Fifth Columnists and Sabotage in 1940 France from Various Sources

For some time I have often wonder how accurate accounts are regarding fifth columnist activities in Holland, Belgium and France. I know there is always room for poetic licence in peoples accounts and recollections but was there really German Paratroopers dressed as Nuns and the like?

Well this excellent extract doesn't mention Nuns but it does show, even towards the end of May in Boulogne they were still very active and causing numerous problems:

The snipers from rooves, blocks of flats, churches, office buildings, and men acting as observers for German artillery were innumerable - not counting the actual spies dressed as priests etc ... One man was found with a collapsable Machine-Gun ... The gun was protruding from the man's coat, and he stood at an attic window. This man was pursued. He was captured, but tried to escape whilst being conducted back to Brigade Headquarters, and was bayoneted. Three men were discovered approaching Destroyer with time bombs. They were attacked ... trussed up, and thrown overboard into the sea. There was even a man in the uniform of a Belgian Colonel trying to get information for the German Force. He was granted a firing party of 5 men, which seemed a definate waste of ammunition. No-one could deny that some of these 5th Columnists were brave. When one man saw that he was to be shot - he had refused a bandage for his eyes - he said quite distictly in English: 'I die once for myself and twice for my Furhrer.'

Taken from 20 Brigades Boulogne War Diary published in Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore.

 

Andy

I've mentioned this on here before I think.

My Mum was 19 at the time when the Netherlands was attacked and I thought she worked on the aerodrome at Ypenburg (close to Delft). However, my Sister said it was in a house close to and which overlooked that place. Anyhow, she worked with a German woman, who obviously knew that an attack was going to take place as she regularly told the household that the Dutch would have to watch out when her fellow countrymen came calling.

My Mum reported the woman to the Dutch police and she was carted off screaming that there would be retribution for being arrested. She was probably feeding information back to the Germans. Luckily, nothing happened and the woman was never heard from again.

Here is a link to what actually happened at Ypenburg. I know my Mum said how terrified they were.

Ypenburg [War over Holland - May 1940: the Dutch struggle]

My Mum did move south to work in Breda as a precaution.

Rob

 

This Fifth Column aspect is something that comes up again and again in BEF reports from 1939/40 and it is clear that it was anticipated. The puzzle is that there are not that many reports of similar occurrences after the fall of France. In fact, the allies were rather better at infiltrating under cover.

Part of the problem may have stemmed from the location of the BEF in the northern French coalfields. It is clear that the communist sympathies there led to espionage and of course after the joint Soviet / German invasion of Poland, they were viewed as supporters of the common enemy.

Sabbotage was expected everywhere and anyone remotely suspicious was dealt with severely.

Did the Germans have disguised troops who worked their way behind the BEF or had they supplied arms pre-war to a civilian population ready to fight for the invader ?

I'd be inclined to suspect that many of the incidents were simply caused by confusion and inexperience with three armies fighting alongside each other.

 

I still feel fully justified in what I did in the circumstances I'm about to describe.

I was in the battalion orderly room, which was a pillbox, and two of my lads appeared with a large civilian between them. he was a most revolting-looking individual. He stood over six feet tall, must have weighed over 20 stone, and was wearing a dark blue suit. His face was large, fat and podgy, with close-set piggy eyes, and a small slit of a mouth.

'Who the hell is this, and where did you find him?' I asked.

'He was in a cottage overlooking our reserve trenches, sitting in a window with a Martini.22 rifle, and a box of ammunition beside him. We have been getting lads in the reserve trenches shot in the head with a small-calibre rifle, and the window faced that way. There was some empty shells on the table, and the barrel of the rifle was still warm. It had obviously been fired.'

'Why didn't you bring the rifle and ammo along as evidence?'

'Never thought of it, Corporal!'

We questioned the man, who stood and leered at us. We could not get him to say anything. We had already had trouble from Belgian fifth columnists, and it was possible that he was one of them. Remembering some of the atrocities they had committed, I was thinking, 'I'll soon wipe that grin off your face, you bastard!' The adjutant had followed all the conversations, and tried again. Nothing. Turning to me, he just said, 'Get rid of him!'

We marched off down a country lane. I turned to the two escorts and said, 'Well, which one of you two buggers wants to shoot this bastard? You?

'No not me Corporal.'

'Well, you?'

'No, not me, Corp.'

'You do realisehe must have shot some of your friends? Always the bloody same. Leave all the really dirty work to the NCO's.'

It was hard to say whether this Belgian understood what was being said. He was poker faced the whole time. But at this point, some German bombers flew over, and he jerked his thumb up in their direction, and uttered the only word we got out of him. He said, 'Bosche!' and gave me a kind of insane giggle. It was the last laugh of his life.

'Pay attention! You will march ahead of the prisoner. I shall give the order "Prisoner and Escort, Halt!" He understands nothing, or so it would seem. He will not halt, and I shall shoot him. Understand?'

'Yes Corporal.'

And so it was. A single shot through the heart, and another through the side of the head for the coup de grace. I sent my lads off on their respective duties, and reported back to the adjutant.

'Prisoner tried to escape, Sir, I had to shoot him.'

'Did you bury the body?'

'No, Sir, it rolled into the ditch at the side of the road.'

'Well, make sure your men buring it properly.'

'Yes, Sir.'

But there was no time for such niceties. Almost at once, we were moving out, retreating still further. I really disliked what I did, but felt justice had to be done.


Forgotten Voices taken from the Sound Archives at IWM.

 

I know there is always room for poetic licence in peoples accounts and recollections but was there really German Paratroopers dressed as Nuns and the like?

The Nicholas Harman-recorded anecdote in his "Dunkirk" seems verifiable enough - two RA gunnerss hot a pair of "nuns" shaving behind a haystack during their battery's withdrawal toward Dunkirk.

 

Ah yes, Mr Harman. Not read his book yet, I paid £1.00 for a hard back copy in rather good condition which says a lot already in my opinion regarding the quality inside but after the DLI thread I will attempt to read it with an open mind if I ever get around to reading it.

 

Not read his book yet, I paid £1.00 for a hard back copy in rather good condition which says a lot already in my opinion regarding the quality inside


....or the availability? I've ended up with three different paperback editions!

 

There were German infiltrators - in British uniforms - who were well briefed and knew the regiments in the area. They'd come along and say they belonged to a regiment on the right or left flank of where you were. For some reason they were usually Majors. I suppose the idea was that a Major had sufficient authority to transmit orders. They would tell us to take up new positions, five or ten miles away from where we happened to be at the time. They claimed that they were going to move a short while after we did. This was an obvious ploy to create a gap. When they were challenged to produce their papers, they couldn't. I took one back to the unit he claimed he belonged to, and as the Colonel didn't know him, that was the end of that one. I shot him.


Forgotten Voices taken from the Sound Archives at IWM.

 

I have reviewed it to the best of my abilities in the Book Review section:
Paraphrasing from his preface:
"...as a Field Security Officer with a Regular Division...my job was to thwart enemy attempts at espionage, sabotage and propaganda...if this record...gives a false impression of a muddle it must be remembered that every suspicious character in the area-refugee, crook, lunatic, enemy agent-turned up sooner or later in my office."

Although Bartlett is quick to point out that his is an entirely personal view, his memoir highlights the confusion in rear (and not so rear) areas. Precious wonder facts regarding 5th Columnists are hard to come by.

Hope this helps! One for the Christmas list...

 

On several airfields, planes had been set on fire, always in the same place, round about the tail, by small delayed-action incendiary bombs placed there by parachutists or by fifth column swine.
...every night blue, green and red lights appear everywhere. A regiment cannot remain two hours on the spot...Spying in Belgium and in the North of France is terrifyingly rampant...
Several execuions are carried out.
On a minesweeper leaving Dunkirk:
A sub-lieutenant tells us that at Calais they were warned long before 10th May to be very suspicious of Belgian trawlers seen moving up and down those waters, as they were suspected of laying mines and sweeping up those laid by the French...

The order was given throughout Belgium to remove the glazed advertisement panels of a certain brand of chicory, Pacha Chicory, behind which, thanks to a special chemical reagent, information useful to the enemy was revealed...
(from 'Diary of a French Officer' by D.Barlone)

 

After the war,the Pacha Chicory won a lawsuit against the Belgian state,which had to pay a huge compensation :the whole story was an invention

 

The anecdotes recorded in memoirs and war diaries aside - It's worth taking a look at Peter Fleming's Operation Sealion. He spends considerable time discussing this - for of course it was of pressing interest AT HOME once we we an island nation again and awaiting hostile action He concludes that the vast majority of the whole scare was hopeless - even the original "Fifth Column" within Madrid speech in the Spanish Civil War....ONLY led to the arrest and butchering of a large number of pro-Nationalist but otherwise peaceful Madrid citizens by the Republicans!

But he does make frequent reference to Louis de Jong's "Fifth Column" that seems to be a useful postwar study of the issue - but I've never come across a copy.

 

From 12 Lancers War Diary, entry dated 16th May 1940.

During the afternoon two saboteurs were caught with rifles, handed over to the local Police and shot.

 

From 12 Lancers War Diary, entry dated 23rd May 1940.

Whislt RHQ was established at Hulluch one or two rifle shots were fired by a fifth columnist at the HQ. He was captured by RSM Fox and handed over to the local Gendarme who saw to his execution.

 

Operation Dynamo, 26 May-4 June1940 Edited by W.J.R. Gardner

On the 1st June there came to notice, for the first time during Operation Dynamo, fifth column activities of the type of which Germans made such effective use during the war.

At 2150 on the 1st the Minesweeper Niger, en route to Dunkirk with the Sutton in company, met a number of power boats and small boats returning empty, and orders were sent out from Dover to the Destroyers of Force K and Minesweepers, to keep a look out and turn such boats back to their duty. Apparently it was at first believed at Dover that small boats were daunted by the severe conditions and enormous wastage on the French and Belgian coasts; but a report came in from the S.N.T.O. Ramsgate during the evening thata fifth column Skoot was going about the beaches at Dunkirk giving false information and orders to return. The first example to come to notice was at 1300 on the 1st when the Skoot Oranje, off Dunkirk Channel, was informed by another Skoot that evacuation from the beaches was complete, that there were already sufficient ships in Dunkirk Harbour, and that the Oranje's boats were not required. The Oranje remained where she was, however, in case the four boats she had towed over were needed, and until all ships in her neighbourhood turned for homeabout 1515, subsequent to air attack.

Although on the night of 1st-2nd Junethe services of a number of small craft were lost to the coast, there actually were a sufficient number off the beaches to cope with the troops available.

 

Assignment to Catastrophe, Vol.2 The Fall of France - Maj. Gen Spears.

It was clear from the information received from many sources that the germans had evolved a brilliantly organised system of deception, who's instruments were believed to be specially-trained and highly-paid Swiss and Belgians who could pass as Frenchmen. The French Intelligence said there were two schools for these agents. One was near Berlin. They were directed by men familiar with the intentions of the German Command and who certainly knew how to further them. Perhaps the most effective action consisted in intelligent use of the telephone for sabotage purposes. For example, a Prefect or other high official in th eprovincial administration would be called by an individual (there was seldom, in the general confusion, any means of checking the authenticity of the speaker) and ordered him to destroy all the petrol in his region, only to find that as a result the Allies were deprived of supplies they had been relying upon; or the contrary might be the case and the official was ordered to accumulate supplies at a point where the Germans found it convenient to collect them.

The most common as well as the easiest way to cause confusion and embarrass the Allied Armies was to send telephone messages ordering the civil authorities to evacuate the civil population. As this corresponded with its instinct to fly, such orders were obeyed with alacrity, and the roads were soon covered by helpless masses of people choking communications, devouring supplies and paralysing military transport. It was but an aditional artist's touch from Hell's Academy, a splash of colour mixed on the Nazi's fiendish palette, to machine-gun these columns of helpless, terrified human beings

 

two small articles in Life magazine regarding 5th Column

From May 1940 edition about Norway

and also in June 1940 edition about Mexico

 

Taken from WO167/190 1 Div GS War Diary.

 

The Germans had various special forces units Bau Lehr Kompanie zBv 800 was operational in the Low Countries and France in 1939-1940 - it grew from a Company sized unit to a full Division - The Brandenburg Division, by 1943- many of its members were drawn from German emigre communities from around the world. The Brandenburgers worked in either full German uniform, half camoulflage (using enemy helmets and greatcoats) or full camouflage wearing a complete enemy uniform - a favorite ruse was to employ a few people in - say British uniform armed with British weapons escorting a group of German 'prisoners' who would have concealed small arms and grenades and when reaching the appropriate target ie a Bridge or enemy HQ take it over.

 

From the same diary. It appears that what they learned from the Poles was ignored.