Explosives Instructor, SOE

Discussion in 'SOE & OSS' started by Andybw, Aug 6, 2011.

  1. Andybw

    Andybw Junior Member

    Good evening one and all.
    This is my first post here, I've have been tied up with WW1 till now, and I hope that it is both interesting to you and rewarding to me.
    In 1940 Sgt. James Wilkinson R.E. volunteered for a unit we now know to have been the SOE. He spent a month refreshing his explosives skills outside Dorking then a short time at another training school before going to Morar as an explosives instructor. He worked with a variety of people including English, French, Dutch Polish and Czech young men, teaching them how to use explosives to the greatest effect. He was given the name "Rozshbuschka" (that is as close as I can get with the phonetics) by the Czech boys, who had a lot of problems with the use of detonators and fuses because their English was limited.
    He went from there to a large house on the Thames at Henley and did the same thing with Spanish students.

    Those are the bare bones of the stories I grew up with. Can anyone put some flesh on them for me please
     
    Lindele likes this.
  2. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    Hello and welcome to the forum, his SOE P/F does not seem to have survived there may be mention of him in some of the student's files if he wrote reports on them. Any more information you have would be most helpfull. It should be fairly simple to trace which of the schools and holding stations he worked at.
     
  3. Andybw

    Andybw Junior Member

    A thousand apologies, I neglected to sign my post.

    Regards

    Andy
     
  4. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Hi Andy and welcome.

    Do you know if he was in France with the BEF during 1939/40?
     
  5. Andybw

    Andybw Junior Member

    My apologies for not replying earlier, unfortunately circumstances made it difficult. However, to continue. James did not serve outside the British Isles until D-Day. He returned from Singapore in early 1939 as a drill instructor and spent time in Shorncliffe and somewhere in Lancs. before volunteering foe SOE. His tales included activities in Morar, Arisaig and Druimindarrock. He will be 94 next month and his memories are beginning to blur. I am looking for definite things for him to use as anchors.
    All thoughts appreciated

    Andy
     
  6. Plz go to my SOE group on Facebook. Link below.
    SOE and Resistance.
     
  7. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    If he volunteered in 1940 he probably joined the Auxiliary Patrol which was intended to form the basis of a British resistance should the Germans succeed in invading. It's cover story was that it was an arm of the Home Guard but it contained some very tough cookies many of whom then went on to join SOE and SAS. They had a training establishment at Eye manor in Hereforshire and this became an SOE establishment and post war was taken over by SAS
     
  8. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Andy was last on the forum in 2011
     
  9. Lindele

    Lindele formerly HA96

    Hi Andy,
    and welcome from the other side (former enemy)
    Stefan.
    NB: On our Scotland trip back in April 2018, we visited also visited Morar and also Arisaig House.
    I assume, James trained the Check officers which blew up Reinhard Heidrich in Prague.
    There is a monument of a Check officer up there.
    Stefan.
     

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