from her—something almost unique in a country that didn’t give women the right to vote until 19441 and wouldn’t even allow them to open a bank account or take a job without their husbands’ permission for a further 21 years.2 But although Jacqueline won these men’s trust, their presence in the circuit and its subcircuits caused much extra work for her. Some of the old hands were disgruntled by the arrival of these young tearaways, believing that they threatened the circuit’s security. Fearing that the situation might get out of hand, Jacqueline did all she could to help Southgate with the headstrong young volunteers and, at the same time, calm the situation and ensure that the morale of those who had already been working for Stationer for some time was not damaged.
Jacqueline was not altogether surprised when she discovered that Amédée Maingard, the circuit’s wireless operator, needed cheering up. He lived and worked from a small room in Châteauroux which, for security reasons, was in a fairly isolated part of the town, and he hardly ever left it. A quiet, thoughtful young man, he was completely reliable and would never have done anything to compromise the circuit, but his devotion to the cause was seriously affecting his mood and he told Jacqueline that he was feeling really fed up. He had his two regular times each day to send and receive messages, but apart from that he had nothing else to occupy him and the inactivity was driving him mad. He was seriously thinking of asking to be returned to London so that he could become a paratrooper and see some real action. Jacqueline tried her best to keep up his spirits. Ironically her own role meant that she hardly ever had time to herself and sometimes longed for some breathing space so that she could read a book or listen to some music. She told Southgate that Maingard was suffering and he agreed that the wireless operator should be given something else to do before he became really depressed.
Southgate valued Jacqueline’s opinions on a number of issues, and knew that he could always rely on her insights and common sense. When he was away, he was quite happy to leave her to get on with her work and keep an eye on the various sections of the circuit as well. In his absence Auguste Chantraine (Octave) and Charles Rechenmann (Julien), the leaders of two of the large subcircuits, took their orders from her and, both to give him something else to do and as a support to her, she involved Maingard in the decisions she made.
Chantraine’s men were almost all Communists and operated in the northern part of Stationer around the area of Châteauroux where Maingard had his base. Chantraine could call on the services of approximately 500 men there, although he always had problems arming that many men, as supplies were short and when they did arrive were not always what had been requested. Rechenmann had a smaller group of men, between 50 and 100, most of whom were escaped prisoners of war. The area in which they operated stretched from the south of Châteauroux to Tarbes and Pau, 600 kilometers away.
Although it was not strictly part of the work of a courier or a wireless operator, Jacqueline and Maingard were co-opted into a group of ten of Southgate’s most trusted agents who helped him organize and carry out several sabotage operations.3 For Maingard it was a relief to be able to leave his room and see some action, however sporadic, and he was pleased that Southgate had named him as his assistant.
The operations were varied and widespread. By the middle of 1943 the group had made several daring raids. They had blown up the generators at the Gnôme et Rhône aircraft engine factory in Limoges, putting it out of action for three days and denying the Luftwaffe replacement engines. In Bersac they destroyed an electricity substation and set fire to 27 new trucks that had been bound for Germany. Two pylons at Dun-le-Palestel were blown up, and many more destroyed between Vierzon and Pau. Three transformers were wrecked at the Hispano-Suiza works, a former luxury-car maker in Tarbes which by then had been forced to make engines for German aircraft, and the arsenals at both Tarbes and Tulle were bombed. The group also targeted the railway, damaging the rails and signals at various places on the network, and wrecking loading cranes at Brive and Tulle. Southgate, with the help of only two men, cut off the electricity to the aluminum works at Lannemezan, causing all the aluminum to solidify, and there was a raid on a large aircraft factory in Marignade, near Marseilles, in which abrasive substances were put into engines on the test beds, rendering them useless. The sabotage spree of 1943 ended in December with the destruction of pumps at the steelworks in Ancizes, which disrupted production for three months, and with the theft of 30,000 liters of German petrol in Saignes.
Taking part in some of these raids had certainly lifted Maingard’s depression, and although she was becoming very tired, Jacqueline had enjoyed the variety that her participation had brought to her day-to-day work too.
In addition to her sabotage work Jacqueline sometimes formed part of the reception committees that received agents and supplies. These could be just as dangerous as sabotage missions and were certainly not helped by having the wrong details of supplies being sent. She often found that the number of packages expected was wrong, and she and the others spent valuable time looking for things that had not been on the aircraft in the first place. This put them all in danger of being discovered and arrested by the Germans, who sometimes saw the containers descending on their little parachutes and immediately sent out search parties to look for those who were receiving them. There were times when the number of packages was correct but the contents were wrong. On the odd occasion when some little luxuries were included they caused more problems, as with so many people in the various sections of the circuit, a few bars of chocolate or some other little treat could not be divided properly. The arrival of new agents usually went much more smoothly, although these too were subject to the moon, the weather conditions and the skill of the pilot.
One of the agents who arrived on 22 September 1943 was a new courier for Stationer, Pearl Witherington (Marie), who had been one of Southgate’s school friends and who parachuted from an RAF Handley Page Halifax piloted by Flight Sergeant Cole of 138 Squadron to a dropping zone near Châteauroux. Southgate had arranged her reception committee and was there to meet his old friend himself. He also alerted Pearl’s fiancé, Henri Cornioley, to her arrival and the following day took her to meet him. It was the first time they had seen each other in three years and according to Pearl, Cornioley was “shaking like a jelly.”4
When she met Jacqueline, Pearl began to wonder why she was there at all, as she could see that Jacqueline was most efficient and evidently invaluable to Southgate. She soon realized, however, that even with two couriers, there was still too much for them both to do. They were so busy that they barely saw each other and mostly worked in different areas of the huge circuit.
Three weeks after Pearl’s arrival, Southgate was recalled to London and left Stationer in the capable hands of Jacqueline and Maingard. They, along with Chantraine and Rechenmann, continued to undertake sabotage missions, and the reception and distribution of material, which they spread around the entire circuit among Resistance members, telling them to keep everything safe for when it was needed. They were stockpiling as much as they could for D-Day, which they were sure could not be far off, not realizing at that stage just how far distant that day still was.
By the end of 1943 Jacqueline was desperately tired and longing for some rest, but she refused to take even one day off. The responsibilities she was shouldering and the tireless work she continued to undertake were inevitably having a bad effect on her health. She found that she didn’t have the strength to walk very far or carry anything heavy; every movement was a huge effort for her. But still she hung on, refusing to admit how ill she was feeling.
Then disaster struck. Just before Christmas there had been a failed attempt to free captured Resistance members from the prison in Châteauroux and, although he had not been involved, for some inexplicable reason Auguste Chantraine was suspected by the Germans of being one of the rescue party. He was arrested and deported to Germany. Later he was moved to the concentration camp of Mauthausen near the Austrian city of Linz where, in March 1945, he was executed. The arrest of Chantraine was a huge blow to Jacqueline and Maingard, who felt that they had lost a friend and a trusted colleague. To the Resistance fighters whom he had led it was a calamity. It was something they all felt personally, as Chantraine had been a major part of their lives, and was a valuable and respected leader. His arrest also meant that his land, which had long been a dropping zone for agents and supplies, could no longer be used. When Jacqueline and Maingard learned of Chantraine’s capture they knew that they would have to act quickly to ensure that Southgate wasn’t dropped in this area, as had been the plan for his arrival from England. There was a further problem, as Chantraine knew Maingard’s address in the avenue de la Gare in Châteauroux and the two men had been seen together, so the address was no longer a safe place for anyone from the circuit.
At the end of 1943, as Southgate was preparing to return to France, unaware of the tragedy that had befallen Stationer, Buckmaster sent him a note, telling him:
I once said to you that yours was the ideal circuit, and I would like you to have that as my New Year’s message to you and all who are working with you. I know that you are inspired by the same spirit as we all are and I would like to congratulate you on the discreet but forceful way in which you have given expression to it in your work.
… If Jacqueline would like a rest for a week or 10 days in a country house in Sussex—nothing to do but eat eggs for breakfast and play with a puppy—I shall be very glad to arrange it chez some friends of ours, who will not ask any indiscreet questions, and who are absolutely trustworthy from the security angle.5
Before Southgate left London, he received a message from Maingard telling him not to go to his address in Châteauroux because of Chantraine’s arrest. He flew back to France at the end of January 1944 in a 138 Squadron Halifax piloted by Flight Sergeant Hayman and parachuted onto a dropping zone near Lubbon in southwest France. The drop had been hastily arranged with the leader of the Wheelwright circuit, George Starr (Hilaire), and went without a hitch. Southgate immediately caught a bus to Toulouse and then went on to Tarbes, where he saw members of Rechenmann’s subcircuit before heading for Montluçon to meet Maingard and Pearl.
In the first week after his return he received word from London of a drop of 20 agents, for which he had to arrange a dropping zone and a reception committee. Soon afterwards he was part of a reception committee for another three agents arriving from England. While speaking to the aircraft captain on one of the new S-Phones (a two-way wireless system), Southgate was also asked to arrange a drop for a Major Antelme and his wireless operator and courier. He suggested a zone near Poitiers and this information was passed back to London.
When he eventually caught up with Jacqueline, whom he had not seen for over three months, Southgate was profoundly shocked by her appearance. She had lost a lot of weight and was obviously exhausted. Finding a moment to talk to her alone, he told her about the offer Buckmaster had made and said that he was going to get Maingard to send a message to the Colonel, asking him to arrange for a flight to take her back to London for a good rest. She told him that she was fine and that she wasn’t going anywhere, as she didn’t need a rest. It was the first time that Southgate had sensed any sort of defiance in Jacqueline’s manner. She didn’t want to leave him in the lurch with D-Day coming up, and she was determined to be there herself to greet the Allies when they finally arrived. Southgate allowed himself to be talked out of sending a message for the time being, but resolved to keep an eye on her and see how she was in a week or so. Despite his time in London he, too, was worn out but also desperate to be in France when the longed-for Allied invasion began. He could fully understand why Jacqueline wanted to be there too, but he had to think about the safety of the other members of his circuit. After all the backbreaking work they had both done, he knew that it would seem like failure to Jacqueline to go home before the final push was under way and the liberation of the country they both loved was beyond doubt. But he worried that unless her health improved very soon Jacqueline might slip up, simply because she was so weary.
After a very short time Southgate knew that whatever Jacqueline said to the contrary, she would have to return to England; she was not getting any better. He asked Maingard to send a message to Buckmaster with a request for transport for her. In February an aircraft arrived to take her back to England. The pilot had been instructed to make sure that Jacqueline, who had been told to be ready to leave, was on board the return flight. She, however, had decided not to take any notice of Buckmaster’s order and gave her seat to a French politician who needed to get to London in a hurry. It was probably the only time in her SOE career that she disobeyed an order. Buckmaster was not pleased but he soon forgave her; after all, she was still one of his favorites and he was annoyed mainly because he was worried about her.
Back in England Francis was still staying in a bed-and-breakfast hotel, with very little money and no idea of what was going to happen to him. His case had been referred to Captain Jepson by Vera Atkins after she had consulted Colonel Buckmaster. They had agreed that the kindest way of explaining his removal from the SOE was to say that they couldn’t use him operationally because the Gestapo knew too much about him. Atkins told Jepson that until Francis found employment or was called up for the Army, the SOE would pay him £1 per day but they would not provide him with any accommodation, the rationale being that it would “leave him quite free to go and do as he pleases until he is fixed up.”6
Jepson acted promptly. Two days after being given the task of removing Francis from SOE’s employ, he contacted Military Intelligence to say that Francis was “to be disposed of” and returned to civilian life, where he would have to take his chance of being called up for military service. Jepson wanted to know if this course of action would amount to a security risk, since Francis had already completed some of what was a top-secret course. By the end of February 1944 it had been decided that he did not present a threat and two weeks later he was told that he was to be “landed.” Because he had entered Britain on a secret flight and had been in the charge of the SOE since his arrival, the British authorities had no idea that he was in England. The purpose of his “landing” was to bring him into the country officially and to this end he was taken to the Immigration Office at Ibex House in the City by a member of SOE’s Security Section, who told an immigration official that Francis was a British subject and had arrived that day, 14 March 1944, from France via Gibraltar. He was issued with British documents, and told he would have to have a medical for the Ministry of Labour and that, if found to be fit, he would be classified for military service.
Two days later Francis was “sworn out” of the SOE by signing a declaration that he would not disclose anything he knew about the establishment’s work or special training schools. Having given his signature he was, in effect, cast adrift from the organization that had taken him from his home and family, and had brought him to England five months earlier.
Confident that Jacqueline would not dare to disobey orders again and would, therefore, be back in England soon, Buckmaster decided to make one more attempt to resolve what had become an impossible situation. He did not want her to return and, after giving such wonderful service to his section, discover that he had abandoned her brother. In March he wrote a note to the Director of Finance, telling him:
This man is a brother of one of our very good women couriers. She has been in the Field since January 1943 and at the beginning of November 1943 she sent over her brother for training in this country and return to the Field.
Unfortunately he has completely failed to pass the medical standard required and we have been compelled to return him to civilian life. He is in a very nervous and weak condition and it will prove exceptionally difficult to find him suitable employment and to make things more difficult, his English is far from perfect…
In view of the special circumstances surrounding this case and the very good services being given by his two sisters, I am afraid we shall have to support this man until his health is sufficiently recovered or until his sister [Jacqueline] arrives: she may be able to help. At present he is still receiving pay at trainees’ rates and we are paying his hotel for bed and breakfast. I think it would be more satisfactory to pay him say £10 per week and let him look after himself. In view of the fact that he is an ill man and has neither friends nor family in this country, I do not think he will be able to keep himself on less.
Buckmaster ended his note by asking the director, “Will you please let me have your views?” Yet again, the fate of poor Francis had been passed on to someone else.