Read Online Churchill's White Rabbit by Sophie Jackson - Free Book Online
Authors: Sophie Jackson
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shelved. Fortunately for Forest this did not translate into relegating him back to his desk duties and he was allowed to keep himself in readiness for another mission and to attend parachute training. There was hope yet that he would finally get himself into action.
----
Notes
1 . Foot, M.R.D., SOE in France .
2 . MacKenzie, W., Op cit .
3 . Yeo-Thomas SOE personnel file, the National Archives.
4 . Molyneux was listed as a captain in the MI9 records, having served with the Duke of Wellington Regiment in the First World War. Having lost an eye in that conflict and being 48 at the time of the next he was not involved in the fighting, but carried on work in his fashion house, temporarily moving it to London during the Second World War. It is not clear how he was looking after Mrs Yeo-Thomas, but it was possibly financially.
5 . F Section is best known for the many heroic agents, such as Odette Sansom, who operated under its auspices. It was keen on encouraging sabotage and much of the SOE material already published deals with the people working in this division.
6 . Seaman, Op cit .
7 . Small motor-powered craft.
– 6 –
The Man with the White Streak in his Hair
THE PARACHUTE WAS STILL in its infancy in terms of military use when Forest travelled to Cheshire in November 1942 to undertake his training. Initially introduced in the First World War as a means of escaping from air balloons or damaged planes, it had been suggested that they could be used as a means of dropping troops en masse as early as 1917 by an American general. 1 However Britain remained unconvinced by parachuting, and held off forming a parachute regiment until 1941.
The military authorities could hardly be blamed for their scepticism. Parachutes were a dangerous business, as SOE agents would learn. The usual means for deploying a parachute involved a static line attached to the transport aircraft. When the paratrooper or agent jumped from the plane the static line became taut and automatically caused the parachute to open. This was the easiest way to release inexperienced jumpers, but it had its problems and there is at least one reported incident of a man plummeting to his death because his parachute was not attached to the static line.
Even if a parachute was deployed safely, the landing still had to be endured. Harry Peulevé, who met Forest in 1944, parachuted into France as an SOE agent only to break his leg on landing. As most agents had to be dropped in ‘blind’ (at night and only with a rudimentary idea of the exact location they were being launched over) the risks of hitting something or landing badly were all too high, and the number of SOE agents whose stories begin (or end) with them being knocked unconscious or fracturing something upon arrival is rather dismaying.
But if Forest wanted to get into France the parachute was his only real option. SOE had its own training field for parachutists at Ringfield, near Manchester, and Forest arrived there in the early hours of a cold Sunday morning. He had only a brief moment of respite before he had to be up and doing physical training for an hour and a half. The experience was gruelling after being stuck behind a desk for so long.
Forest then got to try some dummy jumps. A pretend plane fuselage had been built with an exit hatch of the correct size in order to teach the men how to launch themselves from the aircraft, and once this had been practiced for a while Forest moved on to swinging in a practice harness to get a feel for parachuting.
The next day Forest experienced his first real descent and the jump terrified him despite his grim determination. He later recorded his thoughts at the moment of having to jump as: ‘You damned fool, why ever did you undertake such a silly job – in a few minutes you’ll have to jump through that hole and it doesn’t appeal to you a bit, you are scared stiff and you’ll have to force yourself to do it. Twerp!’ 2 He was not
----
Notes
1 . Foot, M.R.D., SOE in France .
2 . MacKenzie, W., Op cit .
3 . Yeo-Thomas SOE personnel file, the National Archives.
4 . Molyneux was listed as a captain in the MI9 records, having served with the Duke of Wellington Regiment in the First World War. Having lost an eye in that conflict and being 48 at the time of the next he was not involved in the fighting, but carried on work in his fashion house, temporarily moving it to London during the Second World War. It is not clear how he was looking after Mrs Yeo-Thomas, but it was possibly financially.
5 . F Section is best known for the many heroic agents, such as Odette Sansom, who operated under its auspices. It was keen on encouraging sabotage and much of the SOE material already published deals with the people working in this division.
6 . Seaman, Op cit .
7 . Small motor-powered craft.
– 6 –
The Man with the White Streak in his Hair
THE PARACHUTE WAS STILL in its infancy in terms of military use when Forest travelled to Cheshire in November 1942 to undertake his training. Initially introduced in the First World War as a means of escaping from air balloons or damaged planes, it had been suggested that they could be used as a means of dropping troops en masse as early as 1917 by an American general. 1 However Britain remained unconvinced by parachuting, and held off forming a parachute regiment until 1941.
The military authorities could hardly be blamed for their scepticism. Parachutes were a dangerous business, as SOE agents would learn. The usual means for deploying a parachute involved a static line attached to the transport aircraft. When the paratrooper or agent jumped from the plane the static line became taut and automatically caused the parachute to open. This was the easiest way to release inexperienced jumpers, but it had its problems and there is at least one reported incident of a man plummeting to his death because his parachute was not attached to the static line.
Even if a parachute was deployed safely, the landing still had to be endured. Harry Peulevé, who met Forest in 1944, parachuted into France as an SOE agent only to break his leg on landing. As most agents had to be dropped in ‘blind’ (at night and only with a rudimentary idea of the exact location they were being launched over) the risks of hitting something or landing badly were all too high, and the number of SOE agents whose stories begin (or end) with them being knocked unconscious or fracturing something upon arrival is rather dismaying.
But if Forest wanted to get into France the parachute was his only real option. SOE had its own training field for parachutists at Ringfield, near Manchester, and Forest arrived there in the early hours of a cold Sunday morning. He had only a brief moment of respite before he had to be up and doing physical training for an hour and a half. The experience was gruelling after being stuck behind a desk for so long.
Forest then got to try some dummy jumps. A pretend plane fuselage had been built with an exit hatch of the correct size in order to teach the men how to launch themselves from the aircraft, and once this had been practiced for a while Forest moved on to swinging in a practice harness to get a feel for parachuting.
The next day Forest experienced his first real descent and the jump terrified him despite his grim determination. He later recorded his thoughts at the moment of having to jump as: ‘You damned fool, why ever did you undertake such a silly job – in a few minutes you’ll have to jump through that hole and it doesn’t appeal to you a bit, you are scared stiff and you’ll have to force yourself to do it. Twerp!’ 2 He was not
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