John Houseman's Diary - Mission EUCALYPTUS (part 1 of 7)

I am writing this diary sometime after our arrival in France, after, in fact, our escape to Switzerland. I have not had, until now, the opportunity, nor the inclination, to sit and write an account of our experiences, as life, since the battle began, has been almost entirely nomadic. Now, however, in the tranquillity of a country at peace, with hours to spare and little to do in our Quarantine camp, I will go back to the beginning of our Mission with the aid of Desmond Longe's day-to-day notes of our movements.

The names of some participants have been removed for security reasons

John Houseman
August, 1944

14th June:

We arrived in Algiers after a journey by air from England which went without incident, in an enormous York aircraft - the whole journey taking a little less than twelve hours.

We spent the following two or three days at Camp A, completing our equipment and making final arrangements. Up-to-date briefing was given up - though, generally, we were far from impressed by the officers who were expected to assist us with our personal and operational equipment.

17th June:

Transferred to Camp F, which was a filthy establishment on the shore. A holding camp, where administration was unknown. The only aspect in which success was attained was in increasing our anxiety to leave for the operation.

20th June:

The operation was scheduled for the evening and by 5pm we were ready, packed, bandaged and in the car for the aerodrome.

We took off after final parachute adjustments and flew out over the Mediterranean. After an hour's flying, peculiar noises came from one of the port engines, and we all realised something was wrong. Conversations and orders were going through the 'intercom' and soon we felt the plane turning. "We are going back" the dispatchers told us, "we can't cross the Alps with bodies on board on only three engines". The pilot jettisoned the containers over the sea, as we were losing height, and decided to release the packages over land if it were not necessary to do so before. This he did, and landed well about midnight. This saw us back at Camp F - the weather became bad and we were stuck for a further week.

26th June:

The operation was on, though misgivings were expressed as to the likelihood of it being successful. We took off as before - this time with a Canadian crew who were charming to us. The pilot allowed us to go up to the cockpit and I saw Minorca and various small Mediterranean islands pass beneath us. Darkness fell when we were about half way across the sea. An hour or so before we were due to reach the reception the dispatcher re-fitted us into our harnesses and we settled down, chewing gum strenuously and smoking an occasional cigarette, to wait for the moment to come. Many thoughts go through one's mind on occasions like these, but I concentrated on keeping mine as blank as possible. Everybody kept looking at their watches - we were due over the reception about one o'clock.

It was difficult to sense the progress from the feel of the aircraft (a Halifax takes a four mile radius to turn) - so the first indication we had was from the dispatcher when he said "the reception's there". That meant the lights had been sighted from the cockpit. We circled once or possibly twice, and went in for our first run. The containers went first, in order to allow a reduced speed for the run when we were to jump (I believe the pilot got the plane down to 115 to 120 m.p.h.). We circled again, and the hatch was opened. The red light came and the dispatcher called "Action Stations". Desmond swung his legs down the hole, and the atmosphere became tense as may be imagined. I was No.2, Parry No.3 behind me (all jumping 'backwards') and Croix No.4 jumping forwards from the far side of the hole.

We all had wished each other a rather sickly 'good luck' and 'bon chance' accompanied by an even more sickly forced smile as we did so.

The time between the red light's first appearance and the green one is, I believe, about five seconds, provided all goes smoothly, but those five seconds can become minutes and hours.

The red light turned green - the signal to jump - and Desmond disappeared beneath. I can't remember my reactions for the next two or three seconds, but I had evidently done the same thing, for the next conscious sensation I had was being tossed about in the slip stream from the propellers like a cork on a rough sea. I couldn't see Desmond - he was by now perhaps a hundred yards away.

It was a still moonlit night, so light that one could see the mountains surrounding the reception ground many miles away. My parachute gave me that welcome tension through the hardness - and I knew I had twenty five to thirty seconds to wait before hitting the ground.

Looking down I saw at once these tiny lights. From this height (by now perhaps six hundred feet, having jumped at eight hundred) they appeared no more than glow worms in the vast black expanse beneath. The signal light was flashing - a simple torch light at the 'down wind' end of the row of three - this gave me the direction in which I should be drifting. I turned my 'chute accordingly.

Thinking everything was complete, that I was facing the right way and having adjusted myself in my harness, I surveyed the land below and listened. Suddenly, (and most unexpectedly) I heard a whistling, rushing sound comparatively near me which I couldn't understand. I looked up, and to my amazement, saw my No.3, his parachute fully opened, travelling at a considerable speed at right angles to my own direction. He passed over my chute, missing it by perhaps a few feet. He sped on into the darkness. It is hard to realise when you are suspended in mid-air and when you have no sensation of height that all the time you are falling rapidly something like sixteen feet a second - but when I looked down again I saw the lights had grown much larger, and realised I was fast approaching the ground. I saw, too, that I was not, in fact, drifting in the direction I had expected - and this meant a last minute manoeuvre in my parachute.

I could see the ground quite well by now, and, as always happens, suddenly it came up to me. It was too late now to make any adjustments in my position as regards my direction of drift, even had this been necessary; my only thought was to keep my legs together and to try to judge the moment of impact.

This I did reasonably accurately - the ground came up and I heaved on my suspension straps, there was a thud (both felt and heard) and I rolled in the long wet grass which was France.

I lay for a moment - principally, I think, to appreciate my thankfulness and relief at being on solid ground again, before releasing my harness and collecting up my parachute.
Almost before I was on my feet, I saw two figures running towards me - then I saw that they were armed. I stood up and muttered something ( I can't remember what) and they came up to me. With sub machine guns under their arms they gave me a quick inspection, and then helped me to collect my parachute. The first two members of the Men of the Maquis I had met.

I followed them through the long grass across the field in which we had landed, making a little conversation in my very broken French, without bothering to think where we were actually going. I saw nothing of the others, and could no longer hear the plane which by now was far away over the mountains turning for its third and last run.

We had not been walking more than a couple of minutes before I saw the lights of a house ahead. We approached and I soon heard the sound of excited voices. I met Desmond as I entered - feeling somewhat shaken having landed on his head and (as it appeared later) landed pretty heavily. Parry tuned up next, also under escort, having landed on a track and grazed himself a little. Croix was quite unscathed.

Ten minutes before we arrived a party of fifteen Americans has dropped. The timing had evidently been excellent, as they were in the farmhouse and sorting out their belongings when we went in. It was a small farmhouse, and this unexpected appearance of some twenty parachutists had stimulated the inhabitants and the 'reception committee' into a high degree of excitement. We all sat down and fumbled for cigarettes which we handed round, relating our impressions and asking all the usual questions.

It was a wonderful feeling to be sitting round a table, with a mob of friendly though curious faces examining us, and asking a thousand questions. Coffee and brown bread and rich butter were offered us, which we drank and ate, and I remember how astonished I was to see electric light.

It was now about 2 am. The aircraft had made its third and last run over the lights to drop our packages, and had turned again for Algiers. Before leaving, the farmer insisted on us drinking a glass of his special liquor.

This was occupied France.

The doctor had been sent for to attend to Parry's minor injuries, and soon he appeared with his smart little nurse-attendant, wearing a white nurse's apron and the red cross emblems. As soon as Parry had been bandaged our own transport arrived, and we were ushered into a smart private car, the Americans into a special bus.

To be met by transport in France, to be conducted to the nearest village for the night where we were to sleep in a bed all seemed too fantastic to me to be true - I wondered if I was dreaming. Ironically, (and in true French style) the driver of our car, somewhat over-excited, ditched it on the way, and we had to walk after all!

By three o'clock we reached the village of Vassieux (afterwards to suffer it's fate), and rushed accommodation was found for us. Wine appeared and we were again made a fuss of, before going upstairs for some badly needed sleep.

27th June:

Not a very successful night from the point of view of sleep though the bed was bliss. We woke fairly early and went down to the cafe for breakfast. Quite a crowd was there, including Col. H dressed partly in uniform, partly in civilian clothes. After we had had coffee we were asked to attend the hoisting of the flag, which we did. A short ceremony carried out in strict military procedure - all very astonishing to a new arrival.

On my way back the people of the village had turned out to welcome us. We were shaken by the hand a score of times. The children kissed us, and the infants were held up also to be kissed. Bouquets were pressed into our arms - the whole unrehearsed greeting was very touching. They behaved as though our very arrival had liberated them from the burdens and fears of occupation.

Next - we drove to St. Martin, I with Cmdt. Thisolet, to the P C where we were received by Cmdt H and the HQ Staff. A conference followed together with a rapid explanation of the Vercors defences and their effectiveness by Cmdt H.

It was decided, among other things, that I should make an immediate tour of the northern defences with Capt. D, Desmond should remain at the P C with the HQ Staff, and Parry should occupy a farm house for his radio communications. I left after lunch, with Capt. D for the northern boundaries. I stayed the night with him.

28th June:

I toured all day, and had lunch with Cmdt. P at the cafe in Rencurel. I returned to the P C in the evening.

29th June:

Cmdt. L arrived from the Drome Region to ask if some of us could go into that region to see the people. Apparently, news of our arrival in the Vercors had spread quickly, and, as their moral in that district had fallen as a result of German raids, reprisals etc, it was felt that we might help a little by going there. It was arranged that Capt. Vernon Hoppers, O C American Commando Group, his corporal and myself to make a three day tour. I think these three days proved to be perhaps the most fantastic experience I had in the Vercors itself.

30th June:

We left by car after breakfast, with a bodyguard in our own car, and an escort car behind. The latter bristled with light machine guns beside the personal arms which every man, military and civilian, always carried.

We arrived for lunch at Cmdt L's HQ which was a very different establishment to that of the Vercors. An old disused farmhouse, with one general purpose room and one other in which the entire staff slept. The 'staff', so called, were themselves a contrast to the comparatively smart military personnel of the Vercors, for they consisted of young and middle aged men, tough and rough, looking from months of hard living, dressed, some in what remained of their wartime uniform, others in any civilian clothes they had managed to scrounge. The large barn concealed a fair supply of arms, ammunition and explosives, together with one or two stolen cars. That was all there was of this little head quarters, secreting high up in the woods of no-man's-land. After lunch we left for Forclause.

This was the HQ of Cmdt. B, a sub-regional commander under Cmdt. L. Again, a farm house in a rather worse state than the last, and lacking the privacy of a communal bedroom which was replaced by a stack of hay in the barn.

Cmdt. B was, I think, the typical character for a novel about the Maquis. A medium sized man in the early forties, with cold starring brown eyes. Several times I noticed his face assume a rigid ruthless expression, and I found no difficulty in imagining the fate of the luckless German who fell into his hands. To us he was always charming, and most hospitable.

We dined that night in the communal kitchen attended by a multitude of flies and the occasional chicken or duck that wandered in to look for scraps. A wonderful meal appeared, I remember thinking how excellent the meal was, though it remained an unsolved mystery to me all the time I was in France, how and whence these wonderful meals happened. But they did with unfailing regularity.

Hoppers and I had the guest room that night - a double bed in the apple loft which boasted some well beaten down hay or straw as a mattress, a tarpaulin and an army blanket. Most of the others slept, as far as I know, in the hayrick.

31st June:

Cmdt B asked us to be on our feet by 7.30 am as the Germans usually made their raids about that time - we washed in the stable, in the cow's trough and assembled for a twenty mile trek over the mountains to a more distant sub HQ on the farther boundary.

We arrived in time for lunch, rather tired and very wet, looking anything but an example of allied officers from the High Command.

The Company was formed up, presented arms then stood for inspection. Unfortunately the Maquis camera-man was also on parade with his cine-camera, though I imagine, owing to subsequent events, his films were lost - I hope so, for we were photographed from every angle.

An enormous six or seven course lunch followed in the main room of this more modern head quarters, together with wines and liquors. I gave Cmdt B and the Captain (I forget his name) an English penny each as souvenirs. We returned over the mountains by a different route inspecting outposts as we went.

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