Francis Cammaerts
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Francis Charles Albert Cammaerts (June 16, 1916 – July 3, 2006) was an outstanding SOE agent who organised French Resistance groups to sabotage German communications.
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[edit] Early life
Cammaerts was born in London, the son of Professor Emile Cammaerts, a Belgian poet. He was educated at Mill Hill School. He became a pacifist in the 1930s while at Cambridge, where he read English and history at St Catharine's and also won a hockey Blue. After university he briefly began a teaching career. He taught in Belfast before moving on to Penge County School for Boys in London, where he taught with his close friend from university, Harry Rée, who was also to join SOE. In 1940 Cammaerts became an agricultural labourer as an alternative to military service.
Before World War II, Cammaerts had registered as a conscientious objector, but after the death of his brother in 1942 while serving in the RAF, he felt he could no longer stand aside and do nothing. A fluent French speaker, he came to the attention of SOE, and soon found himself in occupied France.
[edit] SOE service
Cammaerts joined the SOE in October 1942. After extensive training, he was given the code name Roger and flown into northern France in March 1943. More than a dozen SOE circuits were active in France at that time, Cammaerts was assigned to the Donkeyman circuit then operating in the upper Rhône Valley, but his SOE reception party drove him first to Paris with a dangerous disregard for security that alerted him to the risks of such behaviour. Being over six feet tall he felt very conspicuous, so he left Paris by the evening train for Annecy to join Donkeyman. In Cannes he established a cover as a teacher recovering from jaundice. This was the only time that he spent more than four nights in the same place, as security rather than urgency was paramount at that stage of the war. After discovering that Donkeyman had been penetrated by Hugo Bleicher of Abwehr, he moved to St Jorioz in the mountains of Savoy and set up his own circuit (Jockey). This consisted of seven or eight reliable individuals, one of whom was Cecily Lefort. After being thoroughly briefed about the importance of security, these SOE agents set about recruiting potential saboteurs for when the time was ripe. Cammaerts's key to individual security was to insist that his agents always had a credible reason for being where they were, if stopped by a German patrol.
In the later part of 1943 he established several small and semi-autonomous groups, all part of his Jockey circuit. They extended down the left bank of the Rhône between Vienne and Arles and eastwards through the hinterland to the Isère Valley. He travelled around on a motorbike visiting each group, no one, of course knew his real name, nationality or place of abode.
By the end of 1943 Cammaerts had made sure his Jockey circuit was ready to play its part in any saboutage that may be required. In November of '43 he was recalled to London for briefing, while there he raised the problem of the enmity between the different agents working in France, some under the command of General de Gaulle’s headquarters and others, many of them French citizens, under the command of SOE’s French section. The Gaullist's believed that it was unconstitutional for French citizens to be recruited by a foreign power. As Britain and the Free French were fighting for the same cause, this may seem a very minor quibble. It was never entirely resolved, however, and de Gaulle insisted that all SOE operations in France ceased soon after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
On his return to France in February 1944, Cammaerts’s aircraft crashed on landing, fortunately, he was unhurt. He went on to check that his Jockey circuit was OK and later visited the 3,000+ group of maquisards (young Frenchmen who had fled to the Vercors plateau to avoid being sent for forced labour in Germany). In April 1944 he informed SOE’s London headquarters that the Vercors have a finely organised army, but they need long-distance and anti-tank weapons.
Cammaerts's Jockey circuit played its part following the Normandy Landings, they and the other SOE circuits cut railway lines and helped to severely hinder German troop and machinery movements. Cammaerts was appointed head of Allied missions in southeastern France, by this time he had built up an organisation of more than 10,000 people.
The Vercors plateau didn't fare so well, having been refused the heavy weapons by London, who felt that based on the Yugoslavian experience guerillas shouldn't stand and fight. Vercors was attacked by two German divisions complete with air support. It was of course a rout and the maquisards fled to whatever hiding place they could find.
In August 1944 the Allies invaded southern France (Operation Dragoon), the Jockey circuit and other SOE teams played their parts. They kept open the route from Cannes to Grenoble allowing the Allied armies to get clear of the lower Rhône valley. It was at this point, despite his meticulous care for security, that Cammaerts, Xan Fielding and another colleague were arrested by the Gestapo in Digne. They probably didn't realise Cammaerts’s significance, Krystyna Skarbek a young Polish SOE operative who had avoided arrest, managed to get Cammaerts and the others released. She confronted two collaborators, Albert Schenck a French liaison officer to the gestapo and a Belgian interpreter, telling them that US troops would arrive within hours and that if they didn't co-operate she would ensure the pair were handed over to an avenging mob of French citizenry. The terrified collaborators succeeded in getting Cammaerts, Fielding and their colleague released.
This chapter marked the end of Cammaerts's time in occupied France, 15 months in total. Cammaerts was awarded the DSO for his leadership and gallantry in France, as in the case of others who operated in enemy-held territory for prolonged periods, he gave a great deal of credit to the ordinary French citizens who had provided him and his colleagues with safety and comfort. In the BBC TV series Secret Agent, broadcast in 2000, he said:The most important element was the French housewife who fed us, clothed us and kept us cheerful.
[edit] Post-War
After being demobbed he worked for the International Agency for Reparations in Brussels. In 1952 he returned to teaching and later became the headmaster of a school in Stevenage for nine years. He was principal of the City of Leicester College of Education from 1961-66, and Professor of Education in Nairobi from 1966-72. He later returned to England, to become head of Rolle College, a teacher training college at Exeter, which later became part of Exeter University.In 1981, aged 65 he came out of retirement in order to start up a teacher training college in Botswana. He finally retired in 1987.
