Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [240]
Churchill loved to meet British agents and Frenchmen, returned from their hazardous missions. He entertained at Downing Street Wing Commander Edward Yeo-Thomas—“the White Rabbit”—Jean Moulin and Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie. Such encounters invariably prompted him to urge the RAF to divert more aircraft to aid their struggle. His personal enthusiasm for resistance was critical in overcoming the scepticism of conventional warriors. It was sometimes said of the “Baker Street Irregulars” that Britain was tipped on its side, and everything loose fell into the SOE. Many of its personnel, unsurprisingly, were individualists and eccentrics. Their perspicacity often failed to match their enthusiasm. They cherished extravagant faith in their unseen protégés in occupied Europe. A sceptic remarked of Col. Maurice Buckmaster, chief of the SOE’s French Section: “He believed that all his geese884 were swans.”
The SOE’s most conspicuous security lapse was its failure, despite many warnings, to perceive that the Germans had so deeply penetrated its Dutch operations that almost every agent parachuted into Holland in 1942–43 landed into enemy hands. The revelation of this disaster, at the end of 1943, precipitated a crisis in the organisation’s affairs. Its Whitehall foes, of whom there were many, crowded forward to demand curtailment of its operations and calls on resources. Menzies and his colleagues at the SIS argued that the debacle reflected the chronic amateurishness and lack of tradecraft prevailing at SOE’s Baker Street headquarters and pervading its operations in the field. They were by no means wrong. The SOE since 1940 had indeed been learning on the job, at severe cost in lives and wasted effort. Meanwhile in September 1943, the army’s exasperation with the SOE’s Balkan operations, which it claimed were out of control, caused the C-in-C Middle East to demand that the organisation should be brought under his orders. This issue was still unresolved when the Dutch scandal broke.
On Churchill’s return from Marrakesh in January 1944, the row was appealed to him for decision. He renewed the SOE’s mandate (though rejecting its presumptuous demand for a seat on the Chiefs of Staff Committee), confirmed its independence, and ordered the RAF to release more aircraft for arms dropping. The organisation’s internal historian wrote later: “There is no doubt that, in this critical phase885 of its development, SOE and the Resistance movements which it led were sustained very largely by the personal influence of Mr. Churchill.” The prime minister took the view that the SOE’s enthusiasm and activism outweighed its deficiencies. It was too late in the war to undertake wholesale restructuring. Much of the criticism of the SOE, he believed, derived from Whitehall jealousies. It was impossible to conduct a secret war of such an unprecedented kind without misfortunes which cost lives, as do all mistakes in conflict.
Thus, in the last months before liberation, relatively large quantities of arms—though pathetically small quantities of ammunition—began to reach resisters. The British estimated that some 35,000 active maquisards were in the field, though de Gaulle claimed a strength of 175,000 for France’s secret army. The SOE believed that its parachutages provided weapons for 50,000. The intoxicating confidence thus created persuaded some groups to conduct disastrous pitched battles with the Germans. At Mont Mouchet on May 20, 1944, the regional Armée Secrète commander,