Description
Object description
British NCO served as wireless operator with Jedburgh Team Harold, F Section, Special Operations Executive in Niort area, France, 7/1944-9/1944 and with Jedburgh Team Walrus, Force 136, Special Operations Executive in Burma, 3/1945-8/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in London, GB, 1925-1942: family; education; reasons for volunteering for British Army underage; attitude towards Nazi regime. Aspects of period as wireless operator with Special Operations Executive in GB, 1943: background to recruitment to Special Operations Executive, 1943-1944: selection of volunteers; training at STA 54a Fawley Court, Henley-on-Thames and Milton Hall, Peterborough; briefing received about area of France to be dropped into; information given on French populations attitude towards war. Recollections of operations as wireless operator with Jedburgh Team Harold, F Section, Special Operations Executive in Niort area, France, 7/1944-9/1944: parachute drop into France, 16/7/1944; loss of equipment during drop.
REEL 2 Continues: unfortunate choice of weekend for drop; first contact with French Resistance; broadcast of identifying message via British Broadcasting Corporation; securing new wireless set; agreement between Maquis and Germans at La Rochelle; deception of Germans; degree of mobility; attempts by Germans to locate his radio; German reprisal against farm; living conditions for team; tense moment during meal in restaurant; securing transport.
REEL 3 Continues: transport facilities; parachute dropping of further Special Operations Executive group; degree of resistance from Germans; taking of German prisoners at Niort; liberation of Niort by French Resistance, 9/1944; attacks on collaborators; hiding in wood from German encirclement; political complexion of French Resistance; story of agent dropped into stream; end of his period in France. Aspects of period as NCO with Special Operations Executive in GB, 1944: volunteering for Force 136 in Far East; journey back to GB, 11/1944; abortive mission to Netherlands, 12/1944. Recollections of period as wireless operator with Jedburgh Team Walrus, Force 136, Special Operations Executive in Burma, 3/1945-8/1945: journey to Far East; organisation of teams for Burma; attempt to parachute into Burma.
REEL 4 Continues: character of parachute drop; composition of group joined; refusal of local Japanese units to surrender; attacks on Japanese convoys; Japanese ambush of Special Operations Executive group; disintegration of group's uniforms; Japanese occupation of villages; food and water supply problems; trek to re-establish contact with main party.
REEL 5 Continues: character of Padong tribe and their villages; Japanese attempt to wipe out group; opinion of Padongs; news of end of war; ambush by Japanese; Japanese refusal to accept surrender; attempts to contact Japanese groups still in jungle; Karen attitudes towards war; state of health.
REEL 6 Continues: living conditions in jungle; behaviour of Imperial Japanese Army in Burma; Padongs' hunting of Japanese heads; prior recollection of visiting Oradour-sur-Glane after German reprisals in France, 1944.