The Transport.....

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Although there were landings by fishing boat or submarine, most agents reached enemy territory in Europe by air. Some were dropped by parachute from a  twin-engine Whitley, a four-engine Halifax bomber or a USAF four-engine B24 Liberator, which were also used to drop heavy cylindrical metal containers of arms and ammunition as well as agents.

Other agents were landed on the ground from a Hudson or Westland Lysander. The Hudson was a two-engined low-wing monoplane originally designed by Lockheed in the US as a small airliner and converted for military reconnaissance and escort purposes. It could carry ten passengers and their luggage.

The Lysander, also affectionately called "Lizzies" or "The Flying Carrot", was a small, light monoplane with shorter range than the Hudson but which could land in a flat field as little as four hundred and fifty yards long and take off a few minutes later after letting out a couple of passengers and taking on two or, at a pinch, three returning agents and some London-bound messages.

The two RAF Special Duty squadrons that flew the agents over 138 Squadron based at Tempsford that dropped the agents and supplies by parachute and the 161 Squadron based closer to France at RAF Tangmere, near Chichester in West Sussex, flew agents in using the Lysander.

These two squadrons were known as 'The Moon Squadrons' because they could make the flights across the channel and find the dropping zones or makeshift landing strips only during the two-week period before and after the full moon. Even then they were limited by weather conditions on one side of the English Channel or the other, mainly by the infamous English fogs.

Moonphase and weather conditions permitting takeoff, the pilots of the unarmed Lysanders would navigate their Lizzies themselves by moonlight while flying at low altitudes and slow speeds over such landmarks as rivers and fields, looking for an identifying bridge or bend in a river. Avoiding enemy flak whilst consulting the Michelin map on which the landing field had been identified by Baker Street from references to an identical map by agents in the field, the pilot would look for for the signal lights of the reception committee on the ground, a flare path laid out in the shape of an inverted 'L' and an agreed letter code flashed in morse. If the lights were not there, or the correct letter was not signalled, the pilot would have to turn round and head back.

The period between 1941-1944, Lysander pilots made over 800 clandestine pickups and deliveries in France.

The agent about to parachute from a Whitely or a Hudson, once alerted by the dispatcher, sat with legs dangling through a hole in the floor of the planes fuselage, and then, at a hand signal or slap on the shoulder from the dispatcher and the sight of a red light turning to green, pushed off down through the hole. The parachute would be opened automatically when the weight of the parachutist's body pulled a static line attached within the plane. Once clear of the slipstream the agent floated down to be met by a reception committee, typically other agents already in the field and local volunteers willing to risk their lives and the penalties for being out after curfew.

Once in the field the agents most common form of transport was the humble bicycle!

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