member of F Section, saying
‘We continue to have good news of your son/ your husband/your daughter. He or she is in good health.’ That’s all, nothing personal. But the agents working behind the lines did not
even receive that. They were completely cut off from home, country and family. They arrived in the field in civilian clothes, without the protection of a uniform, so that if they were arrested they
could not claim the status of prisoners of war. They were spies. And a spy’s fate awaited them. They had false papers giving a false name, false profession, false family, false birthplace,
false education, false nationality. Everything about them was false. Before leaving they were obliged to absorb their cover story to the point where, even if they were dragged from bed at three
o’clock in the morning, drugged with sleep, when questioned they automatically repeated the details of their false identity. They literally became another person.
Prospective agents were warned that if they were arrested, London could do very little for them. Before leaving, each one was given an ‘L tablet’, which they jokingly called
‘the insurance against torture’ and which they hid somewhere on their person. Some asked for it to be sewn behind the collar of their jackets, in the corner of a handkerchief or inside
a pocket or the lining of a coat or jacket. The men often carried pipes which were hollow in the middle where they could hide messages written on very thin, flimsy paper, but also hide their L
tablet. Some even had a filling in a tooth removed, the L tablet placed in the hole, and a false filling fitted on top, and one woman I knew concealed hers in a tube of lipstick. If arrested by the
Gestapo, the agents were advised to crush the tablet between their teeth and swallow it immediately. It was lethal potassium cyanide and would kill them within two minutes. But once crushed, the
tablet gave off a very particular and easily recognized odour. If the Gestapo smelt it on an agent’s breath they would have their stomach pumped to keep them alive. Speed was essential.
The Vatican even issued special dispensation to Roman Catholic agents who might otherwise have been hesitant about taking or even accepting the L tablet. But in these exceptional circumstances,
they were allowed to take their own lives with the blessing of the Church. But even then some Catholic agents were reluctant – Yvonne Baseden (‘Odette’) refused to carry her L
tablet, while my friend Bob Maloubier told me that he accepted his, then immediately flushed it down the loo. Perhaps others did the same.
If for any reason agents were arrested but chose not to use their cyanide capsule, they were under strict orders not to ‘talk’ for forty-eight hours in order to give the members of
their
réseau
and other resistance comrades time to disperse and, hopefully, escape. It was an order that cannot have been easy to obey, especially when a torturer was pulling out
your finger- and toenails one by one, submitting you to electric shocks or the ‘water treatment’ or suspending you from the ceiling by your ankles or wrists and beating you till you
become unconscious. You would then be revived, only for your captors to start tormenting you all over again.
Yeo-Thomas, who before the war had been the director of the famous Parisian fashion house Molyneux, was brutally tortured, possibly more so than any other SOE agent. Known to the Germans as
‘Le Lapin Blanc’, or "The White Rabbit’, he was finally captured on his third mission into occupied France and sent to Buchenwald, from where he made what can only be described as
a miraculous escape. With the connivance of a doctor in the camp infirmary, he exchanged places with a corpse. The doctor had no doubt realized that an Allied victory was imminent and was anxious
to save his skin. Three others escaped with him, but once outside the camp, they became separated, and Yeo-Thomas wandered
‘We continue to have good news of your son/ your husband/your daughter. He or she is in good health.’ That’s all, nothing personal. But the agents working behind the lines did not
even receive that. They were completely cut off from home, country and family. They arrived in the field in civilian clothes, without the protection of a uniform, so that if they were arrested they
could not claim the status of prisoners of war. They were spies. And a spy’s fate awaited them. They had false papers giving a false name, false profession, false family, false birthplace,
false education, false nationality. Everything about them was false. Before leaving they were obliged to absorb their cover story to the point where, even if they were dragged from bed at three
o’clock in the morning, drugged with sleep, when questioned they automatically repeated the details of their false identity. They literally became another person.
Prospective agents were warned that if they were arrested, London could do very little for them. Before leaving, each one was given an ‘L tablet’, which they jokingly called
‘the insurance against torture’ and which they hid somewhere on their person. Some asked for it to be sewn behind the collar of their jackets, in the corner of a handkerchief or inside
a pocket or the lining of a coat or jacket. The men often carried pipes which were hollow in the middle where they could hide messages written on very thin, flimsy paper, but also hide their L
tablet. Some even had a filling in a tooth removed, the L tablet placed in the hole, and a false filling fitted on top, and one woman I knew concealed hers in a tube of lipstick. If arrested by the
Gestapo, the agents were advised to crush the tablet between their teeth and swallow it immediately. It was lethal potassium cyanide and would kill them within two minutes. But once crushed, the
tablet gave off a very particular and easily recognized odour. If the Gestapo smelt it on an agent’s breath they would have their stomach pumped to keep them alive. Speed was essential.
The Vatican even issued special dispensation to Roman Catholic agents who might otherwise have been hesitant about taking or even accepting the L tablet. But in these exceptional circumstances,
they were allowed to take their own lives with the blessing of the Church. But even then some Catholic agents were reluctant – Yvonne Baseden (‘Odette’) refused to carry her L
tablet, while my friend Bob Maloubier told me that he accepted his, then immediately flushed it down the loo. Perhaps others did the same.
If for any reason agents were arrested but chose not to use their cyanide capsule, they were under strict orders not to ‘talk’ for forty-eight hours in order to give the members of
their
réseau
and other resistance comrades time to disperse and, hopefully, escape. It was an order that cannot have been easy to obey, especially when a torturer was pulling out
your finger- and toenails one by one, submitting you to electric shocks or the ‘water treatment’ or suspending you from the ceiling by your ankles or wrists and beating you till you
become unconscious. You would then be revived, only for your captors to start tormenting you all over again.
Yeo-Thomas, who before the war had been the director of the famous Parisian fashion house Molyneux, was brutally tortured, possibly more so than any other SOE agent. Known to the Germans as
‘Le Lapin Blanc’, or "The White Rabbit’, he was finally captured on his third mission into occupied France and sent to Buchenwald, from where he made what can only be described as
a miraculous escape. With the connivance of a doctor in the camp infirmary, he exchanged places with a corpse. The doctor had no doubt realized that an Allied victory was imminent and was anxious
to save his skin. Three others escaped with him, but once outside the camp, they became separated, and Yeo-Thomas wandered
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