Eastern Approaches (65 page)

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That is, arrested and shot as enemies of the people.

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Daughter of Lord Orford.

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They were known as Lewis Bombs after their inventor, Jock Lewis, who had helped raise the S.A.S. and was killed in one of the first operations.

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Arso Jovanović — shot in 1948 by Tito’s frontier guards on similar grounds.

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‘So this’, wrote the
Donauzeitung
of February 4th, 1944, with heavy Teutonic irony, ‘is Tito’s Grey Eminence.’
‘It was in May 1943. Somewhere in the Bosnian Mountains, in the neighbourhood of Tito’s H.Q. there was great excitement. The liaison officer of His Majesty the King of England was expected. He was to land by parachute.
An Anglophile Swiss review describes the surprise of the bandits to see the landing of the following human being: ‘A young man, in a grey overcoat, armed to the teeth, with a Kodak and a bush-knife, having as luggage a pipe and an Anglo-Croatian dictionary …’ Apparently it took the bandits some time to get used to this ‘extravagant Englishman’, to this ‘curious man with high military and social ranks’, to this ‘adventurer’ and to respect him as Tito’s ‘Grey Eminence’.
Who is this romantic parachutist, who landed with a Kodak and a bush-knife among the savages of the Bosnian jungle? Some time ago, Anthony Eden lifted the veil of the mystery: Fitzroy Maclean, member of the House of Commons and deputy of the town of Lancaster, newly appointed brigadier, thirty-year-old chief of the British mission at Tito’s H.Q. is depicted to us, as a robust red-haired adventurer of a Scottish officer family.
His career developed according to the schemes of the British plutocratic tradition: Eton and Cambridge, Embassy Attaché in Paris and Moscow, Eastern European Department of the Foreign Office, Lieutenant of the Highlanders. Bribed elections in his native town of Lancaster gave him the possibility of imposing a by-election, in which he was elected. When the war broke out this smart young man felt himself as a hero.
Apparently he cannot keep quiet, he is dreaming of adventures in foreign countries and of military glory, he remembers that he is an officer who renounced the exemption from military service to which he is entitled as a member of the House of Commons, and joins the Highlanders, fighting in North Africa against Rommel.
In short he is: an adventurer, who in the middle of the war remembers he is an officer. But, he does not stay a long time with his Highlanders. He joins the Parachute troops, and is awarded the rank of colonel, for a landing behind the lines of the Italians, who were already demoralized at that time. He named his parachute company ‘Mystery column’. This energetic youth was chosen by England, when the need was felt by His Britannic Majesty to send a mission to Tito’s bands. An adventurer, who dreams of glory and heroical deeds, in remote countries and who intends teaching Tito’s bandits with a Kodak and a bush-knife the meaning of English culture. …’

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Now Vice-Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs.

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Now Minister of the Interior.

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Now Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army.

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Long live Tito. Death to Fascism. Liberty to the People.

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The following figures for supplies during 1944 give some idea of the scale on which the Western Allies were now helping the Partisans:— over 100,000 rifles; over 50,000 light machine guns and sub-machine guns; 1380 mortars; 324,000 mortar bombs; 636,000 grenades; over 97,500,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition; 700 wireless sets; 175,000 suits of battle-dress; 260,000 pairs of boots.

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General Žujović was disgraced in 1948 in somewhat obscure circumstances. According to the Russians the reason for his disgrace was his loyalty to them.