Churchill's White Rabbit (3 page)

What Forest did in that intervening year is rather hazy. On the M19 questionnaire that he filled in when being assessed to be an SOE agent, he stated that he was in the US Army from 1917–22 and during that time visited Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, the Balkans, Turkey and the USA. After the First World War it is thought that he joined an American Legion set up to assist the Polish in their fight against the Russians.
¹

Whether that is the case or not, Forest did end up at the battle for the city of Zhitomir and was captured by the Russians. As a foreign national he was automatically sentenced to death, but made his first impressive escape by strangling his guard and fleeing through the Balkans and into Turkey. He finally arrived in the USA to spend two more years in the army before leaving, as he stated on the M19 form, ‘to go into business’.

There is no doubt that this was a fabrication on Forest’s part and whatever his real reasons for leaving the army were, he kept them close to his chest. In reality, Forest returned to a France crippled by war, where many ex-servicemen found themselves unemployed and in desperate circumstances. Forest was no different: his parents had separated and John was involved with his former secretary (there was never a greater cliché) and was struggling to make ends meet. Some of his business investments had been tied up with Russia and after the Bolshevik revolution these had simply disappeared. There was little he could offer his son, and Forest drifted, at one point ending up selling bootlaces and matches in London. For the history graduate and war veteran it was demeaning.

Forest’s fortunes seemed to turn when his father managed to get him an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in 1922, but the economic climate saw even the mighty car manufacturer struggle, and Forest was let go.

Forest made another complete change of direction and went into accountancy. This seemed to suit him and for a time he was successful in the banking industry, serving as a senior cashier before moving on to be a business manager.

He needed the money his new job brought because in about 1924–25 he met Lillian Margaret Walker, a British/Danish national raised in France. He fell madly in love with her and they were married on 12 September 1925, and it wasn’t long before Forest’s first daughter, Evelyn Daisy Erica, was born in 1927. In 1930, a year after his parents had divorced and John Yeo-Thomas had finally married his secretary, a second daughter, Lillian May Alice, was born. In later records Forest’s daughters and wife would fade from memory and were virtually eradicated from military record, but in those hazy post-war days Forest seemed to have found some form of contentment.

Then, rather remarkably, he changed direction yet again. Giving up his banking career, he moved first to become an assistant general manager at Compagnie Industrielle des Pètroles, then made an even more radical change by joining the fashion house of British-born designer Edward Molyneux. It can only be imagined what pressures caused the change. France’s cracking political façade and the exhausted economy probably made a move into a thriving business seem sensible, but it is still interesting to wonder what Forest, a man who could strangle a Russian guard and partially build a Rolls-Royce, could have had to offer a fashion designer.

Molyneux must have liked his new general manager however, as Forest remained with the company until the outbreak of the next war. In the meantime he kept up his interests in sports by boxing, competing as a flyweight or bantamweight, and writing for the British magazine
Boxing
under the anglicised name Eddie Thomas. He was successful enough to hold a part share in a gymnasium and for the time being Forest looked set to follow a contented and successful career in the fashion world.

But all was not so rosy in the world of Yeo-Thomas. France was in turmoil as successive ineffectual governments crippled its economy, and Europe’s desperate fear of another war was leading to political appeasement towards the belligerent Germany, which was turning into a frightening power under the auspices of a hitherto unknown leader called Adolf Hitler.

While his business life was stable, Forest’s marriage was disintegrating. In a strange echo of his parents’ disastrous union, Forest and Lillian found themselves increasingly incompatible, and this little domestic war resulted in separation in 1936. Forest moved back to his father’s house, now run by his new stepmother.

Forest regularly met with Lillian to arrange money for his daughters. Divorce seemed the inevitable course for them, but even on this they could not agree. Forest was fearful he would be cast in the role of scapegoat and would lose access to his two young daughters, so when Lillian pushed for it he held back. Ironically when their roles were reversed and Forest sought divorce, Lillian was the one to oppose it, and as war loomed in 1939 they were still at an impasse. To add to his burdens, on 17 July 1939 Daisy passed away and Forest had to deal with arranging her funeral. His only consolation was that his mother would not see France crumble into war again.

The relative happiness Forest had experienced in the 1920s and early ’30s was now truly vanishing. The invasion of Poland thrust France and Britain back into conflict with Germany yet again, and for the fiery-natured Forest sitting on the sidelines was not an option. As war was declared he was preparing to sign up with whoever would take him but, just like in the First World War, it wasn’t so simple to find a unit that wanted him.

Note

1
. Report by B Group to RF, dated 27 February 1945, the National Archives.

– 3 –

A Heart for Conflict

WAR BROKE OUT IN a Europe optimistically unprepared for conflict. Being forced to face reality also meant being forced to take stock of what they had and what they didn’t. One major service that had been neglected after the war was the intelligence division, but that was just the tip of a very large iceberg. Faith in appeasement had left Britain in a state of unreadiness and now it was necessary to pool what resources the country had and recall men who had experience from the previous conflict.

In France the situation was similar: disbelief at the dramatic turn of events seemed to be staying military hands, much to the frustration of Forest, who expected to be snapped up as a keen First World War veteran and volunteer. His aim was to join the British Army, but his first attempts via the British Embassy in the rue du Faubourg St Honoré ended in failure as no volunteers were being accepted. Annoyed, but not thwarted, he tried the French Foreign Legion, but they would not take on a British citizen, even if he did consider himself French.

It seemed that no one wanted Forest’s help, but he was not discouraged and returned to the British Embassy and made himself a nuisance to the air attaché until he finally accepted him as a volunteer driver under the condition that he supply his own car and petrol. Forest hovered uncomfortably between civilian and military status; he was neither one nor the other and his frustration was boiling over yet again.

All this would change on 26 September when he was finally accepted into the RAF as Aircraftman 2nd Class 504896, but his excitement quickly returned to disappointment when he was bluntly told that he would be serving as an interpreter as he was too old to fly. The irony that in a few short years he would be parachuting into rural France would probably not have impressed the RAF recruiting board. Forest, who had kept up his boxing and regularly sparred four to eight rounds with younger men, was angered by the implication, but the truth was that no one was particularly desperate for men as the war looked likely to be over before it had begun.

Perhaps the biggest problem was the desire not to fight that many felt and which acted as a psychological barrier to aggressive action. Britain and France, barely recovered from the First World War, did not want to enter into another conflict and there was a distinct impression of heels being dragged even as British forces crossed to France to support the defensive Maginot Line. Allied instinct felt that a quick, forceful assault, coupled with a blockade of German shipping, would result in sending the old Huns running back to where they came from. Unfortunately these weren’t the old Huns anymore, and strategies that might have worked a generation ago were now woefully out-dated. A hint might have come from the Germans’ easy defeat of Poland, but those in charge chose to be dangerously optimistic and the war effort crawled along rather than speeding to meet the threat. This period would become known as the Phoney War, the opening rounds when Britain and France both failed to realise the German might they faced and the risks ahead.

Forest was in the midst of this apathetic war. His role within the RAF seemed little better than when he was a volunteer driver and escorting VIPs and diplomats around and did nothing for his need to get into the action. But there was no real action. Even when Forest managed to get onto the Advanced Air Striking Force at Reims, which was supposed to be targeting Germany, he was disappointed to discover that they were not allowed to do anything unless the Germans hit first.

Forest had drifted into a hazy world of harmonious inactivity. The Reims authorities were as confused about the situation as their counterparts in Paris were, and the Phoney War had cast a fog over their bureaucratic preparations. Forest was posted to the interpreters’ pool, but when he arrived no one could tell him where he was supposed to go, so he found himself a hotel room and hoped to be able to locate his office in the morning. He was in luck, for the next day he bumped into an old friend, Sergeant Albertella, who was able to direct him to the Château Polignac where the interpreters were being housed. When he reached it he was in for a further surprise as he had been unexpectedly promoted to acting sergeant. This triumph was unfortunately tainted, as Forest was still acting as an ununiformed interpreter to senior staff officers. This made his position among the other officers untenable at times and Forest’s dislike for incompetent authority quickly became apparent. To one squadron leader who asked him to summon a pilot officer with the phrase ‘send that sod out there in’, he replied that he would be happy to oblige when the request was ‘properly expressed’, to which he got the response: ‘Of course, you’re not an officer and you can’t expect the same respect as I can.’ On another occasion, when this same man learned that Forest had been employed in the fashion industry, he announced: ‘My God, what is the RAF coming to!’
¹

Worse was that the air attaché’s original conditions that Forest pay all his own expenses still held true. Forest’s pockets were soon empty as he tried to keep up with his superiors. In an effort to recoup something, he collected receipts and sent them to the RAF for payment. Conveniently for the paymasters, they were lost in the invasion of France before they could be paid and they refused to listen to any further requests on the subject from Forest without seeing duplicate receipts. Even in war bureaucracy gives no quarter.

Forest was far from being alone in feeling that no one was really taking the war seriously, as this was the overriding feeling of many ordinary soldiers and airmen. It seemed that the authorities had blinkered themselves to the danger and were spinning out time until they had to do something decisive. Part of the problem was a need to hastily rearm, and both Britain and France had gone into a buying frenzy with the US to stock up on much-needed weapons and equipment. Meanwhile the RAF ran pointless sorties to Germany, dropping not bombs, but propaganda leaflets. Aside from a few odd skirmishes, the troops on the Maginot Line were enjoying a quiet stalemate. The real action was happening out at sea with the opening stages of the Battle of the Atlantic.

It was with nervous optimism that Forest joined the Forward Air Ammunition Park (FAAP) near Reims in the hope of carrying out duties more to his liking. He was at last given a uniform and it was with some relief that he realised he could be truly useful at the posting, using his bilingual abilities to create links between the military and the local population. Though he did not know it at the time, it would prove good practice for when he had to liaise between resistance groups and London.

Forest was perfect for the role, his natural charm and charisma as well as his confidence led people to instinctively trust and listen to him. He also slipped into the role of a leader easily and people automatically looked up to him. He might not have had the traditional good looks of a future secret agent – one author called him ‘terrier-like’ in appearance – but he radiated honesty and sincerity, which meant far more.

His time at FAAP was cut short when he was sent to attend an anti-gas course in England on 23 November. Forest had not been ‘home’ in seventeen years and, right at that moment with Germans on his doorstep, he was hardly in the mood for a sojourn abroad. He stepped into an England about to experience the harshest winter it had seen in forty-five years, with temperatures plummeting while Forest and four fellow NCOs sat through lectures at a camp on Salisbury Plain. At least the RAF lecturers impressed Forest, and there were some opportunities for fun and games. This included a car trip into Salisbury with a civilian employee on the camp. Forest and four of his companions agreed to the arrangement but were stunned when their charitable friend demanded 10
s
each for giving them a lift. Too keen to get out of the camp and into city life to argue, they paid up, though on their return Forest tried his hand at ‘wartime’ sabotage and put half a pound of sugar into the petrol tank of the man’s car. Salisbury had proved a pleasant break from the stalemate in France, but it was only to last a fortnight and Forest was soon back at FAAP.