F. Section (French Section)

S.O.E.'s operations in France were directed by two London-based country sections - F Section, under British control and strictly non-political, and RF Section, which was linked to General de Gaulle's Free French headquarters. There were also two smaller sections - DF, which ran escape lines and EU/P, which dealt with the Polish community in France. Late in 1942 a further section, known as AMF, was set up in Algiers. It took over most operations in southern France and was concerned with planning and preparing for Resistance support of the eventual landings on the Mediterranean Coast.

In the early months of 1944 a large number of three-man teams, always containing one Frenchman but otherwise a mixture of American, British and French, were trained in England. They were known as the "Jedburgh" teams from the code word assigned to this plan, and were dropped in uniform between early June and mid-September 1944 with orders to make contact with the Resistance, now mainly organised in Maquis groups. They brought with them radio communications by means of which they were able to call forth supplies of arms, ammunition and explosives but their chief task was to encourage Resistance groups to coordinate their efforts with the local plans of the advancing Allies and thus be of maximum assistance to the liberating forces.

After D-day in Normandy (6th June 1944), both F and RF Sections (and the Jedburghs) were brought under the command of the French General Koenig, who had led the heroic stand of the Free French brigade at Bir Hakeim in 1942, as part of the Forces Française de l'Interieur (F.F.I.).

Communications and transport were of vital importance in building up and maintaining the forces of resistance. Communications depended mainly upon direct two-way radio-links, which were extensively supplemented by pre-arranged "messages personnels" broadcast by the B.B.C. The principal use of these messages was to announce air operations - the parachuting of agents or supplies and the landing or pick-up of agents by light aircraft. They were also used for example, to confirm the bona fides of agents or financial transactions. Longer reports were brought back by returning agents or R.A.F. aircraft and some messages were sent via "letter boxes" in neutral countries.

For some time S.O.E. ran what amounted to a small private navy using a variety of craft - including French fishing boats - based in the Helford River in Cornwall, and offering passage to the north and west coasts of Brittany. A similar organisation, manned largely by the Free Polish Navy, and based in Gibraltar transported more than 50 F Section agents to or from the still unoccupied south coast of France between April and November 1942. Submarines were sometimes used to carry agents when they could be spared from more active operations against enemy shipping. Important as this sea traffic was, the majority of personnel and practically all supplies were delivered by air, principally by two "special duties" squadrons of the Royal Air Force - 138 and 161 - based at Tempsford in Bedfordshire. A forward base at Tangmere in Sussex was used by 161 Squadron to mount clandestine landing and pick-up operations by Lysander and Hudson aircraft. From early 1944 other squadrons of Bomber Command, transport aircraft of 38 Group and aircraft of the United States Army Air Force were involved, increasingly so as D-day approached and while the Resistance engaged in more open warfare in the summer of 1944. From the early summer of 1943, air support to the south of France came chiefly from Algiers. By September 1944, F, RF and AMF Sections between them had arranged delivery to France, mainly by parachute, of more than 10,000 tons of arms and stores, including weapons to arm over 200,000 resisters. As many as 2,000 personnel, including the Jedburgh teams and others who went in uniform, were sent into France by these three sections.

More than half of the men and women recruited as F Section agents were British; the remainder were of many different nationalities. Their background and occupations were very diverse too, although many of them were too young to have chosen, let alone advanced in, their careers. Some of those who had done so had been engaged in education, the arts, commerce and the law; others were landowners, jockeys, motor racing drivers and circus entertainers. Among the women, many were married, several had children, one was a grandmother, two were sisters; there were two brother-and-sister teams. Before joining they had been warned that their chances of survival were estimated at about evens, but in fact something like three agents in four survived.

The first F Section agent successfully despatched to France was the radio operator Georges Bégué, who was commissioned in the British Army under the alias of George Noble. He dropped by parachute between Valençay and Levroux on the night of 5th-6th May 1941 Bégué's mission, which he completed swiftly, was to contact Max Hymans, at one time member of parliament for the Valençay constituency, whose country house was nearby. Begué was able to report that Hymans was willing to work in co-operation with London and support the formation of local resistance groups, whereupon Pierre de Vomécourt was parachuted to the area to set up the first F Section circuit, with Bégué as his radio operator.

Georges Bégué was followed into the field by more than four hundred F Section agents, 39 of them women, who from May 1941 to August 1944 landed from the sea or from aircraft or dropped by parachute to serve as circuit organisers, liaison officers, radio operators, arms and sabotage instructors or couriers. Between them they set up circuits which eventually covered most of France.

The particular advantage possessed by women as agents was that they did not immediately attract the same attention in occupied Europe as would a man of military age, who would normally have been a prisoner of war or conscripted for forced labour. Women were thus able to move around more easily and made ideal couriers and wireless operators.

For the rest of 1941 and the two frustrating years 1942 and 1943 it was the task of the circuits to build up resistance groups, initially by forming "reception committees" to guide in ships or aircraft and take charge of personnel, arms and explosives, speeding newly arrived agents on their way and storing arms for later use. Training of local resisters in the use of arms and in sabotage methods followed and a campaign, albeit scattered, of harassment of the occupying forces began. While most of the effort was directed to the cutting of railway and telephone lines and ambushing of German convoys and patrols (at risk of severe reprisals against the civilian population), there were some spectacular, and highly successful, major sabotage actions. There were many arrests and many circuits collapsed but at the time of the landings in Normandy over forty F Section circuits were active.

The circuits' most important task while the Allied armies were gaining a strong foothold in France was to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the Normandy battlefield by cutting road and rail links leading to the front. They were further charged with interfering with the enemy's command and control, especially by cutting telephone lines. One of the most notable Resistance successes at this time was the series of delays and considerable damage imposed on the SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" as it struggled from the south of France to take part in counter-attacks on the Allied bridgehead. It failed to arrive in time to affect the outcome of the battle. Once the Allied forces had broken out of their bridgeheads and begun their advance across France, Resistance groups provided valuable assistance by taking to the field in more open warfare, in many cases liberating towns and villages before the Allies arrived, and by providing reconnaissance and intelligence and generally paving the way for the various thrusts towards the Low Countries and Germany.

After the end of the war in Europe there were many tributes to the part played by the Resistance forces in assisting the Allies as they expelled the enemy from the occupied countries and advanced towards the final battles the other side of the Rhine, the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, wrote the following in May 1945:

"In no previous war, and in no theatre during this war, have resistance forces been so closely harnessed to the main military effort. While no final assessment of the operational value of resistance action has yet been completed, I consider that the disruption of enemy rail communications, the harassing of the German road moves and the continual and increasing strain placed on the German war economy and internal security services throughout occupied Europe by the organised forces of resistance, played a very considerable part in our complete and final victory....".

A conservative estimate calculates the value of the Resistance contribution in France as equivalent to not less than five divisions; some other commentators believe it was much greater.

These results were achieved at great cost in human lives and suffering. Tens of thousands of men and women were deported and perished in concentration camps. They are commemorated by the splendid monument behind Notre Dame, on the lie de la Cite in Paris. and by monuments all over France. The Valençay monument commemorates by name 91 men and 13 women, all agents of F Section of S.O.E., who lost their lives - most of them in concentration camps - as a result of their work with the French Resistance.

There are also memorials to members of F Section in Germany, at Natzweiler and Dachau.