Sisters, Secrets and Sacrifice: The True Story of WWII Special Agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne. Susan Ottaway

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СКАЧАТЬ from central France to the far south, was vast, nearly half of the entire country, Southgate and Jacqueline’s remit to unite the various groups in this area into efficient fighting forces, so that they would be ready when the longed-for Allied invasion of western Europe eventually began, presented a challenge. It was rather unrealistic, therefore, to have sent a new circuit leader on his first mission with an equally inexperienced courier and no wireless operator, and expect them to work miracles. Yet London could not have picked a better pair for the task.

      Southgate had passed his training courses with flying colours and was highly thought of by F Section. He in turn had full confidence in his courier and was not to be disappointed when they began to work together in earnest. He was soon reporting, ‘Jacqueline is grand, and is rendering great service to my organisation and to England. I could not have done half what I have without her.’¹ But although they got along very well and were soon beginning to achieve a lot of what they had come to France to do, Southgate regarded Jacqueline as a bit of an enigma. She was pleasant, polite, always did her job to the best of her ability and had a good sense of humour, but he felt that there was more to her than met the eye and that behind her pleasant façade was a woman who did not want to give away too much of her real self.

      During their first few weeks in France Jacqueline and Southgate travelled tirelessly all over the large area that constituted the Stationer circuit, meeting when possible about three times each week to bring each other up to date with their progress. They soon began to establish some order among the disparate groups of resisters, and arranged training and supplies for them. Part of Jacqueline’s work as a courier was to take and fetch messages from the other groups. Before Stationer received its own wireless operator, she also had to take messages to a wireless operator of another circuit to be sent. This was a security risk for both her and the Stationer circuit as a whole, but it was nearly three months before the news reached them that the arrival of their own wireless operator was imminent.

      Then, in mid-April, Amédée Maingard (Samuel) parachuted from an RAF Halifax on to a dropping zone 6 kilometres from Tarbes. Southgate met him and the two men made their way to Châteauroux, where Maingard, a Mauritian, made his base at a safe house organized for him by Jacqueline. He and Jacqueline began to meet regularly, usually at least three times a week, and his arrival made a huge difference to the efficiency of the circuit and lessened the security risk to Jacqueline, as she now only had to pass messages to one person. She always carried the messages by hand and was prepared to either destroy them or swallow them if there was any danger of her being caught. She sometimes had to carry what she referred to as ‘compromising objects’ in her bag:

      If I feared an inspection at a station exit I would call a porter and get him to take my bags to the left luggage where I would collect them later. If my cases had been opened I always had enough time to disappear.

      Sometimes the Germans helped me as I got off a train and gallantly carried my luggage. That helped me get through the checks without any problems.²

      Southgate’s cover story for his role in the circuit was that he was an inspector and engineer for a company manufacturing gasogene,³ the gas substitute used for powering cars in France during the war. This gave him a good reason for all the travelling he undertook and sometimes gained him access to factories, which allowed him to assess the practicalities of sabotage. As a security precaution he always carried literature about his supposed employer and could speak with some authority about gasogene. Jacqueline’s cover as a saleswoman for a pharmaceutical company⁴ also gave her a very plausible reason for being on the move and, since the story was so close to her actual employment before leaving France to come to England, she too had few problems in maintaining the deception. But despite this the work was very dangerous.

      Because of the distances she travelled, Jacqueline sometimes had to stay in hotels. This was not as easy as she had imagined. Not only did she have to avoid German soldiers without overtly appearing to do so; she also had to be on the lookout for those in plain clothes and for checks carried out by the Milice, the Vichy French volunteer paramilitary organization whose members subscribed to the abhorrent Nazi ethos. Although in her previous career she had been used to staying in hotels, she had done so as a legitimate sales representative, with genuine papers. Those she had carried when she first arrived, although excellent, were fake and one of her first tasks had been to obtain French-made documents. The day after she received her new cards she had to use them when the hotel in which she was staying in Châteauroux was subjected to a police raid.

      She was washing her underwear in the basin in her room when there was a knock at the door. Believing it to be an expected visit from a member of the Resistance, Jacqueline hurriedly opened the door to be confronted by a plain-clothes policeman. Genuinely dismayed about being caught with her wet undergarments still in her hand, she began to blush and stammer her apologies for coming to the door in such a state. The young policeman was also flustered, and their mutual confusion diffused the situation. He asked for her papers, she produced them, and he gave them a cursory look before handing them back and fleeing in embarrassment.

      Later that evening there was another raid and this time Jacqueline was prepared. When the knock on her door came she opened the door but pretended to have been asleep and, rubbing her eyes and yawning, asked what the policeman wanted. He mentioned Southgate, using the name under which he was known in the area – M. Philippe. Jacqueline yawned some more, and tried to look drowsy and confused. Her acting fooled him and, seeing that he would get no sensible answers from her in that state, he apologized for disturbing her and went away. She didn’t get much sleep that night. The police knew Southgate’s alias and that he was somehow linked to her. She couldn’t understand who could have told them and knew that she had to get away as quickly as possible. Not wanting to attract attention in the hotel by leaving in the middle of the night, and afraid that, if she did take that chance, the police might be keeping a watch outside, she decided to stay until the morning. As soon as it was light she took her small bag and checked out of the hotel. Later she learnt from a member of the Resistance group in the area that the police had returned just after she left, no doubt hoping to question her again when she was wide awake.

      The incident proved to Jacqueline that it was not safe to stay in hotels too often and thereafter she tried to avoid them as much as possible, preferring tried and tested safe houses. But sometimes there was no other choice. On another occasion she was again disturbed twice, by two different police officers knocking at her door. She did not panic; she just showed her papers and answered their questions, and later she discovered that they hadn’t been interested in her at all. There had been a robbery in the area and every hotel room was being checked in the hope of finding the thieves.

      When not taking a chance by staying in a hotel Jacqueline frequently slept during her long train journeys. More often she could only cat nap, and spent much of her time knitting socks for herself and her colleagues. On the rare occasions when she had to stay in Paris, she used her own family home there. The apartment that had belonged to her grandparents and in which the Nearne family had lived when they first came to France was empty, so Jacqueline made it available as a safe house for Southgate and other agents, although, ever cautious, she stipulated that it was not to be used very frequently. An empty apartment that had different people coming and going regularly was bound to arouse suspicion, and she wanted to avoid the possibility of it being the target of a raid.

      Jacqueline’s frequent trips away from her base in Clermont-Ferrand gave her an opportunity to contact her brother Francis. He had remained in the Grenoble area, living with his wife, Thérèse, and son, Jack, at the Villa Picard in Saint Egrève, a few kilometres from the city. When, in May 1943, he heard from Jacqueline that she was back in France and would like to meet СКАЧАТЬ