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Secret Pigeon Service: Operation Columba, Resistance and the Struggle to Liberate Europe. Gordon Corera
Читать онлайн.Название Secret Pigeon Service: Operation Columba, Resistance and the Struggle to Liberate Europe
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008220327
Автор произведения Gordon Corera
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
There was audience feedback not just in terms of reception but also of editorial content. ‘My wife would like to kiss the well-known speakers, as they are so patriotic,’ one writer from Pas-de-Calais in France said enthusiastically. A pigeon message from Brittany said a wife was cheered up by hearing her husband speaking from London and they wanted him to know. Sometimes there was frustration married with the enthusiasm. The V for Victory campaign started by the BBC in its broadcasts to Belgium caught on like wildfire. It led to the daubing on walls of a flurry of signs in what seemed like every village, as well as on the chalkboard held up by the Debaillie family in their picture with the pigeon. Churchill himself joined the act with his trademark two-finger V for Victory sign. The campaign encouraged ordinary people to feel they could resist, even if only in a small way.
The downside was that it created an expectation amongst many that victory and a British return to Europe must be imminent. ‘You have announced your coming too long now. It would have been better to have done it and said nothing,’ one person wrote in frustration. But the BBC did not only support the war effort by broadcasting news and information. It had a direct operational role in the clandestine world of espionage.
The greatest prize for those brave enough to send a message via Columba was the possibility that for a brief few seconds they would become the stars of the BBC broadcast by receiving an acknowledgement on the messages personnels. When this was required, a British intelligence officer would ring up the BBC and identify himself with a codename – rather bizarrely, for Belgium this was Napoleon Bonaparte and for the Netherlands Bing Crosby. He would then ask for a specific phrase to be broadcast, such as ‘here is a message for Adolphe – the wine is warm’ – which was meaningless to everyone else but acted as a coded signal for a particular group. The messages could be used to signal an upcoming drop by parachute, to establish the bona fides of an agent by proving they were in contact with London or to signal that a person – or information – had arrived in London. It was the last function that Columba used – offering the chance for an acknowledgement that a pigeon had arrived to be broadcast using a code provided by the writer.
For all those listening, the messages were a sign that somewhere out there were people taking risks who were in touch with Britain. For Columba message writers there would have been a real but clandestine thrill in knowing that a code-phrase they had scrawled on rice paper and attached to a pigeon was suddenly being read out from London.
Leopold Vindictive’s message had asked for a response on the Dutch and Belgian BBC radio news as soon as possible. They did not have to wait long. The stunning intelligence haul had left the Columba team in London knowing they had something special on their hands. On 15 July – only three days after Michel had set the bird free – Marie and Margaret heard the answer to their prayer.
‘Leopold Vindictive 200, the key fits the lock and the bird is in the lion’s cage.’ The acknowledgement was sent that day on the Dutch, Belgian and French BBC news services – all three to make sure. Now, in Lichtervelde, the band of friends knew that the crazy plan had worked. The pigeon tended by Michel had successfully crossed the Channel with their treasure.
The relief, joy and excitement were overwhelming. But the family may also have understood there was a cost. Their codename had just been broadcast across northern Europe. Thousands in Belgium would have heard it, and among the listeners would be the German secret police, hunting for resisters. The chase to identify a new band of spies had begun.
There was, though, another sign that their pigeon had got through. Towards the end of the message, they had mentioned a German radio station at Ichtegem, near Wijnendale, which consisted of a camouflaged wooden shed and two aerials. This was bombed by the British, creating what was described as a magnificent fireworks display. Not only had the intelligence got through but it was making a difference. From being powerless, it must have almost seemed as if the RAF were at the Belgians’ beck and call, and that the Belgians were forward air controllers calling in air strikes to the targets they selected.
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