Churchill's Hellraisers. Damien Lewis
ambushes behind enemy lines, and calling out secret armies into open warfare’. By the autumn of 1944, the SOE’S Italian operations had become deeply personal for ‘M’. In the spring of that year, his son Michael had been killed in Italy on SOE business. On 6 February he was hit by a German shell while operating behind the lines. Gubbins had received the news of his son’s death via telegram, with its ‘killed in action’ message, and a hand-scribbled expression of ‘deepest sympathy’. He had been consumed by grief and remorse.
All the more important, therefore, that the SOE’s Italian operations were to succeed, and to be seen to succeed. One of the SOE’s most secretive remits had become the spreading of ‘black’ and ‘white’ propaganda. The latter involved placing positive stories about the fortunes of the Allies in the press, and negative ones about the Axis powers, while the former spread disinformation among enemy ranks. There was another top-secret priority behind Michael Lees’ Italian mission: it was to further the SOE’s ‘white propaganda’ role.
When Lees had parachuted in to join Temple, in August 1944, he’d brought with him two highly unusual individuals: South African war artist Geoffrey Long, and Canadian war reporter Paul Morton. Of the two, Morton, a globetrotting newspaper man, was perhaps the more controversial. He was the first reporter ever embedded with a behind-the-lines SOE mission, and few would follow.
That summer, Churchill had decided that the Italian partisans deserved a far higher profile, both to encourage them in their operations and to spur Allied forces to train and arm them properly. A former war reporter himself, Churchill believed wholeheartedly in the need to win the ‘information war’. Borrowing a phrase from Stalin, he believed that ‘in wartime, the truth is so precious she should be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’
The Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was the arm of the SOE established to ensure that the information war would be won. In the summer of 1944, Paul Morton had been based in Italy, fearing the real war was passing him by. Desperate for a scoop, when the Political Warfare Executive approached him with their offer – that he should join Captain Lees to report from behind the lines – Morton jumped at the chance.
Morton’s bona fides were exhaustively checked. Dated 4 July, his SOE ‘Trace and Card’ – his vetting form – recorded that he’d spent ‘Ten Years with the Toronto Daily Star’, and was a ‘War Correspondent accredited to Canadian forces’. It noted that his brother, David Morton, was ‘possibly in enemy hands (reported missing two months ago over North Sea)’. Morton had personal reasons to hate the enemy, and he was a seasoned reporter with one of Canada’s most respected publications. On paper, he was the ideal recruit.
By 6 July Morton had been signed up as an ‘attached correspondent’ with ‘Maryland’, the codename for the SOE in Italy. Shortly thereafter he was issued with his SOE ‘Operational Instruction’. It read: ‘To provide the Press an account of patriot activities and sabotage exploits . . . You will be dropped to [Operation] FLAP . . . in the September moon period . . . On arrival you will ask for Major TEMPLE and will put yourself under his command.’
Morton was given the honorary rank of Captain, armed and expected to fight if the need arose. His reporting was to be syndicated – distributed – to all Allied press outlets, promising a series of global scoops. It was heady stuff. Six weeks after parachuting in with Lees, Morton had prepared a series of scintillating articles, describing in vivid tones the heroic exploits of the partisans – including one episode in which they’d surrounded enemy forces holed up in a church, and wiped them out to the last man.
He’d given his first article the dramatic headline, ‘I LIVE WITH PATRIOTS IN NAZI LINES – MORTON ’. In short, Morton was poised to fire a propaganda broadside, showcasing the daring and panache of the Italian resistance. Geoffrey Long, the war artist, had drawn a series of brilliant sketches to illustrate, including one of the partisans scavenging boots and explosives from the enemy dead, and portraits of the key Allied players – Morton, Temple and Lees included.
But Morton and Long’s stories and images – their white propaganda – would only get to hit the press if Lees managed to shepherd them through the lines, for they were to join his escape party.
It was dawn on 29 September when the group formed up. They’d been delayed for twenty-four hours by the late arrival of some. As Lees surveyed his men, he was assailed by doubts as to whether they really could complete such an unproven route passing through such formidable defences. Temple sought to calm his fears. If it reached the stage where Lees felt it necessary, he was to drop all but the essential members.
Even so, Lees decided that he really did need a trusted pair of hands to share the load. Glaswegian William McClelland was six-foot-six tall and about as broad in the shoulder, dwarfing even Lees. His craggy, bearded features, snaggle-toothed grin and dress – shorts, ski boots, faded battledress tunic adorned with the Scots Guards insignia, and slung Sten gun – lent him a decidedly piratical air. It was absolutely fitting.
Captured by Rommel’s Afrika Korps when serving in North Africa, Private McClelland had escaped from an Italian prisoner of war (POW) camp and fled into the mountains, linking up with the partisans. Over the past year he’d hijacked vehicles, kidnapped their occupants and raided Nazi cellars. His favourite occupation was ambushing German staff cars, finishing off the officers, then rifling the pockets of the dead. When one partisan band had run short of funds, he’d done the obvious thing and organised a bank robbery.
In short, McClelland was a freelance raider who owed no particular allegiance to any one partisan unit. He and Lees had hit it off immediately. ‘He was a bandit, not a partisan,’ Lees remarked of McClelland. ‘Whatever his intentions, he was doing far more for the war effort than he could have done serving as an ordinary private . . . One William in the mountains was an incomparable asset, but thirty Williams in barracks would provide a problem with which I should hate to be faced . . .’
The other redoubtable operator Lees would have liked to join his party was Corporal Albert ‘Bert’ Farrimond, a dour Lancashire coal miner in civilian life, who’d proved as constant and unyielding as the moors in recent weeks. Hailing from Standish, near Wigan, Farrimond was a keen poacher who loved the wild freedom of the mountains. He and Lees had formed a special bond, but as Farrimond was Major Temple’s radio operator – his vital link to SOE’s Maryland headquarters – he was one man that was unable to join Lees.
His party thus assembled, it only left to bid farewell.
Temple offered a hand. ‘Goodbye, old cock, and good luck. We’ll expect you back in a couple of weeks.’
Little did Lees realise this was the last time he would ever see the man alive.
Lees turned away, taking a well-trodden bridleway that climbed into the hills. He’d opted to travel light, urging his party to do likewise. He was carrying only his trusty Sten gun, with the detachable wooden pistol-grip that he favoured, plus ammunition and a rolled blanket. The days were still relatively hot, so he wore shorts and a khaki shirt. The skies above were a cloudless blue and they’d rely on good weather to see them through.
At the head of the valley they paused by a goat herd, to refresh themselves with milk. Before them the path rose to a steep ridge several miles away. They were making for a pass set at some 6,000 feet, after which they’d descend to a mountain village on the far side. But as Lees gazed at the heights, they appeared to be wreathed in swirling cloud. It looked ominous: he knew how quickly the weather could turn in the mountains. He urged everyone on.
As they climbed towards the pass the sky overhead took on a dull grey hue and the first snow began to fall. The wind picked up, whipping icy flakes against Lees’ bare legs, forming stiff little icicles. He cursed the fact that they had set out so ill-prepared and chiefly at his urging. It wasn’t long before they had their first casualty. Long, the war artist, took a fall on the icy ground, bruising his spine. His pack and weaponry had to be passed to one of the guides, for he was in some pain.
Lees closed the column up, so they would not lose sight of each other in the gathering storm. But Long was soon at the very back, finding it difficult to keep moving. They reached a perilous section of terrain that required the