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
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.
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
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
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.