CHAPTER 21

Thoughtless Demands

When Maurice Buckmaster arrived at the airport to greet Didi, he had not long returned from the Continent himself. After the liberation of Paris in August 1944 he had planned a trip which, on 25 September, took him back to France, where he had remained for the next seven months, traveling around the country, making contact with Resistance members and those who had helped the SOE agents with their work. He gave his project the lofty title of the Judex Mission, after the process used in early Roman law of selecting a citizen to act as a judge, hear disputes and make decisions. Buckmaster may have planned his Judex Mission with such work in mind, and he did receive several complaints from disgruntled members of the Resistance that he quickly passed to other members of his team for investigation, but in reality it was not a fact-finding trip to right wrongs or to arbitrate in disputes. It was a lengthy public relations exercise, in which Buckmaster was received by officials, attended dinners—formal and informal—received praise for the work that had been done by his agents and dispensed gifts to those who had helped them. He was accompanied by several senior staff from London and a record of the visits he made was kept by Captain R. A. Bourne-Paterson, F Section’s planning officer and a former accountant.

While visiting Rennes in Brittany during the first few days of the mission, the party came across eight men working on repairs to the railway line, which had been damaged by RAF bombing raids. They were anxious to clear up something that had been both puzzling and frustrating them, and they hoped that Colonel Buckmaster would be able to provide the answers they sought. Bourne-Paterson’s report explained the problem:

Their first question was to ask us if we could explain why the Germans, who had tortured and maltreated members of the French Resistance, were now being given, as prisoners, a packet of cigarettes a day by the Americans, and rations far in excess of those available to the civilian population. The reply was not, and is not, easy, and the Americans have done themselves a great deal of harm by the lenient way in which they have treated their prisoners. In the eyes of the French, the British and the French are now very close together, as they have both suffered directly at the hand of the Germans, whereas the Americans, who have suffered neither occupation nor bombardment, still do not know what they are dealing with.¹

The visit to Rennes also highlighted another problem in the way the Americans worked. It became clear that their policy when dealing with anyone whose first language was not (or did not appear to be) English was to arrest and imprison them before asking questions. The party heard how two girls, both very active Resistance members, had crossed the railway line, and been arrested and imprisoned by the Americans for doing so, one of the girls being locked up on her 20th birthday. It seemed a very harsh punishment for such innocuous behavior. Such an American reaction was found not to be unusual. Their heavy-handedness towards the Allies but liberal behavior towards the Germans did nothing for relations between the French people and the US troops.

After leaving Rennes the mission entourage went to Paris, where Buckmaster and Vera Atkins set up a “drop-in” center for SOE agents who had not yet been brought back to London. They rented two rooms at the Hotel Cecil in the rue Saint-Didier and, for a short while, their makeshift offices were busy. When the agents arrived they were usually seen by Vera, but she was later replaced by Nancy Fraser-Campbell, a member of the FANY and an F Section staff member from London, who had traveled as part of the mission. Vera didn’t stay long in the capital. She was concerned that, despite the facilities for receiving agents, very few had actually emerged and so decided to return to England, where she began her self-appointed task of tracing all the agents who hadn’t turned up at the Hotel Cecil, including Didi, and who were still missing.

In October the mission visited Lille and met the people who had resurrected the Farmer network when its leader, Michael Trotobas, had been murdered by the Germans. The head of the Spiritualist circuit, René Dumont-Guillemet (Didi’s second boss while in France), had been largely responsible for reactivating Farmer and he was there to meet the members of the mission when they arrived on 3 October. The report of the visit to the Farmer circuit recorded:

Outstanding in all our contacts with the various groups was the evidence of a fervent admiration, amounting almost to worship, of Captain Michel [Trotobas]… of a burning desire to continue to rank as part of a British War Office organisation, and of the development of an esprit de corps which was remarkable. It was in its way a tragedy that part of our mission is to declare the British connection officially ended, although there is no doubt whatever that unofficially it will continue to exist for a very long time to come.²

The report also confirmed that not only was Trotobas a legendary figure in the Resistance; so too, to a lesser degree, was Dumont-Guillemet, without whose input, ideas, financial assistance and leadership the circuit that Trotobas had founded would have disappeared, its members scattered and its great work at an end. It was officially recorded that “Tangible results of this contact were represented by a mass of well-directed sabotage against German communications and a mass of information particularly of rocket emplacements which came flowing in from Lille.”³ Didi’s role in helping Dumont-Guillemet in this task cannot be dismissed, for it was she, along with Spiritualist’s other wireless operators Maury and Diacono, who sent the vital information on to London.

The Judex Mission was joined for short visits by agents who had worked in France, and by November 1944 Buckmaster had asked Jacqueline Nearne to join him and take the members of the mission to meet the people with whom she had worked. She left England for Paris on 2 December, not knowing her sister’s whereabouts and uncertain if she was still alive. Two days later, having taken a boat across the Channel and then a train, she joined the group, who were producing an itinerary for the next part of the trip, when they would visit southwest France, one of the large areas in which the Stationer circuit had operated. With them went Pearl Witherington, who had married her fiancé, Henri Cornioley, the previous month, and George Jones, the wireless operator of the Headmaster circuit, who had sent messages for Stationer before the arrival of Amédée Maingard.

At Châteauroux they were able to catch up with many of the people Jacqueline and Pearl knew, and Buckmaster handed out cigarettes and made a speech before heading off to La Châtre and then Montluçon, where Maurice Southgate had been arrested. Because of an administrative error there was no accommodation for any of the party there and they had to sleep on the floor of a café. It gave those mission members, such as Bourne-Paterson and Buckmaster, who had remained in England for most of the war a small taste of the difficulties the agents had endured on a daily basis, albeit without the added danger of a Gestapo raid suddenly taking place.

When they reached Clermont-Ferrand, Colonel Buckmaster, George Jones and Jacqueline went to 37 rue Blatin, home of the Nerault family, who had given so much help to the Resistance. They found that the concierge of the building, Maria, was still there. She had bravely stayed at her post after the family had been caught by the Gestapo during the raid that Francis Nearne had narrowly escaped. Sadly Maria had no more news of M. and Mme. Nerault, or their daughter Colette,⁴ but she gave them good tidings of their son, Jean, who was alive and well and had not been captured. During the visit to rue Blatin, Jean Nerault suddenly appeared and “scenes of wild rejoicing took place.” The group retired for drinks to the Brasserie de Strasbourg, a favorite haunt of the Stationer circuit. “The patron was still there and great was his astonishment at seeing Designer [Jacqueline] in FANY uniform. Although he pretended to have known all the time, it was quite obvious that this was not true and all the garçons were brought in to shake hands with us.”⁵

Next, battling through heavy snowfalls, Jacqueline went with Buckmaster and two other officers to La Souterraine, where she introduced the Colonel to an elderly lady, Mme. Marie Gillet, who had been a great help to Stationer, providing a safe house for agents, including Jacqueline, until she was arrested just before D-Day and imprisoned for three months. As a result of her incarceration Mme. Gillet had lost most of her belongings and was extremely poor, so Buckmaster was pleased to be able to give her gifts to help her get her life back together, “for which she most pathetically offered to pay.”⁶ The offer was, of course, refused.

Lunch at a restaurant called the Lion d’Or followed, and here Jacqueline was able to thank the proprietor, who had also assisted her in her work during her long stay in France. Jacqueline then left the rest of the group, who headed further south while she caught a train to Paris. She was anxious to get to the capital as soon as possible as, although it was unlikely that she would discover anything new, she wanted to see what she could find out about Didi’s whereabouts and hoped that there might be someone who had heard something that would give her hope that Didi was still alive. But, as she had feared, no one could tell her anything at all about her sister and it was with a heavy heart that she began her journey back to England.

Buckmaster, who still had a soft spot for Jacqueline, was delighted to have had her with him on the Judex Mission, commenting:

It was always a matter of great regret to me that Hector [Maurice Southgate] could not be with Jacqueline and other members of his group who, in December 1944, toured with me the area in which they had been working during the war.

… I shall never forget the warmth of the family embraces which were showered on Jacqueline, and in which I was often included myself. They bore testimony to her popularity and to her unselfishness. Pent up emotion was released in an overwhelming flood of international rejoicing.⁷

When Jacqueline returned to England she made her way back to the home in Darenth Road, Stamford Hill, where she had lived for such a short time with Didi. When the news finally came through in May 1945 that Didi had been reported as escaping from a camp in Markkleeberg she was delighted; but her elation quickly faded when no other news was forthcoming and no one could tell her anything more about her sister’s whereabouts. Then came the American report that Vera Atkins had recognized, and Jacqueline knew, with an overwhelming sense of relief, that Didi would be coming back to her after all.

After having been met at the aircraft side by Colonel Buckmaster, Didi was taken by a driver from the FANYs to Stamford Hill, where Jacqueline was waiting. An almost unrecognizable figure staggered through the front door and Jacqueline was appalled by the change that had taken place in her lively young sister. Didi was obviously very ill, and would need a lot of physical and emotional help in order to return to the vivacious girl she had once been.

Gradually Didi was able to tell Jacqueline a little of what had happened to her, but some things were obviously too painful for her to recount so she just told her sister that she had never lost hope of surviving, and that her willpower and faith had saved her. Jacqueline could clearly see that her sister’s faith remained unshaken but that, despite her effort to try to be cheerful, her spirit had been badly damaged and she was suffering more from psychological problems than physical—something that Jacqueline was powerless to treat.

A week after her return to London Didi was called into the office of the SOE to be debriefed. Afterwards, a reporter from the News Chronicle contacted her for an interview, which was conducted in a coffee shop. In the subsequent article in the paper she was named as 24-year-old Miss Monique V., who had joined the “French underground” in Paris; the unnamed reporter noted, “I cannot tell you her name. It is still on the security list.” Although this was undoubtedly true, it was a rather pointless security measure, as the article had a photo of Didi above the headline “English girl survived SS torture.”⁸

Thankful to have the ordeal of the debriefing and the newspaper interview behind her, Didi was then left alone to adjust to her freedom. As was customary in those days, she was not offered any help in recovering from the trauma she had suffered. Eventually that help would come, and Didi would be referred to various doctors and clinics, but for the first few months after her return from the camps she was left to her own devices to muddle through as best she could.

One day soon after her return she received a letter from Paulette, who had been with her in American custody after VE Day. In the short time they had been together they had formed a friendship and Paulette had won Didi’s trust; Didi had even disclosed that she was British and that her name was Eileen, although Paulette had no idea how to spell the name. Her letter, dated 15 June 1945, came from Metz in northeast France.

My dear little Eiline,

I don’t know if the letter I sent from Paris reached you but it was sent with an American officer. Dear little Eiline, I’m finally what one could call almost free, I’m back in France, I’m going to be returned to my département, at least I hope so. And you dear, how has your business been arranged, have they finally decided to return you to the English authorities, that was not very nice, after you left I was seriously angry, and told them that I belong to the French and not to the American authorities. My departure followed yours by 8 days, from the camp for Wiesbaden where I was treated better than previously.

Little Eiline I won’t forget you and want with all my heart to see you soon, I’d have so much to tell you. For now little Eiline, I don’t see much and I’ll leave you, awaiting to hear from you and above all to write more to you.

A friend who remembers you in days of misery as in days of joy and is always with you, your very devoted,

Paulette

Best wishes to you and see you soon.⁹

Although Didi kept the letter from Paulette and it was found amongst her belongings after her death, it doesn’t seem as if they ever met again.

With rest and the help of her sister, Didi’s physical strength gradually began to improve, although Jacqueline knew that she was still far from having made a complete recovery. To others, especially those in the SOE, she seemed fine, but she was again employing her acting skills, convincing everyone there that she was well and looking for work. Vera Atkins was fooled by her performance and tried to help her by writing letters to prospective employers, one of which was to a Mrs. Cooper at the cosmetics company Helena Rubinstein, asking if there was a position for her there:

Miss Eileen Nearne has worked in this Department since she fled to this country from France in April 1942. She volunteered for special work in France and was captured by the Germans.

In view of her extremely valuable war service and the hardship which she has suffered at the hands of the Germans we are anxious to see her re-established in a suitable peace-time occupation. She is extremely keen to train in beauty culture and I have no doubt will work very hard on making a success of it if she is given an opening.

In the circumstances I am taking the liberty of writing you this personal note in order that you may give her application most sympathetic consideration.¹⁰

But Didi simply wasn’t ready for work. When she and Jacqueline had been asked to give accounts of their work in France for a BBC World Service program to be broadcast in France, and had done so, Didi had been exhausted by the effort it required. Given her condition when she returned to England, she should never have been asked and before long she decided that she wanted nothing more to do with publicizing the work of the SOE.

Yvonne Baseden, the wireless operator who had been at Ravensbrück at the same time as Didi and had been rescued by Swedish officials in April 1945 and returned to England, also tried to avoid having to speak about what she had suffered. She refused interview requests, speaking to very few people about her war experience. Although it was understandable that she wanted to put the horrors of her incarceration in a concentration camp out of her mind, the SOE had other ideas and Vera Atkins persuaded her to agree to appear on the television program This Is Your Life in the 1950s.¹¹

Of the three SOE female agents who were incarcerated in Ravensbrück and survived—Yvonne Baseden, Didi Nearne and Odette Sansom—only Odette spoke at length about her experiences. Jerrard Tickell wrote a book about her, which was later made into a film starring Anna Neagle, thus ensuring that her name would be one of the most well known of all the SOE agents.

With the war and the Judex Mission well and truly over, Maurice Buckmaster’s thoughts turned to the awards he would recommend for his agents. It was easy to do this for the male agents. Most of them had been members of one or other of the military forces and, as such, were eligible for military awards. The case of the women was, however, different. Most of the women volunteers had been enrolled in the FANY which, although it provided a uniform and worked alongside the military, was actually a civilian organization. There were also approximately 14 other women who had been in the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), which was a military service, but since women were not allowed to bear arms, they were regarded in the same way as those in the civilian services. This meant that when it came to medals, the women were ineligible for many that their male counterparts received, even if the circumstances of their actions were similar and, in some cases, virtually identical.

Both Jacqueline and Didi were awarded the MBE (civil) by the British authorities. The citation for Jacqueline’s MBE—signed as early as April 1945 by Major-General Colin Gubbins, the head of the SOE—described how Jacqueline had worked tirelessly from January 1943 to April 1944 and had only returned to the UK because of ill health:

… During her time in the field she helped to build one of the largest and most successful circuits in France. Her work involved train journeys all over Southern France and to Paris; on nearly every occasion she had to pass through German controls and was subject to lightning Gestapo checks on the trains.

Her organiser was later arrested, but it is known that she carried out her highly important work with great coolness and courage over a long and difficult period and in the face of extremely active Gestapo operations at a time when the enemy was particularly anxious to locate and destroy this circuit.

It is strongly recommended that she be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (civil division).¹²

Didi’s citation was less detailed but certainly more appropriate than the remarks made by Colonel Buckmaster in her file just before her return from Germany:

This agent was landed in France by Lysander in early February 1944 as W/T operator to a circuit in the Paris region. For five and a half months she maintained constant communication with London from this most dangerous area, and by her cool efficiency, perseverance and willingness to undergo any risk in order to carry out her work, made possible the successful organisation of her group and the delivery of large quantities of arms and equipment.

She was arrested by the Gestapo towards the end of July 1944 while transmitting, and was subsequently deported to Germany.

For her steady courage and unfailing devotion to duty it is recommended that Miss Nearne be appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire.¹³

Both girls were also awarded the Croix de Guerre with Bronze Palm by the French, who were less biased about the work done by the women and more generous with their decorations. The sisters were happy to have had their work acknowledged but Pearl Cornioley was not at all pleased when she was also offered the MBE (civil); she refused to accept it and told those who had offered it that she could assure them that she had done nothing civil at all during the war. The powers that be duly reconsidered and Pearl’s MBE became a military award, but—rather unfairly, one must argue—Jacqueline’s and Didi’s MBEs remained civilian awards.

Three female agents were awarded the George Cross, the highest British award that can be given to a civilian. They were Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo, who were given the award posthumously, and Odette Sansom, who survived Ravensbrück by taking the surname of her circuit leader and lover, Peter Churchill, and letting it be known that she was related by marriage to Winston Churchill, which was, of course, a lie. When it was obvious to all, including the Germans, that the war was lost to them, Ravensbrück’s commandant Fritz Suhren drove Odette in a fancy sports car to the American lines and gave himself up with Churchill’s “niece,” in the hope of gaining leniency for himself. Odette told the Americans that he was not the Good Samaritan he purported to be and, unlike those of other agents, her story was not questioned. Suhren managed to escape and remained free for over three years, but was recaptured in Germany and tried by the French in 1949. He was found guilty and executed by firing squad in 1950.

After a time, there were suggestions that Odette had not deserved the George Cross.¹⁴ As well as being given the MBE she had also been given the Légion d’Honneur of France, so her contribution to the Resistance had been valued above those of other women such as Didi and Jacqueline. The women who received the George Cross certainly did not have an easy time at the hands of the Germans and had shown great courage, but so too had the Nearne sisters. Jacqueline, having been in France for 15 months, had served for slightly more than twice as long as Odette, who was arrested seven months after her arrival, and both sisters operated in the field for much longer than Violette, who spent three weeks in France on her first mission and just three days on her second before her arrest. Although both Didi and Odette had been ill treated by the enemy, and Odette had spent much of her time at Ravensbrück in solitary confinement, she had not had to do the backbreaking work in the camps that had been Didi’s lot. So why were Didi and Jacqueline, and others like them, not given more prestigious awards?

It has been suggested that Odette and Violette were given the highest awards because they were mothers who left their children behind to work for the SOE, but there were other women with children in the organization. Yvonne Cormeau of the Wheelwright circuit had a young child and Madeleine Lavigne of the Silversmith network had two children, while Yvonne Rudellat was both a mother and a grandmother. Perhaps there is a much simpler explanation for how the awards were allocated. Aonghais Fyffe, the Security Liaison Officer, Special Training Schools, Scotland, believed that two of the three girls who received the George Cross were favorites of Vera Atkins,¹⁵ and Francis Cammaerts, head of the Jockey circuit of the SOE, also claimed that Vera Atkins only helped her favorites.¹⁶ Since Atkins had an influence on Buckmaster, it is likely that it was she who put forward the names of Violette Szabo and Odette Sansom.

Whatever the reason, neither Jacqueline nor Didi seemed to care very much that she had not been given more prestigious awards. Both were far more concerned with getting their lives back on track, making up for lost time together and looking to the future.