Colette

An SOE radio operator in World War 2

Robert Hart

Copyright © 2022 by Robert Hart

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1. Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, 16th November 1944

2. December 1939 – November 1940

3. November 1940

4. November – December 1940

5. December 1940 – November 1941

6. November 1941 – December 1941

7. December 1941 – May 1942

8. May 1942 – November 1944

9. July – August 1975

Afterword

Chanson d'Automne

Chapter 1

Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, 16th November 1944

The cell door crashed open, revealing Vogel in his immaculate SS uniform and I read my end in his arrogant smile.

A guard reached in, grabbing my arm, pulling me to my feet, pushing me down the corridor towards the door to the execution yard. I had watched others take this journey and knew it awaited me. Through the door the sky was a dome of frosty blue, winter sunshine splashing extravagantly onto the concrete walls, honeying their greys. A distant honking pulled my eyes to a pair of elegant geese, sailing above the north German plain towards the Baltic.

The guard stopped and I turned in his grasp. Vogel stood, adjusting the set of his black uniform jacket which he deemed fractionally incorrect. His eyes flicked to the guard, motioning him away. Then his cold eyes found mine.

I stood in a strange calmness, yet a butterfly softly beat its wings in regret, somewhere below my heart.

There will be retribution.

I spoke a simple truth. Even here in Ravensbrück, news of the Nazi’s continuing defeats in both the east and west trickled in but it did not raise hope: hope required energy and we had none. Surviving each hungry, painful, limping day absorbed all our effort. But we knew an end approached, somewhere in the future.

Vogel’s lips narrowed to a thin smile, one sardonic eyebrow raised. You think such a threat will save you? He spoke excellent English.

I waited before replying, savouring another breath. I am not trying to save myself. I kept my voice even. I’m trying to save you.

I saw a flicker in his eye.

A whisper of self-doubt, perhaps?

He stepped back and lifted his pistol from its holster, half-raising it towards me. Enough. On your knees.

How strange at this moment to recall the anger of Madame Joubert, my Maths teacher, when I giggled as she told me off.

And if I don’t, what then? I chuckled softly. You’ll shoot me? The same grim comedy filled this situation, even though the end of it … was my end.

His eyes narrowed as I held his gaze, taunting him. Is it difficult to shoot a woman who is staring into your eyes?

His lips thinned, the pressure outlining them in white. As he stepped forward, the black circle of the pistol barrel grew towards me.

Chapter 2

December 1939 – November 1940

When the war broke out, my English father insisted we move back to England. I heard the arguments through my bedroom wall. My mother wanted to stay; she could not countenance leaving her position teaching chemistry at the Sorbonne, her French family and her friends; but my father had re-joined the RAF and England represented safety for the people he most loved.

In the last war, Paris remained free – moving to England for this war seemed unnecessary. I wanted to stay in Paris with all my friends, where I’d spent most of my life. My mother’s older sister, and her five children, my cousins, lived in Normandy where I’d spent summer holidays. We’d also visited England of course, staying with my English grandparents on the outskirts of the New Forest west of Southampton, but France – Paris – was my home.

My wishes and those of my mother counted for nought: we left Paris in mid-December 1939, just after my eighteenth birthday. Mother and I went straight to my grandparent’s house in Lyndhurst leaving father in London.

My grandparents made us welcome and father joined us for two days at Christmas, rather dashing in his uniform with the droopy RAF wings on his chest, a Squadron Leader’s rings on his sleeves. He assured everyone – but principally my mother – that he expected to be posted to a squadron as Intelligence officer or something like that and would not fly operations.

Granny Roberts volunteered with the local Red Cross, helping sort out and care for the children evacuated from London. She scooped us up to help with this and I passed the rest of the winter caring for a group of children from poor East End families. France has poor families, but not on the boulevards of Paris and my grandparents’ middle-class world had cocooned me during my visits to England.

These dislocated, scared youngsters from London’s east end taught me some of life’s realities. Torn away from London, their homes and the people they knew, their world had been shattered. As spring started to bud in gardens and the nearby New Forest, most of the children settled into the countryside life, but a few remained distraught at the cataclysmic change evacuation had brought. Some of the older children asked about returning to London as the war seemed a non-event, with none of the much-feared bombing of cities.

A group of disturbed and restless children of varying ages coalesced around me – perhaps because of my youth, diminutive stature and exotic French accent, signalling that, like them, I belonged elsewhere. They brought me their troubles; I listened and we hugged, sharing fears and tears. A quiet April blossomed into an unwarlike May and the push to return to London became louder.

One morning, I took my group of misfits on a walk into the fields and hedgerows, playing a game with them – they named what we saw and I taught them the French word which they had to remember and say when they saw it again – blackbird: merle, sheep: mouton. As children of the city, many lacked the English names for what we saw and I had to provide those as well – hawthorne: aubépine. We picnicked, eating our sandwiches in the dappled shade of a large oak growing in a hedgerow. When we returned to the Red Cross centre, drawn faces and rising tension greeted us.

Panzers were rolling across France and the low countries.

Through the next weeks, we watched in disbelief as France disintegrated and surrendered. My mother came close to collapse as the Wehrmacht swept through our country. Even the miracle of Dunkirk failed to raise our spirits as the unthinkable became a reality: England was next.

This terrifying, existential threat brought great unity of purpose to the country and clarified my thoughts; young and fit, I could contribute so much more than rambling through the fields with a group of evacuees.

I owed France for my happy years of childhood; I was honour bound to repay that debt.

I asked my father about joining the WAAFs – the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Two weeks later, having stretched to meet the minimum height requirement, I boarded a train to the WAAF training base at Harrogate.

Father had told me that since February, everyone entered the WAAFs at the bottom. This threw together people from all walks of life in basic training – and my education about the real world that started thanks to the East End children continued. I slept in a barrack room with eleven other women – all older than me. I’d never shared a room before and viewed the others in my barrack room nervously. My embarrassment peaked when ordered to strip to my panties while male doctors prodded and stared at me. But my shyness evaporated over the weeks of basic and by the end, I wandered around in undies in the barrack room like everyone else, thinking nothing of it.

In the last week of basic, they listed the jobs open to us, but made it clear that what we wanted counted for nothing against what the country needed. With no real idea about any of the jobs, I thought being a Met Observer, watching and recording the weather, sounded interesting, so I selected that. True to form for the armed forces, which usually confounded the desires of its members, I found myself training as an RDF operator, watching the skies for incoming enemy aircraft. The first thing we learned was that RDF stood for Range and Direction Finding – later called radar – and that it was top secret.

We were reminded about the Official Secrets Act we had signed on joining up.

I took to this specialist training: it piqued my interest and suited my unconventional science background, courtesy