An Unorthodox War

By "MARJORIE" "DALEY"

In 1943, Honora Ellery-Smythe receives the telegram that signals the end of her life as a French literature teacher. Determined to make her husband's death in North Africa meaningful, Elly enlists in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and trains as a radiographer.

During her service, her abilities are recognized, and she is recruited into the Special Operations Executive, the covert agency that sent spies and resistance trainers into occupied territories.

An Unorthodox War weaves together real events and people as Elly masters her new trade and tries to survive the dangers, betrayals, and brutality that these remarkable women faced during their short and often fatal deployments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribl
• Release date: Apr 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887226552

"MARJORIE" "DALEY"

Marjorie Daley lives in Wyoming with her husband Bob, horse Penny, naughty dog Diesel and permanent foster dog, Tira, and assorted small pets. Her writing passion is Wyoming history, but she is happy to tackle almost any subject. She is the author of Fire Ground Naughty Dogs: Identifying, Diagnosing, Understanding, and Correcting Your Dog’s Unwanted Behaviors The Ultimate Guide to Wild Canines, Primitive Dogs, and Pariah Dogs: An Owner’s Guidebook for Wolfdogs, Coydogs, and Other Hereditarily Wild Dog Breeds The New Adults' Guide to Basic Finances

Book preview

In my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women, as you must know, have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men.

Selwyn Jepson

For all the women who fight an unorthodox war

Preface

The seeds of this book were planted many years ago when I read A Man Called Intrepid: The Incredible WWII Narrative of the Hero Whose Spy Network and Secret Diplomacy Changed the Course of History by William Stevenson. What stayed with me was his discussion of the young women who had served as radio operators in France. 

He briefly alluded to what happened to these women when (not if) they were captured by Nazi soldiers. A photograph of one woman accompanied the text. She was about my age at the time, twenty-four, and had been stripped naked. She obviously knew her life was over and that it was not going to be a peaceful, painless ending. I wondered if I could be as brave as she had been. That photo haunted me for years.

When my youngest child left for the US Marine Corps, I started watching old WWII movies to make myself feel better. I quickly grew really annoyed at how women were portrayed in the movies. Invariably, they were anti-war and afraid to do anything. And of course, they were there to be fluff. I knew the reality had been much different, and that photo played in my head. And then one evening, Elly walked into my life. She refused to let me rest until I had written down her story. And the rest of that story is this book.

Prologue: Vivienne

July 1944

Normandy, France

The schoolhouse had been shelled until only the vaguest outlines still stood. The windows were gaping holes that looked out over fields and down a road. Rainwater dripped through what little was left of the roof and off the damaged joists, making puddles and slick spots on the rotting floor below. The desks that had once sat in neat rows had been smashed for firewood by a succession of temporary residents. The children were gone, fled to some unknown future, as the war had washed back and forth across this part of occupied France.

Elly picked her way across the floor in the early dawn light, careful not to step onto the weakened edges of the boards. Her little band of maquisards had washed up in this temporary haven after the skies had let loose a terrific thunderstorm the night before.

She made her rounds, peering out into the rain-soaked fields and the trees beyond. It had been silent all night but that could change in an instant. Somewhere out there were some very angry Nazis who would like nothing better than to find them and exact revenge. The havoc Elly’s French resistance fighters wrought on a tank column that had made the mistake of outrunning their Panzergrenadiers had been glorious. Elly laughed softly to herself at the memory. She felt no pity for the tank infantry out in this storm. They were the enemy. This small haven of quiet would soon be left behind as her little team would divide up and drift back to their encampment outside Alençon.

<> Remi softly called, as he stepped from the lean-to, his dark hair damp and tousled from the rain. Elly looked up as the Frenchman used her code name. He was weighted down with a bazooka across his back and rocket carrier, now empty, slung over one shoulder. His Sten was held loosely in one hand. Remi was her most trusted lieutenant and bodyguard. Elly knew nothing about him, not even his real name. You could not reveal what you did not know. She looked back at him expectantly.

<> she responded in French, and he crossed the floor to join her.

<< Jorge and his men are moving out,>> Remi said quietly.

<Kublewagons?>>

<>

<>

As the local Special Executive Operation agent on the ground in occupied France, Elly’s job in this small part of France was to make Winston Churchill’s command to ‘set Europe ablaze’ come to life. Sir Winston wanted every German soldier to look over his shoulder, waiting for either SOE agents or the French resistance to kill him. It was a most satisfying command.

Elly’s assigned SOE mission was to train and arm the maquis groups in the Saint Circuit that operated around Alençon. Her private mission was to drive the Germans back to Germany. They had boiled out of their homeland twice in thirty years, causing world wars, and all Elly wanted was for the killing to stop.

<> Remi said, and Elly grinned. That would be a very gratifying target, but they had been denied permission for the time being. Hitting the tanks would probably result in some angry messages from SOE headquarters in London, but forgiveness was easier to get than permission.

Elly had realized months ago that there was nothing London could do to her in occupied France. There was literally nowhere worse she could be sent and no more frightening fate than what she faced every day.

<> Elly commanded. As Remi went to round up his brother, Elly slung her Tommy gun over her shoulder and rebraided her dark brown hair more neatly. It needed cutting again so that she looked like the photos in her fake papers.

The feldgendarms and the French secret police were unforgiving and although the photos were only seven months old, Elly felt as if she no longer resembled the shiny new agent who had sat for them in London.

As her hands worked, she noticed a torn and grimy book cover sticking out from under one of the larger pieces of desk. Curious, she tied off the braid, picked the book up, and turned it over. The title, Les Misérables, made her vent a small laugh. She held the book in her hands, feeling the roughened cover and the water-damaged pages below.

Most of the pages were gone, probably for use as toilet paper. Her fingers snagged on the cover, her skin weathered from months spent in the field, and her fingernails chopped short. She thought back to the woman she had been mere months before, teaching from this very book. Tidy and proper, dressed in skirts and blouses, her hair neatly rolled into the latest fashion.

Elly looked down at her mud-stained trousers and ugly boots, feeling the now-familiar weight of her Tommy gun on her shoulder, and sighed. She could barely remember the woman she had been the day she had been lecturing from this book. The day that her world had ended when the telegram arrived. The day she stepped out of comfort and privilege. The day she started on the journey that would land her in France as one of Churchill’s Dirty Angels with orders to fight a most unorthodox war.

I. We Regret to Inform You

November 1942

Nineteen months earlier

England

The classroom was silent, the girls gone, hustled out by the headmistress. Elly stood alone in the classroom, listening to the rain falling on the roof and the window. Just minutes earlier, her classroom had been alive with the sound of girls passionately discussing Les Misérables’ Eponine and her actions in the French uprising. Mrs. Holden, the headmistress, had bustled in, startling the class into silence. All eyes fell on the telegram clutched in her hand.

Elly felt time stop. In this, the fourth year of the war, all of them knew what that piece of paper meant. Elly lifted her eyes to Mrs. Holden’s. The older woman’s eyes were bright with tears. Elly’s hand dropped to the back of her chair, seeking support as her vision grew dark.

Girls, you are to report to the library. Miss Godwin is expecting you. Leave your books, Mrs. Holden spoke softly, and the girls had stood immediately, silently filing out the door, but their heads turned to look at their French literature teacher. When the heavy door closed behind the last girl, Mrs. Holden held out the telegram.

I’m… my condolences, Elly. He… Edmund will be missed. She handed the telegram to Elly and turned to walk out of the room. Elly looked down at the envelope.Her name was neatly typed across the front. Mrs. Honora Ellery-Smythe.

If she did not open the envelope, maybe what the envelope contained would vanish. Since Edmund had gone to war, Elly had dreamt of getting the telegram. Maybe she was still in a dream. But she could smell the comforting smells of her classroom, the lemon oil and chalk dust. Her dreams had never included smells before. The telegram was still there.

Elly took a deep breath and slid a genteelly pale pink and well-manicured fingernail under the envelope flap. It gave way. Elly turned it over, opening the flap and pulling out the single sheet of paper, the typed black words jumping out at her.

‘We regret to inform you your husband First Lieutenant Edmund Smythe killed in action 30 October 1942, Egypt.’ Elly crumpled the telegram in her hand and then frantically smoothed it out, the cheap paper threatening to tear.

She blindly stood up, still holding the telegram, and walked across her classroom to the window where she stood looking out over the school grounds at the rain drenched garden. Her head rested on the sash and one finger pressed on the pane, tracing the uneven contours of the glass. Elly lifted her hand from the window to wipe away a tear that escaped and trickled down her face. Her finger was cold and when she returned it to the pane, it left behind a smear.

‘We regret to inform you…’ Elly thought that those five words had stopped her heart, There had been so much death in the last four years She wanted to cry, to scream, to collapse, but her knees refused to fail and only one tear leaked through her reserve.

She could still see his face filled with patriotic duty as he told her that he had enlisted. Tall and spare, reddish-brown hair spiked by excited fingers and his thin face creased with a grin. The sparkle in his light brown eyes growing as he told her he had been assigned to a tank crew. He had asked her to marry him, out there in the bee-filled drowsy summer garden.

The war in 1939 was supposed to be over quickly. People referred to it as the fake war and dismissed the Nazis as blowhards and tin soldiers. People refused to believe that once again the world was at war. Edmund had thought of it as a game or a big adventure. He would go off to war and come back a hero with stories to tell and jokes that would make Elly blush. But then the British had been driven to the sea at Dunkirk and the war had become very real.

They had been good friends. Edmund had been the mathematics teacher at their school, a favorite of the girls despite the subject he taught. He was quick with a laugh and faster with jokes. The girls had matched Edmund over and over with the second school favorite, Lucy Alexander, the games mistress. But Elly had known that neither Edmund nor Lucy had room in their universes for the other. It would have been the clash of the titans.

Instead, it had been quiet and reserved Elly whom Edmund had chosen. He needed someone who could be content in his shadow, content to revolve around his brilliant sun. Elly had filled that role admirably. She had loved him quietly, properly, reservedly, just as she did everything. Now Elly felt as if she had been wrenched out of her proper orbit and was drifting aimlessly, the center of her world gone.

The wedding ceremony had been quick, just one of hundreds performed for servicemen readying themselves to leave for the front. They had barely a month together. Not even enough time to learn what sharp edges would rub together and become smooth and rounded like river rocks tumbled by life’s torrents. And now…

‘We regret to inform you…’ Edmund had loved his life in the Tank Corps. Loved his men. Even loved the big, noisy, clumsy beast he called Dolly. They joked that Dolly was the other woman.

But tanks only looked invincible, and Dolly had failed him. All of them. She was a wreck in the desert of North Africa and the men she had carried were dead. Maybe cremated inside her. Or maybe not.

Elly had seen the newsreel footage of El Alamein. The shifting winds of the African desert might bury them, mercifully covering Edmund and his crew before dogs could scavenge their bodies. The battle had been an Allied victory brought at a heavy price. For Elly, it was a devastating loss.

Elly could hear them on the other side of the door. Most of the remaining teachers were married and most of their husbands were serving. They all knew what the bicycle boy meant. Their nervous whispers made a grating susurrus.

From down the hall, she could hear Lucy, her games mistress voice as loud as ever, coming to join the group. Elly could imagine her bowling the other women out of her exuberant way. Edmund had said Lucy had one volume, that of sergeant-major on a drill field. Edmund. Elly choked back a sob.

The heavy classroom door cracked open and the careful tread of someone walking as softly as possible grew slightly louder as they neared the window. Elly wiped her eyes and turned around, reaching deep within her for the calm and reserve, the stiff upper lip that the British needed now more than ever as Germany bombed, raided, and fought on British soil and in distant countries.

Elly. Lucy held out her arms. Elly let herself be hugged, it gave her time before the other teachers and school staff would come in and invade this last bastion of gentility and quiet, this last place that was her center. Now it would be a reminder of Edmund and sorrow.

The teachers entered quietly, respectfully. They had known Edmund and taught with him. And all of them had lost someone in the last three years in bomb raids, on the Continent, or in the jungles of southeast Asia.

Elly suffered their presence patiently. She was already moving on, making grief-stricken plans that were probably not well considered. From now on, there was only one direction. She would do her duty: enlist and free up a man to fight in Edmund’s place.

As a twenty-four-year-old woman without children, her number in the women’s draft would quickly be called. She may as well have a choice in the decision.

II. Best Blues

January 1943

RAF Innsworth

3 January 1943

Dearest Father, I am writing to you from the train to Gloucester. I plan to send this to your flat where Mrs. Evans will keep it for you until your return. That way we can read these together and have a jolly laugh. If my handwriting is terrible, you can understand it is the train!

The scenery is lovely – the River Severn is glinting in the distance under the feeble winter sun. My companions are rather silly. I’m not certain when I became so old and stuffy but all this talk of uniforms and the last outing with a chap makes me feel a headmistress.

What am I doing on the way to Gloucester? I have joined the WAAFs and am traveling to basic training.

After Edmund died, I was on the call-up list – the government instituted that in December 1941 but since I was married, I was exempt. Now that I will be called up, I want to have a choice. The Auxiliary Territorial Service or ATS, which I believe was formed before you left, seems to involve a lot of driving. As you know, driving is not for me. The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry are actively in the nursing field… Let’s only say I am not cut out for nursing. The Women’s Reserve Navy only takes girls who are familiar with the ocean. That leaves the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

The WAAF appears to have an interesting choice of jobs. I heard a radio broadcast after the Battle of Britain that discussed the role of the WAAFs. The speaker who was in the RAF said that he faced the idea of women on his airbase with great trepidation. By the end of the battle, he’d changed his mind. He said, The Royal Air Force is proud of its WAAFs – each one of them does the work of one man and does it darn well.

At the beginning of the war, the RAF expected a ratio of three girls to replace one man. They call it WAAFizing. Except for certain jobs, such as barrage balloon crews on mobile sites, we girls replace men one to one in every field from waiter to cook, to radar operator, to aircraft mechanic, to intelligence services. Since I want to replace one man to go to fight in Edmund’s shoes, this is the branch for me.

And atop all that, don’t tell the girls in my compartment but I rather fancy the blue WAAF uniform over the FANY khakis. According to my silly future sisters-in-arms, FANY khakis are considered the most flattering.

The train is arriving at the station – I’ll write more later.

Elly folded her letter up and put it into her purse. Her father was stationed in Portugal, representing the British government in that neutral nation. She could send him mail, but anything she wrote would be censored leaving Britain or read going into Portugal. She had heard that Portugal was a hotbed of spies and every word had to be weighed carefully. By writing to her father in care of his housekeeper, she could be frank without worrying that she was unwittingly betraying a confidence.

The train rattled to a stop, steam gushing out in the cold air. Elly stepped off onto a misty platform and stood apart from the girls, watching curiously. She felt much older even though the girls were all roughly her age. They milled around in bewilderment and a few lit cigarettes.

Elly shouldered a large purse that contained her toiletries and a nightgown. Some of the girls had not paid attention to the recruiting station staff and carried suitcases that looked as if they were on holiday. Elly rolled her eyes as they giggled.

Beyond them, Elly caught sight of a stout woman dressed in her blue WAAF uniform, the three chevrons of a sergeant decorating both sleeves. The woman approached, looking as disgusted with the girls as Elly felt. As the sergeant neared, Elly reflected that while the WAAF uniform looked smart on trim girls, it was singularly unflattering on the heavier older woman.

She stopped on the edge of the platform and grimly surveyed her recruits. Her lips moved silently, and Elly thought she made out the words ‘God help us.’

Recruits, you will line up facing me. Shoulder to shoulder. Chop chop. No dilly-dallying. When the girls had achieved some semblance of order, she bellowed, Squaaaad, right face. No… your other right. Face away from the train. Good lord. Squaaaad, left face. No… face me. Squaaaad, left face. You’ve two weeks to learn to be smart. God help us all. Forward march and turn right before you fall off the platform.

The girls moved off, more or less in step, and descended the train platform, following the sergeant. The big bags made marching difficult, and several girls tripped out of line. Once outside the station, they were halted and then loaded into lorry after lorry until the rail yard was empty of recruits.

Elly clambered up into the back of her vehicle, her heels and skirt making the climb difficult. She tucked her hair more securely under the headscarf she had worn against the cold January weather and huddled more deeply into her coat. The lorries rattled off, Elly feeling rather like a cow taken to slaughter.

They passed through the gates of RAF Innsworth and rumbled to a halt. The sergeant vanished, turning over her charges to much younger female corporals who oversaw the unloading. The recruits were lined up into one very long line and marched to a low-slung building.

Elly tried to look around but found that staring while marching was not particularly easy. The girls were ushered into an undressing room in groups of twenty and told to strip down to their underclothing for the upcoming medical exam.

Elly undressed quietly, the other girls giggling uncomfortably. That was one benefit of a public-school education in an all-girl school. Nakedness in the dorms was part of life. The state school girls were far more reluctant. Elly folded her clothing carefully, fingering her wedding ring that she now wore on a chain around her neck.

They were herded into a large room and into lines in front of doctors and nurses. Elly looked around at the hundreds of women and the exhausted faces of the doctors, nurses, and female orderlies. An American pinup girl could parade through Medical without more than a cursory glance.

As each woman approached the doctor, she set down her clothing on a small table. The doctor asked a few questions and gave a cursory examination including a glance in the mouth. Then he muttered something to the nurse who scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to the girl who picked up her clothing and headed out through a door marked ‘Exit.’ The line inched forward. Elly trusted that they would be allowed to redress on the other side of the exit door.

No jewelry allowed, the doctor said tiredly. Elly touched her wedding ring.

It’s my wedding ring. My husband died in Egypt, Elly said. The man’s eyes met hers. Just for a moment, she thought she saw compassion in them before it faded to exhaustion.

Pass. The nurse handed her a slip of paper and Elly was finished with the medical examination. She went through the exit door, relieved to see a room filled with women who were pulling on their clothing. As they redressed, the women moved to a WAAF corporal who examined the paper and shunted off some women off to the right while the others, Elly included, were directed to the parade field.

As Elly took her place on the parade field, the women who had been separated were taken to lorries. Some were crying, others looked relieved. Elly guessed that those were the medical rejects. They’d be sent home to work in factories, as land girls, or in the NAAFI stores that served as base commissaries.

The recruits milled around, waiting for the stream of women from Medical to dry up. The last of the rejects were gone. Elly shivered in the cold. The sergeant called them to attention and the corporals scurried up and down the lines until the women looked somewhat military. At the sergeant’s command, Elly and the others raised their right hands to take their oath of service.

I, Honora Ellery-Smythe, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty George VI, His Heirs, and Successors and that I will, as in duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend His Majesty, His Heirs, and Successors, in Person, Crown, and Dignity against all enemies, and will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, and of the Generals and officers set over me, Elly spoke the words.

As a British citizen, her allegiance had been assumed. She had heard the oath before, but now saying the words out loud was a sobering experience. There was power behind them and this was an oath she would be held to for the rest of her life. It was the most patriotic feeling she had ever experienced and her service was now morally and legally binding.

As she thought about what she had just agreed to, the recruits were marched up to the kitting building. The women were handed military long underwear, socks, boots, anklets, trousers, a blouse, a tie, a jacket, a greatcoat, and a garrison cap.

Excuse me… airwoman. Aren’t we to have skirts? Elly asked as she was handed her kit, looking in dismay at the trousers.

Not issued until you get your best blues. Move on, now. Elly let herself be pushed away from the counter. She had never worn trousers before. It just was not proper. She was jostled out of the building where the recruits were divided into groups of fourteen and marched to their respective huts.

At some bases, the women were housed in local hotels, but RAF Innsworth preferred to keep the women close. Looking at the distance between the hut where she would sleep and the ablutions shed where she could bathe and use the toilet, Elly would have preferred to be in a nice hotel with an inside hallway to the loo.

Their corporal showed them how to make up their beds, called ‘pits,’ and left them to get dressed in their new uniforms. Elly pulled on the trousers, looking down at her legs. She felt immodest and uncomfortable. She supposed it made sense. Most of the jobs were physical and required the women to have freedom of movement without losing modesty.

Elly pulled on the low-heeled black shoes she had been issued, lacing them comfortably tight. Over the shoes were anklets, short pieces of leather with an insole strap that slid under the shoes. She buckled the anklets around her lower legs, creating the illusion that she was wearing boots. She looked down admiringly. They would keep her trouser legs clean and looked quite sharp.

The white long-sleeved blouse was unremarkable but with the tie in place, it looked dashing. Elly knotted her tie, remembering her mother straightening her father’s tie and kissing him before sending him out the door. Elly had taken on that duty when her mother had died. She had continued the tradition with Edmund. Her eyes stung with tears, and she sniffled quickly, biting her upper lip to stop tears from developing further.

Elly quite liked her jacket. It was short-waisted and set off a trim figure admirably. The final item, besides the greatcoat that hung in her locker, was the garrison cap, a triangular cap that sat jauntily on the side of the head. The best blues, or formal WAAF uniform, included a peaked cap that made it look as if she should be driving a bus. Elly much preferred the garrison cap. Her fingers traced the wings and crown of the WAAF service that rested above her left breast pocket. She was now part of something larger than she had ever imagined. She might only be a girl, but she was serving King and Country.

The corporal returned and lined the women up at attention in front of their pits. She checked each uniform, straightening some, and then herded them to the mess hall. Despite rationing, they had plenty to eat. Most of the women picked at their food, the reality of their new life setting in. As evening fell, many were realizing that this was not quite the adventure many had thought it would be and homesick sniffling ran rampant through the hut that night. Elly lay in her pit and thought about Edmund. He seemed very distant.

7 January 1943

Dearest Father, this is only the second letter I have managed to write since I enlisted! They keep us hopping and since it is Friday night and there is nothing