Eastern Approaches (51 page)

When we woke, it was broad daylight and we could get a better idea of our surroundings. From where we were, we looked out over a wide green valley, with, on the far side, a range of hills, rising abruptly in cliffs from a river which flowed at their foot. Between us and the hills lay what was left of the village of Drvar, a few gutted houses clustered round the gaunt ruins of what had once been a factory. Behind us open fields, dotted here and there with farmsteads and copses, rose more gradually into another range of hills, on which the snow was still lying.

Our own house stood amid plum orchards, sloping down to a little brook. From their huts round about, the peasants eyed us curiously,
staring at our wireless sets and the rest of our gear and listening in surprise to the strange language we spoke. The Partisans they knew; and the Četniks; and the Germans. But we were something different. At first they hung back. Then their curiosity got the best of their shyness. The girls were the boldest. Laughing, and pushing each other forward, first one and then another invented a pretext for engaging us in conversation. The discovery that we could speak their language emboldened them still further, and soon we were the centre of an amused crowd of neighbours, who fired every kind of question at us, and responded to our answers with confidences of their own, generally of an extremely intimate kind. Meanwhile, our whiskered bodyguard, who was supposed to be helping us unpack and stow away what was left of the Mission kit and supplies stood beaming in the middle of a group of small children, to whom he was displaying with a proprietor’s pride all the more interesting articles of our equipment, personal or otherwise, each of which was greeted with cheers by his youthful audience. Amongst the latter was a little girl of two or three with a singularly dirty face and flaming red hair, who had toddled up to see what was going on. To her we gave the name of Ginger, by which she was known thereafter by the whole neighbourhood, including her own parents.

The arrival, a couple of days later, of the rest of the party including Randolph, Sergeant Duncan and Slim Farish, who had brought with him a large supply of genuine American ‘candy’, set the seal on our success. From now onwards our position in the community was assured. Before many days were past, we were sleeping in one house, eating in another, and doing our cooking in a third, an operation which was conducted over an open fire by Ginger’s mother under the general supervision of Sergeant Duncan.

Once we had established ourselves, I went to see Tito. I found him living in a cave half way up the rock face on the far side of the valley. It was a stiff climb and I arrived out of breath at the mouth of the cave where I was greeted by Tito, Olga, Tigger and Tito’s personal bodyguards, Prlja and Boško, who all seemed delighted with their new abode. At the back of the cave a waterfall roared and chattered and ferns grew in the crevices of the rock. From where we stood we
commanded a fine view of the valley and its approaches. Altogether, it was a pleasant enough place. On and off, I was to spend much time in that cave during the months that followed, talking, eating and, above all, arguing.

The life to which we now settled down, while it also partook of the atmosphere of the ‘Robbers’ Cave’ in Act II of a pantomime, had, strangely enough, a good deal in common with that of an important Headquarters in a normal theatre of war, even though the nearest German outposts were never more than a few miles away. In the past six months and particularly since the Italian capitulation, the Partisan Movement had greatly increased both in numbers and in scope, and there had inevitably been a corresponding increase in the size of Tito’s staff. But what the latter gained in executive and administrative efficiency, through this increase in staff, it inevitably lost in mobility, and mobility is an essential condition of successful guerrilla warfare. Tito accordingly now found himself confronted with the problem of how best to secure his base. For the time being, it is true, his H.Q. did not seem to be in any immediate danger. The force of the German sixth offensive, which had culminated in the capture of Jajce some weeks earlier, was now largely spent, and the initiative was rapidly passing to the Partisans. Locally, the approaches to Drvar were well defended. To the north, Slavko Rodić and Fifth Corps were based on Bosanski Petrovac. Koča Popović, commanding First Corps, had established his Headquarters at Mokri Nogi, a few hours’ walk up the valley. These troops, it was hoped, would be sufficient to protect Drvar against any sudden attack by such German forces as were known to be in the neighbourhood at the time.

But this situation could not be expected to last indefinitely. On the contrary, it was not long before evidence reached us from several different sources that the enemy knew where we were and had no intention of leaving us to vegetate. The most cogent proof of this interest came in the form of enemy air activity. First single aircraft and then groups of three or four would circle overhead, sometimes bombing and machine-gunning, and sometimes just looking or possibly photographing. More disturbing still were reports, received from the R.A.F. and passed on by me to Tito, of concentrations of
gliders and troop-carrying aircraft at Zagreb and elsewhere. Then, from captured enemy documents and intercepted messages, came evidence of various German plans to kidnap or assassinate Tito, his staff and my Mission. For this purpose, it appeared, Serbo-Croat speaking members of the notorious S.S. Brandenburg were to be used, dressed as Partisans. Another time, a lightning raid by ski-troops of the First Mountain Division seems to have been contemplated. Going through these documents, I was interested to read the instructions for my own disposal. They gave, in their order, the various formations to which I was to be sent after capture: from Division, to Corps, to Army Headquarters, after which I was to be flown by special aircraft to Germany for further investigation and ultimate disposal by means not specified.

Apart from this, we knew that the Germans, if they took their time, could in the end always concentrate against any given point held by the Partisans an overwhelming weight of troops and particularly of armaments, and, if at any time they decided to take such action against Drvar, Tito and his staff would once again be obliged to take to the woods, with a consequent interruption of the central conduct of the campaign.

This, Tito was naturally anxious to avoid. The question was whether it was feasible to render the base at Drvar secure against attack, if the Germans were really determined to wipe it out. Certain of Tito’s advisers were in favour of attempting to convert Drvar and its immediate surroundings into an impregnable fortress and concentrate a considerable garrison within its shelter. They felt, he explained, that it would be good for morale and strengthen the Movement as a whole, if there could be at any rate one permanent strip of ‘liberated territory’.

In telling me of the project, Tito asked me what I thought of it and whether, if it were adopted, we would be able to supply the armaments, and in particular the mines, guns and tanks which would be needed to put it into execution.

I replied that, as he knew, we were already supplying the Partisans with mines and that we were hoping to supply them shortly with pack artillery. But I did not think that he would be putting either of these to their proper use if they were employed in an attempt to establish a
permanent base in any one given area. For one thing, we could not bring by air a sufficient weight of armaments to give them the security at which they were aiming. For another, to assume a primarily defensive role, even locally, would, in my view, be to fly in the face of a fundamental principle of guerrilla warfare. It seemed to me that the Partisans must at all costs retain their mobility. I saw their need for some kind of base from which operations could be directed, but to my mind they could best achieve the security which they desired by keeping the enemy engaged elsewhere.

This, in fact, they were doing to an ever-increasing extent, and, what is more, it was now possible, owing to the presence of my officers with Partisan formations throughout the country, to co-ordinate their operations with those of the Allied Armies in Italy.

From our point of view special importance attached to Partisan activities in Slovenia and in particular to the possibility of interrupting traffic on the Trieste-Ljubljana railway, which was one of the principal supply lines for the German forces in Italy and also constituted a vital link between the eastern and western fronts. Peter Moore had now returned to Bosnia after a further visit to Slovenia, and, in Vivian Street’s absence, was acting as my second in command. I thus had the advantage of his local knowledge and first-hand experience in planning any operations that A.F.H.Q. or 15th Army Group might ask for in the north.

Peter’s knowledge and experience were to stand us in good stead, when, sometime later, I was instructed by General Wilson to ask Tito whether his men could attack the Stampetov bridge, one of the main viaducts on the Trieste-Ljubljana railway, the operation to be so timed as to coincide with certain moves by General Alexander in Italy. Tito agreed immediately and undertook to send the necessary instructions to his local commander in Slovenia at once. After talking the proposed operation over with Moore I decided to send him back to Slovenia, in order to provide direct liaison with the troops carrying out the operation and also to help them with technical advice, which he, as a Sapper, was well qualified to give when it came to blowing things up.

Moore was delighted, and, having provided himself with a photograph
of the viaduct and all available information about it, set to work calculating the quantities of explosive which would be needed to put it out of commission for an appreciable time. It soon became clear that the undertaking was likely to prove a formidable one. The viaduct was known to be heavily guarded. Moreover it was so constructed that very considerable quantities of high-explosive would be required to make any impression on it. Arrangements were made for the necessary supplies to be dropped in to Slovenia, and Moore left for the north with his professional enthusiasm thoroughly aroused.

For a week we heard nothing. Then a signal came from Moore to say that they had arrived, that they had discussed plans with the local Commander, that the supplies had duly been dropped and that everything was now ready for the operation, which had been given the code name ‘Bearskin’, to be carried out on the prescribed date. I passed this information on to General Wilson and General Alexander. Then we waited anxiously for news.

The news, when it came, was wholly good, and I hastened to pass it on to Tito. After a long and skilfully executed approach march, the Partisans had rushed the viaduct in the face of heavy opposition and had held the enemy off long enough for the charges to be laid and detonated. When they finally withdrew, the bridge was down, and likely to remain so for some time. Moore was full of praise for the Partisans, who, he said, were ably commanded and had fought with great dash and determination.

Later Tito received an account of the action from H.Q. Slovenia. It only differed from Moore’s version in that it contained an enthusiastic account of the part which the latter had himself played in the planning and execution of the operation.

We heard later from Italy that the destruction of the viaduct had achieved its purpose. As a result of it, the railway had been put out of action for some considerable time, and thus denied to the enemy at a critical stage of the campaign. From General Alexander there came a message of thanks which we duly passed on to those concerned. For his part in the operation Moore received a well-deserved bar to his D.S.O.

W
ITH
the approach of spring and the improvement in weather conditions, air supply and air support became easier, and we in Jugoslavia now began to feel in the country the results of the new policy of all-out assistance which had been decided on at Cairo.

Supplies were dropped to Partisan formations all over the country in accordance with a system of priorities which Tito and I had worked out together on the basis of estimated operational requirements and which we reviewed periodically. He and I generally reached agreement without much difficulty, but it was often hard to persuade the local Partisan Commanders and the British officers attached to them that they were getting their fair share.

In the neighbourhood of Drvar our principal dropping ground remained Bosanski Petrovac, the Headquarters of 5th Corps, whence the supplies received were distributed by pack-horse and peasant’s cart. For a time this was done by day, but soon the enemy discovered what was happening and, on receiving news of a drop, sent out aircraft to patrol all the tracks leading away from Bosanski Petrovac. After one or two of our supply caravans had been caught in the open and badly shot up, it was decided only to move by night.

Sometimes supplies were dropped direct to Drvar or to Koča Popović’s Headquarters at Mokri Nogi further up the valley. This was no easy matter for the pilots carrying out the dropping operation even under the most favourable weather conditions. The valley was narrow, surrounded by high hills and often filled with cloud. But somehow the R.A.F. and American Army Air Force brought it off again and again in all weathers, there and all over Jugoslavia.

Often the message to stand by for a drop would reach us on the day itself. For us often much depended on supplies arriving in time and a drop was a big event. The first thing to be done was to prepare the signal fires. After that we would settle down to wait on the bleak hillside for
the sound of the aircraft. Sometimes it never came and we would wait all night in vain. This meant that weather had stopped them from getting through. At other times they would be punctual to the minute. Then, as soon as we heard them, we would run out and set light to the fires. Some pilots would let go their loads from a considerable height, and the parachutes, caught by the wind, would drift a mile or more from their proper destination, often ending up with the enemy. Others, with more experience of the job, would edge their aircraft right into the valley and make the drop from a couple of hundred feet above the fires, banking steeply immediately afterwards so as to avoid the hillside. Sometimes they came so low that, looking up in the darkness, we could see for an instant the figure of the dispatcher, outlined against the dim light of the open door, as he rolled out the containers. As the shortage of parachutes became more acute, the R.A.F. took to making ‘free drops’ of supplies which could be safely dropped without them. These called for considerable agility on the part of those on the ground: a hundred pairs of ammunition boots whistling through the air at a hundred miles an hour, their fall unbroken by a parachute, were a serious menace to life and limb.

At times bad weather would stop all supplies for weeks on end and there would be long, anxious periods of waiting, with reports coming in from all sides of troops hard-pressed for want of arms and our own food supplies getting so low that our few remaining tins of bully and bars of chocolate began to assume an inflated importance and it was hard to prevent oneself from starting to think about the next meal as soon as one had swallowed the one before. Nor were these lean phases easy to explain to the Partisans, to whom meteorological conditions, often brilliantly fine locally when they were altogether impossible in Italy, meant nothing, and who were only too ready to put the whole thing down to Capitalist Intrigue.

But, despite occasional stoppages, air-supplies were now arriving on a far larger scale. Air-support, too, was increasing by leaps and bounds. More and more often we would hear the roar of hundreds of aeroplane engines and looking up at the sky, see the serried squadrons of Fortresses and Liberators glittering high above us in the sunshine, on their way to bomb strategical targets. Sometimes we could count a hundred
or more. Until then it had been safe to assume that any aircraft seen in the sky over Jugoslavia was an enemy one and meant mischief, and it was only gradually that the Partisans and the local inhabitants accustomed themselves to the idea of a friendly aircraft. Eventually, however, they did, and then, after the look-out man had taken careful stock of them, the warning cry of ‘
Avioni!
’ —‘Aircraft!’, would be followed by joyful shouts of ‘
Naši!
’ — ‘Ours!’ whenever the R.A.F. or the American Army Air Force made their appearance.

I recall one very satisfactory demonstration of Allied air superiority, when, in the middle of a particularly irritating low-level bombing and machine-gunning attack by two or three medium-sized German planes, a louder, deeper roar suddenly made itself heard above the buzz of the Germans’ engines and the rattle of their machine guns, and, looking up, we saw, so high as to be scarcely distinguishable, a vast, silvery armada, set on its relentless course northwards, the escorting fighters diving and weaving on its fringes. Evidently our tormentor saw it at the same moment as we did, and, although it was most unlikely that the Allied pilots had even seen them or would have bothered about them if they had, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and made a hasty exit over the nearest hill-top, followed by derisive shouts from the assembled population.

Tactical air support on a much larger scale also became possible now that we had officers attached to Partisan formations throughout the country. We had arranged that they should have direct wireless communication with the R.A.F. in Italy, and it became relatively common for Beaufighters, Spitfires or rocket-firing Hurricanes to be rushed in the nick of time to the support of some hard-pressed Partisan outpost, or prepare the way for a Partisan attack on a German strong-point.

John Selby, in the meantime, had gone to North Africa to train the Partisan fighter squadron formed under the Alexandria Agreement. Tito, delighted at the prospect of having his own air force, had sent out some of his best officers to be trained and John found himself confronted with the ticklish problem of converting these hardy guerrilla warriors into fighter-pilots. This transformation he effected in a remarkably short time, and, before the end of the war, Partisan
pilots, flying Hurricanes bearing a red Partisan star superimposed on the red, white and blue roundel of the R.A.F., were taking an active part in air operations over Jugoslavia.

By now our party included several technicians. Perhaps the most useful work of all was done by a stocky little Major in the New Zealand R.A.M.C. Doc. Rogers, as he was called, had seen a lot of fighting in the Western Desert, where he had commanded a field ambulance. Now, rather than work at a base hospital, he had volunteered for special service in Jugoslavia, not, I think, because he took any particular interest in that country, but simply so as to be in the thick of things.

His wish was granted. At the time when he arrived, it was winter and the sixth German offensive was in progress. Casualties from wounds, disease and frost-bite were heavy. For the Partisans, to whom mobility was a prime consideration, the question of what to do with their wounded was a major problem. If they carried them with them, they hampered their movements. If they abandoned them, they met a terrible death at the hands of the Germans. Apart from this, they were short of doctors and lacked medical supplies almost completely. As a result, men were dying like flies.

This was the kind of assignment that Rogers had been looking for. Accompanied by a R.A.M.C. Corporal of similar character, he set himself to solve it. He organized hospitals wherever he could, in peasants’ houses or in the woods. In them he insisted on standards of hygiene and medical discipline unheard of before his arrival. He sent over my wireless link unorthodox but effective signals to the high-ranking officers of the medical world, demanding that they send him at once by parachute large quantities of medicaments and other supplies. He started to make preliminary arrangements for the evacuation of the worst cases to Allied hospitals in Italy as soon as we gained control of a landing-strip. Having got all this going, he and his Corporal moved rapidly from one part of the country to another, descending on his improvised hospitals like a tornado, organizing, reorganizing, interfering, operating by candlelight in stables and cowsheds, arranging for the removal of a group of wounded threatened
by a German attack or the isolation and treatment of typhus cases, of which, as usual, there were many. All this was done in a country occupied by the enemy, under conditions of considerable rigour, on short rations, in the middle of constant skirmishing and air attack.

In the military or political situation, as such, he took little interest, and of the language he spoke not a word, working entirely by gesture or through interpreters. On the other hand, he had seen too much of their courage, of their capacity for enduring pain, and of their numerous very human qualities, not to feel a kind of admiration mingled with affection for the ‘Pattersons’, as he called them. And they, too, liked and admired him, wondering at such devotion and unquestioningly accepting his authority and his knowledge. Indeed such was his popularity that on occasion rival Partisan Commanders quarrelled over him and Tito had to be called in to settle the dispute.

Two other new recruits at this time were John Clarke and Andrew Maxwell, both from the 2nd Scots Guards. The arrival of a newcomer from the outside world was a big occasion, and their drop was eagerly awaited by us all and preceded by a number of signals, reminding them to bring in various odds and ends of which we were short. On the day on which they were due to arrive I rode over to Koča Popović’s Headquarters, near which it had been arranged that they should be dropped, taking with me Hilary King who was hoping for some wireless stores. Allied aircraft were short at the time and they were accordingly to be dropped by aircraft of the co-belligerent Italian Air Force, now operating under Allied Command. The experiment was also to be tried of making a mass daylight supply drop. Altogether it seemed likely to be an interesting occasion.

There was deep snow in the valley through which our route lay and we made slower progress than we had expected, our horses plunging and floundering up to their bellies in the snow as soon as we left the beaten track. We were still a long way away when suddenly we heard the noise of aircraft, and, looking up, saw, at a distance of some miles from where we were, several Savoia-Marchetti transport planes flying slowly along at a considerable height.

As we watched them, still a couple of thousand feet up, expecting to see them circle down towards the dropping area, a dozen or so
parachutes suddenly burst from them one after another, opened out like Japanese paper flowers immersed in water, and floated slowly down, swaying gently, over a wide area of the countryside; from where we were, we could not see whether their burdens were human or not. While the parachutes were still in the air, the Savoia-Marchettis turned round and departed in the direction from which they had come. Worried by what we had seen, we pressed on anxiously, wondering what we should find.

Some distance further along the track, we met an old peasant coming in the opposite direction. We asked him if the British officers had landed safely. ‘Dead,’ he replied unhesitatingly, ‘all dead. They were dropped on the mountain-tops, and their bones were shattered by the fall. They are bringing their bodies down at this very moment.’ Then, evidently feeling that he had adequately summed up the situation, he passed on down the valley, muttering irritably to himself as he went.

This was a blow. John Clarke and Andrew Maxwell were both old friends of mine and it was sickening to think of their lives being thrown away like this. We kicked our horses into a gallop and plunged on through the snow.

The first person that we saw when we arrived was Andrew. He was standing outside a peasant’s hut, talking politely to Koča Popović in rather bad French and from time to time inquiring anxiously about his personal kit. He had, it appeared, been dropped from a great height, followed by a free drop of several hundred pairs of boots, which had passed him at high speed, missing him by inches, and had finally landed on an extremely steep mountain-side, covered with sharp stones. The containers dropped at the same time were scattered for miles around. There was no sign of John Clarke, who had been due to jump after Andrew, but search parties were out looking for him.

Koča produced some black bread and cheese and some
slivovica
and we went inside to wait. One after another, Partisans arrived bringing in containers and parachutes that had been found scattered all over the countryside. The Italians, no doubt anxious to be home, had let them go from far too high and they had drifted miles out of their course. Some must undoubtedly have fallen to the Germans. Of John Clarke
there was still no sign, but it was something to learn that, in spite of the gloomy prognostications of our original informant, no shattered corpses had yet been brought in.

Our minds were not finally set at rest until a day or two later, when I received a signal from John from Italy, reporting with suitable expressions of regret that Major Maxwell, owing to an unfortunate error on the part of the Italian pilot, was thought to have been dropped to the enemy. The pilot, it appeared, had announced his supposed mistake as soon as Maxwell had jumped and Clarke had therefore naturally not followed him, but had returned to Italy with the plane, having first thrown Maxwell’s kit after him, so that he should not be unnecessarily uncomfortable in his prison camp.

To this startling communication we returned a reassuring and mildly facetious reply. When John Clarke was eventually dropped in a week or two late, it was from a British aircraft.

An even more sensational entry on the Jugoslav scene was made at about this time by a full-blown Soviet Military Mission, headed by a General of the Red Army, whose appointment had been announced some months before. It may be imagined with what frantic excitement the news of the impending arrival of some real Russians, the first they had ever seen, was received by the devoutly Communist Partisans.