Eastern Approaches (56 page)

On the whole the staff talks, which we started next day, went smoothly. In addition to making a careful joint study of the existing strategical position in the areas with which we were concerned and of the way in which it was likely to develop, a good deal of time was devoted to reviewing the supply position. Tito, with an eye, I think, to the future, took this opportunity to ask for the immediate delivery of some tanks, to be landed at some point which the Partisans were temporarily holding on the coast of Montenegro, and it was only by taking him to see the colossal Eighth Army tank-maintenance workshops at Naples, employing some 12,000 workmen, that we
were able to persuade him that the maintenance of an armoured force would be rather beyond the Army of National Liberation under existing circumstances. On the other hand we were able to give a good report of the progress of the Partisan tank squadron which was then being trained in North Africa.

Our conversations had been in progress for several days when the Supreme Allied Commander sent for me and showed me a most secret telegram which he had just received. It was from Mr. Churchill, announcing his own arrival in Italy in a week’s time, and asking that Tito should, if possible, be induced to prolong his stay at Naples for a few days so that they might meet.

Things would have been much simpler if we could immediately have informed Tito of the contents of the message. But this, on security grounds, we were not allowed to do. We had to invent one pretext after another for spinning out the staff talks, though we had already exhausted almost every subject that we could usefully discuss and Tito was beginning to show signs of wanting to go home. There was, we hinted darkly, ‘someone else’ who wanted to see him. Time hung heavy on our hands.

I took Tito to see General Alexander at his camp beside the lake at Bolseno, where, for the first time, the question of Trieste was raised. I took him to Rome, the first big town he had been in for three years, where his new Marshal’s uniform and the tommy-guns of the bodyguard, stacked neatly on the steps of St. Peter’s, caused a mild sensation. I took him to see what was left of Anzio and Cassino. I took him to tea with Hermione Ranfurly at her ridiculous little house on the side of the hill overlooking the Bay of Naples. I took him, as the guest of General Bill Donovan, to Mrs. Harrison Williams’s villa at Capri.

It was there, as we were sitting under the trees in the garden eating lunch and admiring the incomparable view, that we became aware of a roaring in the sky. Looking up, we saw, high above us, the clumsy form of a York with a dozen fighters weaving and diving round it, like porpoises round a whale. Tito took it all in at a glance. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘comes Mr. Churchill.’ He was not an easy man to keep anything from.

The Naples Conference, as it was afterwards called, was, so far as it went, a success. The two main protagonists, Mr. Churchill and Tito, got on well enough with each other.

The Prime Minister was staying at a villa which had once been occupied by Queen Victoria, and there, surrounded by fusty enormities of Italian nineteenth-century taste, we sat closeted for hours in the sweltering heat of the Neapolitan summer, Mr. Churchill and I on one side of the table; Tito, Olga and Velebit on the other. When we knocked off, it was to take part in official and semi-official banquets, freely interspersed with speeches, all requiring translation.

The Prime Minister had no intention of allowing himself to be kept to any fixed programme and the range of questions we covered was wide. Jugoslav Resistance had long been a subject for which he had a special predilection. Now he was allowing himself the luxury of handling it personally, across the table with the guerrilla leader himself, specially brought there for the purpose.

He did it extremely well, with a touch that was generally light and friendly but sometimes heavy with the accumulated dignity and wisdom gained by forty years’ experience in the affairs of State. He was generous in his praise of Tito’s leadership and in his recognition of the Partisans’ contribution to the Allied cause; generous, too, in his estimate of the help they would need to achieve the liberation of their country and to rebuild it once the war was over. Over military matters he took Tito into his confidence, calling for maps and showing him, with appropriate gestures, how in his view the war would develop. Even now, from where we sat by the open windows, we could see the ships gathering in the Bay of Naples for the forthcoming invasion of southern France.

On the subject of our obligations to King Peter Mr. Churchill was quite frank: he made it clear that we could not accord the Partisan regime any kind of political recognition unless they came to some kind of arrangement with the King. Finally, while saying or doing nothing that might be interpreted as undue interference in the internal affairs of another country, he managed to include in his remarks certain counsels of moderation. One, I remember, concerned the collectivization of agriculture. ‘My friend Marshal Stalin,’ he began (and I could
see Tito sit up a little straighter at the mere mention of the name), ‘my friend Marshal Stalin told me the other day that his battle with the peasants had been a more perilous and formidable undertaking than the battle for Stalingrad. I hope that you, Marshal,’ he added, ‘will think twice before you join such a battle with your sturdy Serbian peasantry.’

I watched Tito to see how he was taking it all. He was, I think, impressed. It would indeed have been surprising if he had not been. For him it was a big moment. Here he was, the revolutionary, the outlaw, against whom every hand was turned, honourably received by the highest in the land and dealing on equal terms with one of the Big Three. But he had the strength of character not to allow any feeling of triumph or elation to show or to affect his conduct, which remained moderate and unobtrusive.

Was he perhaps for a moment tempted to consider the possibility of coming to terms with the Democracies, of opening a window on the Occident, of trying to keep in with the West as well as the East? It seemed unlikely but just conceivable.

Sometimes, when questions of detail arose, others would be called in to take part in the discussions. Once or twice matters were referred to a committee of experts, while Mr. Churchill and Tito rested from their labours. On one such occasion a question of supply was being discussed by the Chiefs of Staff, when it was found that no further progress could be made without first referring the matter to the Prime Minister. But no one knew where the Prime Minister was. In the end someone remembered having heard him making plans to go bathing in the Bay of Naples. The matter was of some urgency, as a decision was needed at once, and I was accordingly instructed by General Wilson to go and find him and bring back his answer. The Americans furnished me, in case of need, with a stenographer, a blonde young lady of considerable personal attractions wearing a closely fitting tropical uniform; the Royal Navy gave me a motor torpedo boat; and, thus provided, I set out.

The first thing that we saw as we emerged from the harbour into the wider waters of the bay was a great fleet composed of innumerable
ships of every size and shape steaming majestically towards the open sea — evidently the first phase of the invasion of the south of France.

This complicated my task. Trying to find Mr. Churchill in the midst of this mighty armada was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and, to make matters worse, the Captain of the M.T.B., a very young and somewhat diffident officer of the R.N.V.R., showed, quite properly no doubt, the greatest reluctance to risk his craft anywhere near these great convoys as they went sailing past. Disconsolately we chugged along in the general direction of Capri.

It was then that we noticed that something unusual was happening. As we watched, one of the troop-ships slightly slackened her speed as if to avoid something. Simultaneously there was a burst of excited cheering from the troops on deck, and a small bright blue object shot across her bows. On inspecting this through a pair of glasses, I recognized it as the Admiral’s barge, and there, standing by the coxswain, wearing a boiler suit and a broad-brimmed Panama hat, smoking a cigar and giving the V-sign, was the object of my search. As we still watched, he swerved out and round and disappeared behind the next ship in the convoy.

Clearly there was nothing for it but to give chase. I put this to the Captain. He did not like the idea at all. It was all very well, he said, for the Prime Minister to go swerving in and out of convoys. But if he did it, he would get into trouble. I said that I would take full responsibility. At this he brightened and, having once taken the plunge, acquitted himself nobly. With the sea foaming and frothing in our wake, we set out boldly on our erratic course down the line. As we passed them, the troops on the transports gave an extra cheer for luck, followed by a salvo of whistles as they spotted my female companion. I have seldom felt more conspicuous.

Eventually we overtook and headed off the blue barge. There followed an intricate boarding operation in a choppy sea and I landed precipitously at the Prime Minister’s feet, while the stenographer, anxious to miss nothing, hung over the rail of the M.T.B. Mr. Churchill seemed keenly interested. ‘Do you,’ he asked, ‘often spend your afternoons careering round the Bay of Naples in His Majesty’s ships with this charming young lady?’ In vain I explained the object
of the exercise. I was not to hear the last of this episode for some time.

They were an exhausting ten days and I was relieved when they came to an end. But our excursion into high politics was not over. Already, before his talks with Mr. Churchill, Tito had had a number of preliminary conversations on Vis with Dr. Ivan Šubašić, who, since I had seen him in London some weeks earlier, had emerged as Prime Minister of a new Royal Jugoslav Government, to be formed for the specific purpose of coming to terms with the Partisans. As a result of these, a preliminary understanding had been reached, providing for a measure of co-operation between the Royal Government and Tito’s National Committee. Now Dr. Šubašić flew back to Vis in the same plane as Tito and myself, and the conversations were resumed. Vis became a hive of political activity.

In all these conversations, neither I nor Ralph Stevenson, who, as British Ambassador to the Royal Jugoslav Government had accompanied Šubašić, took any part. It was a purely Jugoslav occasion. Ralph, who was an old friend from Foreign Office days, and I spent our days bathing in the warm sunlit sea and speculating as to the outcome of the negotiations.

Would agreement be reached? Would Tito consider it worth compromising with the Royal Jugoslavs in order to gain Allied recognition? Would any terms that he was prepared to offer be acceptable to Šubašić? Would he consider himself as bound by any agreement that he might reach now, when once the country was liberated and he held all the cards in his hands? Might not the Russians suddenly take the wind out of our sails, in any case, by recognizing Tito independently of the Americans and ourselves?

It was hard to say. Rather belatedly, the British Government had done what they could to bring the two parties together. Now they must wait and see what came of it. One thing was certain, namely that, at this late stage, Tito, with so many cards in his hand, was unlikely to give much away.

From time to time the two parties would inform us of the progress they were making. It sounded (and was) too good to be true. The
solution towards which they were moving was, it appeared, on the following lines: Tito’s Government and Šubašić’s Government would be merged into a single provisional Royal Jugoslav Government, which would continue in existence until Jugoslavia had been liberated, and free, popular, democratic elections could be held. Thereafter, it was presumed, the people of Jugoslavia would be governed by whatever type of Government they chose for themselves and would live happily ever after.

On the strength of it, Tito took the whole party out in a motor boat on a picnic to a local beauty spot, a great subterranean or rather submarine cave, which the sunlight, striking through the water which filled it, suffused with a blue phosphorescent radiance. Entering the cave in a small boat, we all stripped and bathed, our bodies glistening bluish and ghastly. Almost everyone there was a Cabinet Minister in one or other of the two Jugoslav Governments, and there was much shouting and laughter as one blue and phosphorescent Excellency cannoned into another, bobbing about in that caerulean twilight.

Then we emerged once more into the sunlight and sea breezes and lunched off lobsters and white wine. It was choppy going home and several of the party were sick. Not long after Dr. Šubašić returned to London to lay before King Peter the results of his talks with Tito.

W
ITH
the departure of Dr. Šubašić there was nothing more to keep me on Vis, and I was glad of it. I had had enough of high politics to last me for some time. I had had enough, too, during the weeks I had spent there, of garrison life and of the eternal sunshine, blue sea and warm winds of the Adriatic in summer. It was time to get inland again — where the stage was set for the last phase of the fast-moving drama, in which for a year now we had all been so closely involved.

On Vis we had kept in constant touch by wireless and by messenger with our officers in the interior. From time to time one or other of them would come out and we would get a first-hand account of what was happening in this area or that. Moore and Jones had arrived from Slovenia; John Clarke from Montenegro, where he had been with Peko Dapčević; Andrew Maxwell from First Corps, burnt black with the sun and wind, and so thin as to be hardly recognizable, for he had stayed behind after the evacuation of Tito’s Headquarters and taken part in the long forced marches in the mountains which had followed. Randolph Churchill came over to see me before leaving for Croatia. With him came Evelyn Waugh, a new recruit, whose Commando training and adventurous disposition made him a useful addition to the Mission.

Everywhere the news was the same: the German offensive was slackening and, gradually, the initiative was passing to the Partisans. And now, from various sources, more and more insistently, came a fresh rumour — a rumour that the Germans were thinking of withdrawing from the Balkans, of cutting their losses and falling back on a more easily tenable defence line in the north.

If the war in Europe was not to be unnecessarily prolonged, it was
important that they should not be allowed to carry out their intention unhindered. Taking advantage of the presence of General Wilson and Tito within easy reach, I accordingly proposed to both a plan designed to ensure that, in the event of a withdrawal, as few Germans as possible would get away safely.

The scheme was called ‘Operation
RATWEEK’.
My proposal was that, for the space of one week, timed to coincide as closely as possible with the estimated beginning of the German withdrawal, the Partisans on land and the Allies on the sea and in the air, should make a series of carefully planned, carefully co-ordinated attacks on enemy lines of communication throughout Jugoslavia. This would throw the retiring forces into confusion and gravely hamper further withdrawal.

I first put this plan to Bill Elliot. He and the other airmen liked it. With the help of the Americans, they could, they said, find the necessary planes. The Navy, always glad of an excuse for some sea-raiding, agreed too, and General Wilson, after an hour or two spent going over the plan on the large-scale maps, gave it his final blessing.

The next thing was to make sure that Tito would play. It would, after all, have been understandable, if, now that there was a chance of the Germans withdrawing of their own accord, the Jugoslavs, who had suffered so much under the German occupation, had refused to put any obstacles in their way. But it was clear to me at once that this was not a consideration that weighed with Tito. He was all for going on fighting the Germans to the very end. Having listened to what I had to say and to my assurances that the Allied naval and air forces were prepared to co-operate to the utmost, he undertook to instruct his own staff to start planning at once jointly with my officers and representatives of B.A.F. As soon as a detailed plan had been drawn up, he said, he would send instructions to his Commanders in the field to take the necessary steps to put it into execution, in consultation with my officers on the spot, whose task it would be to co-ordinate the operations carried out by the Partisans with those of the Allied air forces.

The detailed planning was done for the most part at B.A.F. Headquarters and my own Rear Headquarters at Bari, where Peter Moore, recently returned from Slovenia, and John Clarke who had just come back from Montenegro, were now in charge. The whole of Jugoslavia
was divided up into sectors; a Partisan Commander and the British officer attached to him were made responsible for each, and targets allotted accordingly. Any target, such as a bridge, a viaduct or a railway junction, which was too strongly held by the enemy for the Partisans to be able to attack it with any hope of success, was made the responsibility of the R.A.F. or of the heavy bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force. Where additional quantities of high-explosive or ammunition were needed, special drops were arranged. Plans were made, too, for tactical and strategical air support to be given at the appropriate moment to the Partisan forces engaged. Meanwhile our destroyers and M.T.B.s would scour the sea-routes.

In drawing up these plans, we had recourse to all available sources of information concerning the enemy’s order of battle and the disposition of his troops, while at every stage we consulted by signal the British officers and the Partisan Commanders on the spot. Thus, the whole of the German line of withdrawal would be covered and every possible target accounted for. In the light of what we guessed the enemy’s plans to be the attack was fixed for the first week of September.

If the Germans withdrew, their main line of withdrawal northwards was bound to be along the Vardar Valley and the Belgrade-Salonika railway. For us, this now became the most important target of all. If their communications could be cut here, their situation would indeed be desperate.

The Partisans in Serbia were still to some extent an unknown quantity, though John Henniker-Major’s signals showed that they were gaining ground rapidly. Much depended on what they could achieve. Accordingly, before Mr. Churchill left Italy, I obtained from him and from General Wilson permission to leave Tito and my Headquarters on Vis for an indefinite period in order to go to Serbia, for the purpose of co-ordinating the operations there myself. At last I was to fulfil my intention of visiting Serbia and at a vital moment.

My plan was to join John Henniker-Major in southern Serbia, where Koča Popović had his Headquarters. There I should be within easy reach of the Belgrade-Salonika railway and in a good central position from
which I could cover wide areas of country. Tito sent a signal to Koča, informing him of my impending arrival and instructing him to make his plans for
RATWEEK
in consultation with me, co-ordinating his operations through me with those of the Allied air forces. He furthermore undertook to send with me, as his personal envoy, General Sreten Žujović, or Crni, the Black, as he was usually known.

Crni whom I knew from Bosnian days, was one of the outstanding figures of the Partisan Movement. Indeed, at this time, he was in effect Tito’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief. A Serb by race, he had made himself a name as a guerrilla leader in the original rising in Serbia in the summer of 1941. In addition to his military talents, which were considerable, he was also extremely shrewd politically and possessed remarkable breadth of outlook. He was, too, a first-class organizer, and a good man in a tight spot. Tito used him as a kind of reserve, sending him to take charge in any part of the country where things were going badly for the Partisans or where a military or political crisis had arisen. In appearance he was tall and cadaverous, with lank black hair and pale hollow cheeks, which after midday were covered with a blue-black stubble, for, like most Serbs, he had a strong growth of beard. A continual dry cough showed that on him as on so many of the Partisans the sufferings and privations of the war had left a lasting mark. The sadness of his expression was relieved by a pleasant smile and by the vivid intelligence of his eyes. Like Koča Popović he spoke almost perfect French, having lived for many years in France. An older man than most of the Partisan Generals, he had fought in the French Foreign Legion in the first war. His wide interests and pleasant manners made him an interesting companion, and he was sufficiently sure of his position in the Communist hierarchy to be willing to discuss any topic, however controversial. I was glad he was coming with me. His presence showed, too, the importance which Tito attached to the forthcoming operations in Serbia.
¹

The next thing was to get ourselves in. The enemy’s general offensive, which in the rest of Jugoslavia had petered out by the end of June, had lasted in Serbia all through July, keeping the Partisans constantly
on the move and making it hard for them to receive parachute drops. In August, however, there came a lull in the fighting, and with it the opportunity I required. John Henniker-Major signalled that Koča Popovićs Headquarters were for the time being established on the thickly wooded slopes of the Radan, overlooking the German garrison town of Leskovac on the Nis-Skoplje railway, and that the Partisans were also holding a flat piece of ground near the neighbouring village of Bojnik, where an aircraft could land. There was no time to be lost, for it was impossible to say when the Germans, now thoroughly alarmed at the increased scale of Partisan activities in Serbia, would resume their attacks. I sent a most immediate signal to Henniker-Major to say I was coming and warned Sergeant Duncan and my own wireless operator, Sergeant Campbell, to stand by to accompany me. In a few hours all arrangements had been made for us to go in on the first possible night.

Before leaving Vis, I climbed up to Tito’s cave on Hum to discuss with him the final plans for
RATWEEK
and to say goodbye. The broad outline of the plan was now complete and it only remained to arrange the details with the local commanders. Already additional supply drops were being made and air support laid on for the forthcoming operations. I found Tito cheerful enough, though, like me, tired of life on Vis and making plans to leave it. After we had finished with our maps, food and drink were brought, a plateful of fried eggs and a bottle of sweet Dalmatian wine, and we talked of Serbia, which Tito had not visited since the heroic days of 1941. Then he wished me good luck and goodbye. We parted with jocular assurances that we would meet again in Belgrade.

At first sight, landing by plane had seemed an infinitely more normal and agreeable method of entering a country than what Mr. Churchill called ‘jumping out of a parachute’. But, when we reached our destination and, in the pitch blackness of a moonless, overcast night, began to circle lower and lower through the clouds, over hilly country, towards what might or might not be a suitable landing-strip for a Dakota, I found myself wondering whether a parachute jump would not after all have been preferable. Then, through the mist, the signal-fires
flared up on the ground below; we circled once or twice more; the flaps went down, the revolutions of the propellers became slower, and soon we were bumping and jolting to a standstill over the uneven soil of Serbia.

There was no waiting about. As soon as we were out of the plane, some Partisan wounded, who had been waiting, were bundled into it, the doors were shut, and the pilot, who had kept his engines running, started getting it back into position for the take off. A minute or two later it was airborne again and on its way back to Italy.

A Partisan came out of the shadows leading some horses. We had kept our personal kit to a bare minimum, and, once the wireless set had been strapped to a pack-pony, we were ready to start. Then the Partisan officer who had come to meet us took the lead and we galloped off. As we left the flat open ground of the landing-strip and, crossing a little bridge, entered a clump of trees, some shots were fired from nearby and the bullets whistled past us in the darkness. It was too dark to see anything, but clearly there were people in the immediate neighbourhood who were not on the same side as we were.

The ride that followed was long and dreary, through thick bush and scrub, mostly uphill, but with occasional abrupt descents, slithering and sliding down the sides of stony ravines. There was still no moon and the horses were anything but sure-footed, needing constant helping and coaxing over the rougher patches. Their German Army saddles, too, were far too big for them and threatened ceaselessly to slide under their bellies or even over their heads. It was with frayed tempers that we eventually reached our destination in the early hours of the morning.

After a good deal of rather irritable groping about in the dark, I found John Henniker-Major asleep under the trees in a kind of wigwam made of part of a parachute stretched over some branches. In a few minutes I had fixed up a similar shelter against the steady drizzle that was now falling, and, spreading out my sleeping-bag beneath it, lay down for a few hours’ sleep.

When I woke, the sun was shining through the trees and Campbell and Duncan were busy frying a tin of bacon we had brought with us. It smelt delicious. We were on the edge of a little clearing in the wood. Somewhere nearby I could hear the sound of running water. Behind
us, a great forest of oaks and beeches stretched up towards the summit of the Radan. Immediately in front of us, sloping downhill, lay a brief expanse of green turf, like an English lawn. Beyond, the woods began again, covering the lower slopes and the foothills with a blanket of foliage. Then, beyond that again, for mile upon mile, stretching away to the hazy blue of the horizon, the rich rolling countryside of Serbia was spread out before us in the sunshine, a patchwork of green orchards and yellow maize fields, with, dotted here and there the white-washed walls of a village and the onion spire of a church. There could have been no greater contrast with the austere uplands of Bosnia or the stony barrenness of Dalmatia than this peaceful, smiling landscape.

Crawling out of my sleeping-bag and pulling on my boots, I spent the next few minutes rousing John Henniker-Major, always a heavy sleeper. In the course of the night he had rolled out of his improvised tent and half way down the hill. There his progress had been checked by the stump of a tree, round which he was now curled, snoring peacefully. This was to repeat itself night after night during the weeks that followed. The distance which he covered in the course of his slumbers varied according to the steepness of the hill on which we happened to be camping, but he scarcely ever woke on the same spot where he had gone to sleep. He had had a bad time of late and I suppose that the effect on his nerves showed itself in this way. Certainly, there was no other indication that his composure was in any way ruffled.