Susan Ottaway - Sisters, Secrets and Sacrifice - The True Story of WWII Special Agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne

Eventually on the evening of 25 January, three months after their first attempt, Jacqueline and Southgate boarded another Halifax of 161 Squadron and were flown by Flight Lieutenant Prior to a dropping zone near the small town of Brioude in the Haute-Loire département of the Auvergne. This time everything went as planned and they made a blind drop on the landing ground. Although most drops were made to reception committees, some were not and these were known as blind drops. It was usually preferable for agents to be received by other agents, who could help them bury their parachutes and quickly take them away from the landing ground to ensure that if there were German patrols around they wouldn’t find them. The reception committees often took arriving agents on to a safe house, where they could rest before making their own way to the circuits they were joining. Sometimes, however, it was not practical to provide a reception committee, and it is possible that after the many problems that Southgate and Jacqueline had had in reaching France it was thought best to let them drop blind in case there were any more problems and the reception committee wasted more time in waiting for agents who didn’t arrive. Since both Southgate and Jacqueline had lived for most of their lives in France they should, in theory, have had fewer difficulties in coping with a blind drop than agents who were unused to the country.

Jacqueline jumped first and landed safely, quickly collecting up her billowing parachute in order to bury it as soon as possible and hide all traces of her arrival. As she stood up, she saw in the dim light of the French countryside the figure of a man holding a gun, which was pointed at her. On either side of the man were more figures. Jacqueline said later that she ‘felt it was very unfair to be caught so quickly’ 11 and that she didn’t know what to do. She walked back and forth for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, and then heard a male voice whispering her name. She suddenly realized that the man with the gun was Southgate and that in the dark he had been unable to identify her. His companions turned out to be tree stumps.

Filled with relief that they were not about to be arrested, they quickly buried their parachutes and gathered up their bags to walk to the station in Brioude, from where they intended to take a train to Clermont-Ferrand. Although they had not been in any danger, they were both shaken by the experience, and when they came across a woman on a bike along the road, Southgate asked her for directions to the station in English. Jacqueline was horrified but quickly retrieved the situation by asking the woman the same question in French. As she did so the look of bewilderment on the woman’s face vanished, and Jacqueline realized that she had not understood what was being said to her and obviously thought that they were Germans.

They made their way to the station, a walk of nearly 32 kilometres, through the night. It should not have been so far, but in the dark they became lost and found themselves going round in circles for a time. After the encounter with the cyclist they preferred to find their own way to the station rather than ask for any more directions. On arrival, they took the first train leaving for Clermont-Ferrand. As they sank on to their seats, a German soldier came into the carriage and sat down opposite them. Jacqueline had a feeling of revulsion at having to share the carriage with him, and one of fear that he was there at all; to her it seemed as if her heart had jumped into her mouth, but she quickly recovered and opened the French newspaper that she had bought at the station and began to read it. Southgate did the same and the journey passed with no more drama.

For security reasons the details of contacts in France were given to only one person, and it was Jacqueline who had the information about where they would be able to find accommodation in Clermont-Ferrand. Leaving Southgate at a café near the station, she went to the address she had been given. A boy answered her knock on the door and she told him, ‘Je suis la fiancée d’André’ (I am André’s fiancée). The boy called back into the apartment, ‘A woman wants to speak to you,’ and André Vasseur, who was in reality George Jones ( Lime ) and who was known to Jacqueline from the SOE office in London, appeared. He was the wireless operator for the Headmaster circuit and would be one of those who would transmit messages for Stationer until its own wireless operator was sent from London.

The apartment at which Jacqueline had arrived, 37 rue Blatin, was the home of a family called Nerault and the boy who had answered the door was Jean Nerault. Jacqueline was welcomed into the family’s home, where she explained that she had left her circuit chief at the station and that they needed somewhere to stay for a while. She was told that they could stay there, so she went to find Southgate. He was relieved to see her, as although she hadn’t been gone for very long, it had felt like a lifetime to him and he was beginning to think that something had happened to her. 12 She assured him that she was fine, although she couldn’t get used to seeing so many Germans in the streets. During the time she had been on her training courses and afterwards waiting to reach France she had had an idea of how it would be to be back in her homeland, but the reality was nothing like she had imagined. France had changed after the German invasion and she hated it, as it made her realize that she had placed herself in a very dangerous position. She also knew, though, that whatever she now felt, she would just have to cope with it: there could be no going back.

Since the area to be covered by the Stationer circuit, from central France to the far south, was vast, nearly half of the entire country, Southgate and Jacqueline’s remit to unite the various groups in this area into efficient fighting forces, so that they would be ready when the longed-for Allied invasion of western Europe eventually began, presented a challenge. It was rather unrealistic, therefore, to have sent a new circuit leader on his first mission with an equally inexperienced courier and no wireless operator, and expect them to work miracles. Yet London could not have picked a better pair for the task.

Southgate had passed his training courses with flying colours and was highly thought of by F Section. He in turn had full confidence in his courier and was not to be disappointed when they began to work together in earnest. He was soon reporting, ‘Jacqueline is grand, and is rendering great service to my organisation and to England. I could not have done half what I have without her.’ 1 But although they got along very well and were soon beginning to achieve a lot of what they had come to France to do, Southgate regarded Jacqueline as a bit of an enigma. She was pleasant, polite, always did her job to the best of her ability and had a good sense of humour, but he felt that there was more to her than met the eye and that behind her pleasant façade was a woman who did not want to give away too much of her real self.

During their first few weeks in France Jacqueline and Southgate travelled tirelessly all over the large area that constituted the Stationer circuit, meeting when possible about three times each week to bring each other up to date with their progress. They soon began to establish some order among the disparate groups of resisters, and arranged training and supplies for them. Part of Jacqueline’s work as a courier was to take and fetch messages from the other groups. Before Stationer received its own wireless operator, she also had to take messages to a wireless operator of another circuit to be sent. This was a security risk for both her and the Stationer circuit as a whole, but it was nearly three months before the news reached them that the arrival of their own wireless operator was imminent.