Such was the allies concern at the lack of resistance in the Low Countries and France that  the SOE (Special Operations Executive) carried out acts designed to shake off such inertia. Typically British agents would clandestinely butcher German servicemen, often sentries. These agents would then leave clues to suggest responsibility lay with the local resistance. The Germans never did cotton on to such skullduggery and sometimes took out reprisals on the local population. This had the effect of arousing bad feeling and encouraging attacks on German targets. The desired effect was therefore achieved.

One such British agent was the Anglo-French Violette Szabo. Recruited as an agent she  made several drops into occupied France and with other agents brought considerable destruction and loss of life to civilians, and to French and German servicemen and women. Szabo was twice captured and twice she escaped. On a third occasion, holed up with others, she killed several German soldiers before she herself was captured. She was subsequently shot – strictly in accordance with convention. Claims that the Gestapo routinely tortured captives are wide of the mark. Incidences of maltreatment had to be made-up. The most infamous of these fraudulent torture claims related to the capture of Szabo. These fantasies were later repeated in the film and book Carve her Name with Pride.

Her fellow captives Captain Peuleve and Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas G.C., both of  whom were interrogated and imprisoned with Szabo stated unequivocally that the Germans never maltreated the female agent.

The torture claims made by her researcher Mr. Minney caused Captain Peuleve much  embarrassment. The captain had wrongly and without his knowledge been named as the sole source of evidence for the torture allegations in the posthumous George Cross citation awarded to Szabo. (Full story, Sunday Times 4.4.1965).

 

Competing with each other for 'first over the Rhine brownie points' 'Operation Market  Garden' was Field Marshall Bernard L. Montgomery's overly ambitious plan to pierce the Ruhr from which the French had been ejected twenty years earlier.

When troops of the First British Airborne dropped on Arnhem to seize the bridge crossing,  the British media hailed the operation as 'a stunning success'. In fact it was yet another monumental blunder dressed up as victory though the full extent of the disaster wasn't open to inspection for another thirty years when Cornelius Ryan's book A Bridge Too Far caused a re-think.

At the time the BBC announced the operation as 'an incredible achievement, certainly one  of the outstanding operations of the war.' When the British forces were forced into ignominious retreat the BBC quickly changed its tune to, 'a valuable stand by a depleted, gallant, and undaunted force.'

This in fact was nearer the truth but it did miss the point. The operation was foolhardy to  the extreme and should never have even been considered. Correspondent Cyril Ray, who took part in the drop on Nijmegen complained bitterly. "We tart up our reverses so heroically that it takes an effort to grasp that Arnhem was not merely a British defeat, it was a German victory."

He was even less happy to discover that the British officer in charge of censorship stuffed  the correspondent's dispatch into his battle dress blouse and produced them several days later. "Terribly sorry, you chaps, but I quite overlooked them." American readers were also kept in the dark. There wasn't a single American correspondent at the crucial battle of Arnhem.

One thing which has been assiduously ignored by practically all writers about this disaster  is the following. The British troops (who fought with an uncommon tenacity and bravery) experienced such heavy casualties that they were unable to take care of their wounded.

A British officer decided to approach the German SS troops under a white flag to ask for  assistance! The SS, honourable as always, stopped shooting, received the British delegation and agreed to a cease fire during which the British wounded were transported to German field hospitals to be taken care of. This was done and the British were cared for with the same care as accorded to the German wounded.

Disgracefully, not a single English soldier thus saved and humanely treated has ever  expressed his thanks, If they ever did none of their remarks have ever been published. This act of kindness and fairness by the SS has got be the first in history and to ignore it shows the depth of dishonesty by the allies.
 

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