Secret War Organisation Wins Memorial
Unveiling of Violette Szabo Bust Marks SOE’s First Public Memorial
Oct 6, 2009
Veterans have witnessed the unveiling of a bust of Violette Szabo, one of the SOE’s most famous operators, on the South Bank of the River Thames.
The memorial is intended to stand for all the SOE’s operators who belonged to an organisation that Winston Churchill intended to use to “set Europe ablaze” to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage across occupied Europe. It had more than 2,000 members, many with backgrounds in subversion, sabotage, armed resistance and propaganda. Many were trained assassins.
The Real Heroes of Telemark
Among the SOE’s exploits was a commando raid on a factory in Telemark, Norway, where the Nazis were experimenting with heavy water, an essential ingredient in atomic bombs. Again, cinema has highlighted the SOE’s work and success with the film Heroes of Telemark, based on the raid. The man who led the real raid, Joachim Ronneberg, was a guest of honour at the unveiling of the Szabo bust.
The SOE did not get an easy ride from the countries that nurtured it, with many in the Allied military establishment calling it an upstart unit that none of the generals or normal intelligence organisations could properly control. The SAS – a wartime creation that still operates – faced similar suspicion among official circles. The SOE was also criticised for its methods which some said were brutal but others were happy to describe simply as “unorthodox”. In some areas of Europe, the Nazis carried out terrible reprisals on the local populations after SOE activity there.
After the War
The SOE did not survive the war, although the man in charge of it, Lord Selborne, tried urgently to persuade Churchill to let it continue to help fight against Russia and help to control the Middle East. Some of its members appeared in films explaining what it had done during the conflict. Its operations were blended into other intelligence departments. Until now it has not had its own public memorial and there are claims that some documents relating to its activities are still classified.
Guest at the unveiling included World War II veterans, serving soldiers and military cadets. Among the guests was the present Lord Selborne, who is the grandson of the man who was in overall charge of the SOE and of Szabo’s missions.
The Story of Violette Szabo
Violette Szabo’s story was immortalised in the 1958 film Carve Her Name with Pride starring Virginia McKenna in the role of Violette Szabo. A more recent film, Female Agents, tells the story of all the women who were recruited by the SOE.
Szabo was the daughter of a French mother and English father and grew up in the south London area of Brixton. She married French army officer Etienne Szabo while he was stationed in England and after he was killed fighting in the North African desert she used her linguistic skills to volunteer for under-cover work in France. She was one of just 39 female agents sent to occupied France of which only 26 returned.
On her first mission she successfully organised resistance in France and managed to send back intelligence from behind enemy lines. But when she returned to France soon after the Allies’ D-Day landings she was captured, tortured and executed. She gave nothing away to her captors. Szabo was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix du Guerre. Szabo’s daughter Tania has written a book about her mother called Young Brave and Beautiful.
Captain Fernandez
Captain Les Fernandez, who trained Szabo and who himself was a decorated war hero who parachuted behind enemy lines in 1944, died on July 16, 2009 aged 91. He worked as an adviser on Carve her Name with Pride.
Sources:
Imperial War Museum
Internet Movie Database
Daily Telegraph
Times
BBC news and history websites
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