Lt.Abba Berdichev, New Revelation / סגן אבא ברדיצ'ב , התגלות חדשה

" Berditchev a small player in a huge game "

" ברדיצ'ב שחקן קטן במשחק ענק"

CO, Lt.Col.Henry Threlfall, Force 139, SOE Bari

Lt.Abba Berdichev OSE Operative Force 133 & 139

My study into this subject revealled several new facts about Abba Berdichev's mission into Yugoslavia and Banska . By all determinations I exclude that his task on March 1944 was to
penetrate in due course Romania then conduct SOE activities in there with the local Jewish community and then make connection with the Allied airmen held POW at Timisul near
Sinaia unlike various Israeli archives indicate . In fact he joined the SOE Team of Captain
Maurice Sutcliffe along with Shalom Fintchi in Croatia rather far from Romanian borders.

In fact his training records and photos indicating that he was on the same team with SOE agents trained for tasks in Yugoslavia rather Romania such as Yona Rozen , Ziablodovsky and Shalom Fintci, Hayim Yaari and Zadok Drugor who . Futher unlike the Israeli archives indicate he was not ranked Sergeant but commissioned as 1st Leutenant . Very interesting is his and Fintchi's association
SOE Captain Maurice Sutcliffe in Croatia as well the OSS Teams in Slovakia rather OSE.

An other curious reason is that he was suddenly sent with no previous training from Force 139 Bari to dispatch a spare W/T to Major Sehmer's team or SNA Hdq in Slovakia a country where he did not speak the language nor received any preparatory for which leaves me to conclude that he was not part of Ops "Amsterdam" though "Anti Climax " and became a regular OSE agent for general tasks in the Balkans .

An other clear fact is that Berditchev had a very good report with OSS Team of Lt.Green and along with Wandorfer joined Lt.Green and Maj.Sehmer teams and stayed with them till capture on December 26,1944 . I therefore firmly believe he became an SOE agent for non Jewish tasks . His records as of year 2020 still not available for public use by British military archives given the tasks he and Fintzi accomplisehd with Capt.Sutcliffe in Yugoslavia.

Sutcliffe served in 1940 in Palestine and after the war Gen.Sutcliffe son Nicholas married Pamela the nee of Col.Threlfall. After the war Col.Threlfall visited numerous times Israel .

Abba Berdichev + (1920 - 1945)
was a volunteer paratrooper who went behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

Abba Berdichev was born in Galati, Romania to Suzi and Mordechai Berdichev, was a descendant of a well-known Hassidic family. Since childhood, he was an ardent Zionist and had a deep love for Israel.

As a teenager, he was involved with Zionist youth groups in Romania. As young man, he joined an agricultural training farm in preparation for immigration to the Land of Israel. In October 1940, a pro-Nazi regime came to power in Romania and the situation became dangerous for Jews. Berdichev decided it was time to leave. Paying a premium to get on a ship immediately, he immigrated to Israel on the ship "Darien 2", whose voyage lasted four and a half months.

As the ship approached the shores of Haifa , it was captured by the British and all aboard were imprisoned as illegal immigrants for a year and a half in the Mazrah detention camp near Acco .

After being released, Berdichev underwent further agricultural training on Kibbutz Geva and later at Ashdot Yaakov. In November 1943, he volunteered to SOE to be part of a group of paratroopers whom the British would drop behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Europe. The group was put under a course of training conducted by the British army in Ramat David and then in Egypt.

For the purpose of the mission, Berdichev was given was false British identity papers under the name "Lt.Robert Willis " however his rank as Leutenant was not false. On all archive photos he can be seen wearing this rank , unlike Israeli Palmach, State Archives and Yad Vah Shem he was not a Sargent.

At RAF Parachute School Ramat David 1943

SOE Yishuv Training 1943

Yugoslavia Team Lt.Berdichev and Sgt.Yona Rozen , in training RAF Ramat David

From left : Sgt.Haym Yaary, Lt.Berditchev and Sgt.Zadok Drugoir (Doron ) early 1944

He came to Yugoslavia with the first group of Jewish paratroopers bailed out over Žumberak in mid-March 1944. On partisan documents, he was often listed under his code name - Lt. Robert Willis. With Hannah Reik and Daphni he went to the 10th Corps on Kalnik, to immediately advance further into the 6th Corps in Serbia.

On March 15, 1944, Abba Berdichev was dropped into Yugoslavia along with Hannah Szenes, Shalom Fintzi, Reuven Dafni and Yona Rosen. Berdichev was tasked with penetrating the Romanian homeland and helping Romanian Jews in their struggle for existence. The British also entrusted him in gathering intelligence and attempting to rescue US and British airmen who were captured in Romania since 1943 (Ploesti Low Level Mission ). It is not clear on how he split from rest of Yishuv agents and joined Mission Geisha of Capt.Sutcliff.

March / April 1944 Yugoslavia , Mission Geisha, Croatia

front L to R : Sgt.Shalom Fintzi , 1Lt.A.Berditschev

Rear : unknown , Zanopian (?),(?) (W/T), LDR Capt.Sutcliffe SOE

March / April 1944 Croatia Capt.Sutcliffe's Mission Geisha, Tuzla, Yugoslavia

Rear: Berditchev, unknown OSS officer, Capt.Sutcliffe, OSS officer

Front : unknown W/T's SOE, unknown SOE, Sgt.Shalom Fintchi

Tuzla, Yugoslavia 15th Air Force airmen rescue

Tito's mission Geisha support teams

The historical records indicated that he hopped that from there it would be easier to move to Romania, which was the goal of his mission. Berdichev was advised in Serbia to go to Fruska Gora because it is closer to the Romanian border. He reported it to Cairo headquarters and asked for a new radio station and civilian clothes to be dropped. The SOE headquarters was quite reserved towards Berdichev's departure to Fruška Gora, warning of the unstable position of the partisans in the area and the difficulty of maintaining contact with them.

Even before being informed of such headquarters thinking, Berdichev changes his plan. He chose the route over Majevica. He counted on the help of a British liaison mission operating on that mountain near Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia. But in Cairo and Bari, they also oppose the plan. A-Force Cairo had its priorities. They advised Berdichev to take the shortest route to the Hungarian or Romanian border and move to the Timisoara area. It was important for the A-Force headquarters to arrive in the area as soon as possible to prepare the reception of Dov Berger, another Jewish paratrooper.

Berdichev is therefore advised to cross at least a smuggling channel into Romania. A connection had to bee made with the Greek shipowner Pandlis, who at the time was also working for Palestine Resistance Haganah organizing the transportation of Jews from Romania to Palestine. Unfortunately attempts by Berdichev to move from Yugoslavia to Romania ended in failure and the reasons are not clear.

My studies reveals that Tito's Hdq and SOE assigned him to SOE Captain Maurice Sutcliffe's team in Croatia ,missison "Geisha " in the Papuk Hills in eastern Croatia which included Berditschew, Fintchi possibly G.T.Davies and two members of the American OSS. The Mission operated between the Drava and Sava rivers and covered the road and rail links between Belgrade and Zagreb. Sutcliffe with his team in Croatia was quartered in a shack that served as their base for nine months until it was discovered by the Germans and burnt down. He was the second W/T operators of that team .Capt.Sutcliff's team main task was to coordinate Tito's interactions with Allies air movements and gather Intel

Their main tasks were to gain intelligence of German troop movements and, with the help of the Tito's partisans, to tie up large numbers of German units which would otherwise be prosecuting the war elsewhere. Berditschev and Fintchi signalled requests for supplies of arms, explosives and medical supplies to Bari SOE and OSS Hdq's in Italy. He selected airstrips and used a short-range homing device to enable aircraft to locate these, guiding them in by flashing a recognition signal and using an agreed pattern of fires.

The partisans never abandoned their wounded. If the Germans found them they would shoot them as terrorists so they were hidden in bunkers deep in the hills and forests until medical help could be found for them. Then they would be brought down by horse-drawn carts, straw would be laid on the floor of Dakotas and they would be loaded aboard and flown to the RAMC hospital at Bari.

The aircraft, operating from Brindisi in southern Italy, were also used to repatriate escaping POWs and Allied fliers who had bailed out or crash-landed. On one occasion, when the crew of a Wellington bomber made their way to Sutcliffe’s hut, their arrival coincided with a rapid sweep of the area by the Germans. Harassing attacks by Stukas or JU88s usually followed surveillance by the German spotter aircraft, and Sutcliffe’s area, being within 40 miles of the Hungarian border, was well within range and an easy target.

The German intelligence agency targeted him personally by sending him a parcel bomb. They missed their mark, however, for a colonel in the partisans, suspicious that Sutcliffe had received a package from Hungary, opened it and was killed.

Palmach photo presumed July/Aug 1944 short vacation Tel Aviv

He even considered doing so through Hungary, ignoring the opposition from Lt.Col.Tony Simonds SOE Cairo , Berdichev returned to Italy on July 30. He departed with Daphni from the partisan airport near Vocin. Almost shortly he returned the same way. An illegal immigration organization in Palestine was ordered to return to Yugoslavia and collect Jewish refugees from Hungary in the border area. However, the British had already assigned Berdichev an other tasks that would take him to Slovakia.

Slovak National Army Uprising , Operation "Windproof " and "Quartz "

Operation "Quartz" was a "Windproof" sub operation intended to provide Slovak Hdq and Maj.Sehmer's team with a functional W/T and additional supplies a substandard planned agent penetration into Slovakia which was typical of the UK Foreign Office of that time duplicity, treachery and political turmoil between Moscow, London and the various Governments in Exile. Like on previous similar SOE missions also Berditchev was sent without any specific training and any

hesistation by SOE Lt.Col.Tony Simonds and Lt.Col.Threlfall to a sure death .

At the end of 1944, several British and American missions with nearly thirty members were dropped in Slovakia, out of which only ten survived. Everyone else was shot. Lt.Abba Berdichev (SOE) was an extraordinary man whom some of his comrades saw him as a " intellectual" and others just as a "dreamer".

An unrest that has been smoldering for a long time which willl set in motion on 29 August 1944 with the uprising of the Slovak army led by Generals Golian and in exile in UK Gen.Viest . The army rebelled against its own government, a pro-Nazi regime led by Catholic priest Joseph Tisza. Slovakia has been an ally of Nazi Germany since 1939, when it seceded from Czechoslovakia on March 14 with the support of Hitler. She showed her allied loyalty in September 1939, when the Slovak army participated in the attack on Poland .

On 7th October 1944, he departed from Brindisi with RAF No 624 Sqd special duty Sterling to a mission in Slovakia (Operation Quartz ) after returning from Croatia , flying along with SOE Lt.Col.Threlfall section chief Force 139 Bari. The OSS agents Lt.Kenneth Lain and Lt.Bill McGregor arrived with B-17G of 483rd BG from Bari at the Tri Duby Airfield .

Crew of RAF Special Ops Sqd who flew Berditchev from Bari to Banska Oct.7,1944

RAF Special Ops Halifax Sqd , RAF Bari

RAF Special Duty 264th /148 Sqd Halifax, Brindisi Sept.1944

Tri Duby airfield Slovakia, arrival of 3 OSE Palestine agents parachuted on 14.9.1944
no connection to the BG B-17G of 483rd BG parked on the background .

Left to Right : Hermes (parachuted) H.Reik (came by plane with OSS ) Z.Ben Yaakov (parachuted) A.Berdichev ( came by plane with RAF) R.Reiss (parachuted)

Above photo is dated October 7,1944 (Berdichev arrived with RAF 624th Sqd Sterling from Brindisi along with SOE Lt.Col.Henry Threlfall and Czech Colonel Jindrich Souhadra (Opertion Quartz )

The commander of this US mission named "Dawes" was USN Lt (Sg) James Holt Green, also a representative of the OSS for the whole territory of Czechoslovakia. Just a day or two after the Americans arrived in Slovakia, also the mission of the British SOE mission composed of four agents codenamed “Windproof” was dropped by parachutes on the night of September 18-19, 1944 near Žarnovica, not far from Banska Bystrica.

Head of Brit Mission was Maj.John Sehmer who spent nearly a year in the headquarters of Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic engaged in rescue of Allied flyers. The Brits were also interested on the outcome in Slovakia, though Hungary remained their main priority. Therefore, the target of this mission was first and foremost to move from the south of Slovakia to Hungary.

By the end of September, German troops had gained such an advantage in the field that the defeat of the Slovak Uprising was a matter of days ... Nevertheless, on October 7, the Americans sent another mission to Slovakia, with fourteen other OSS members under Capt Baransky code named " Day Team ".

For the other four Jewish paratroopers, the unexpected arrival of Berdichev by air was a great surprise but also a welcome reinforcement. To accomplish the most important task of their mission - saving Jews, there was work to be done. In Banska Bystrica, the uprising center alone, about five thousand Jews lived, almost half of Slovakia's Jewish population.

Major Sehmer decided to try his mission to reach the Hungarian border. The older version that Berdichev sensed the possibility that he might still be able to penetrate Romania via Hungary thus join the British and Allies in Bucharest which was the official version since many years is totally wrong . By now is clear that Berditchev came to Banska under Operation "Quartz" and merged from the begining on with Maj.Sehmer's team having no task to further travel to Romania through Hungaria and join the Allies there because if indeed there was such plan he could have returned to Bari or Brindisi with the departing 483rd BG or Nr.624 Sqd planes after handing over the W/T to Slovak Army rather remain in Banska Bystrika.

By the end of the uprising Maj.Sehmer ,Berditchev ,Wandorfer and other SOE agents joined the OSS agents who retreated to the Tatra mountains alongside the thousands of other Slovak army and partizans fleeing the German advance. SOE and OSS teams eventually metrged and sent a message in which they requested Bari immediate assistance. What they didn't know is that a partizans already betryed their hideout at Polomka to the Germans .

The agents established a base in the remote mountain village of Velky Bok. From there, they send their last radio message to OSS Bari asking for immediate extraction. It was very cold, they ran out of food, and the enemy tightened their hoops around their hiding place. By December 25, signal fires were lit on the surrounding hills, but no American aircraft appeared. On November 10, 1944 Berditchev , Gaul .McGregor and Lain were escorting those US airmen who missed the October 7 airlifting to Bari and then due to a dispute between the airman Sgt.Howard Luzier and Green these airmen decided to surrender to Edelweiss 218 . A day later McGregor and Lain were captured.

It was too late anyways, due to betrail the well known in anti partizan warfare German unit Abwehrgruppe 218 attacked the mountain chalets over the villages of Velky Bok and Polomka and on 26 December Berditchev along Sehmer and rest of Green's team were captured at the Polomka barn . Sehmer and he decided to return a day later to the upper cabin with rest of OSE group . OSS records indicate that he along with other US agents was captured by Nazi Slovak Regiment Edelweiss commanded by Ladislav Niznansky under command of Abwehr 218 of SS Col. Erwein von Thun-Hohenstein .

Retreating SNA

Bwteen the two SOE agents captured (Sehmer,Warndorfer ) among them was also Lt.Abba Berdichev and Zvy Ben Yaakov allias Lt.M.Jamay RCAF who was captured earlier on October and a Slovak female interpretor who used to work for OSS .

The prisoners were taken to Brezno Banska prison and then dispatched to be interrogated to the SD and Gestapo headquarters in Bratislava. As the result of the interrogation in Bratislava, they were dispatched to the Mauthausen camp Austria on 7 or 8 January 1945 by train.

Brezno Jail 1944

For the interrogation of the captured British and Americans agents the RSHA IV A2 immediately dispatched from Berlin Prof.Werner Mueller and Dr.Hans Wilhelm Thost, official translator of the German Security Police Headquarters RSHA IV A2 who in the earlier years acted as a spy journalist in UK. The last two are also among the few eyewitnesses of the last days of captured Allied mission members at the post war trials .

Ladislav Niznansky process 1962 (the criminal is third from left )

Incredible but true in 1947 back in uniform again

Left : Horst Kopkow RSHA IV A2 and VI (released by MI-5 in 1949 which indicates he may have cooperated with the Brits in WWII

Dr. Thost testified on post war era that he found SS Frank Ziereis, the commander of the Mauthausen camp, brutally torturing one of these prisoners. In the next room, he came across two SS officers torturing an American (Capt.Baransky) with his hands tied, on his knees, in a puddle of blood. When prof. Mueller asked why prisoners had not been taken to prisoner of war camps, and were told that an order had come from Ernst Kaltenbruner, head of the Reich Security Service (RSHA), to liquidate them. Asked how they would be liquidated, he received an answer: "Fear not, they will have a very easy death." The group of OSE and OSS prisoners in which Abba Berdichev belonged to was liquidated

Left on photo : SS Obersturmführer Altfuldisch

Left : SS Kriminalpolizei Inspektor Habecker

Left : SS Bachmayer

Left: SS Kriminalpolizei Inspektor Habecker

They were murdred on January 24, 1945, and their bodies were burned the same day. SOE headquarters in Bari registered on January 26th at Radio Berlin news that eighteen members of a group of Anglo-American agents had been captured and executed. Here are some more details :

The true truth of the background of this massacre of Allied mission members will be revealed by Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann's right-hand man in the liquidation of Jews in Slovakia, Hungary and Greece. At the trial of Nazi criminals in Nuremberg in 1946, Wisliceny testified that British and US agents captured in Slovakia were liquidated under the express Hitler order. It may have been Hitler's revenge as the Allies allegedly shot several German officers after occupying Paris.

SS Hauptsturmführer, Dieter Wisliceny

The OSS and OSE agents were executed on January 26,1945 . First executed was Maj.Sehmer, then the rest were shot on the neck then cremated same day .Since Berditchev, Zvy Ben Yaakov and Margita Kokovka are not on Mauthausen execution photos exibits , is presumed the SS revealled their Jewish identity and were sent to gas chambers . Some of the details are available from Operatives Spies and Saboteurs and history book of 483rd BG 15th AF. In the post war era neither Israeli Yad Vah Shem ,SOE nor British War Ministry cared to research deeper into the events leading to the exections. Their remains were never recovered.

Edelweiss 218 Einsatzgruppe October 1944

Place of capture by Edelweiss at Polomka ( memorial )

Brig.General M.Sautcliffe Army Air Fleet

UK Army Air Fleet

Capt.M.Sutcliffe was badly wounded while serving in North Africa with the Royal Irish Fusiliers (RIF) in 1942. He recovered but was medically downgraded, and took the opportunity while attached to the RAF to serve as an extra crewman on daylight raids over Nazi-occupied France.

Early in 1944 he was posted to the Photo Reconnaissance Squadron in southern Italy. A chance meeting with Brigadier (later Major General Sir) Fitzroy Maclean led to him being recruited to join the Special Operations Executive’s (SOE) mission to the Yugoslav partisans.

After a four-day parachute course, two days on weapons training and another two on explosives he was dropped into the Papuk Hills in eastern Croatia. He commanded the Geisha Mission, comprising three radio operators, an interpreter and two members of the American OSS. The Mission operated between the Drava and Sava rivers and covered the road and rail links between Belgrade and Zagreb.

IN the begining of the WWII he attempted to join the Fleet Air Arm but was turned away because he was under age and enlisted in the Army as a private. He was in Gravesend during heavy bombing and helped to put out fires in the docks. After attending officer cadet training at Dunbar, East Lothian, in 1942 he was commissioned into the RIF and took part in Operation Torch.

Sutcliffe, left, with General Montgomery inspecting the Royal Irish Fusiliers He landed in Algiers with a reinforcement company of the 1st Bn to learn that his brother had been killed the previous night by “friendly fire”; there had been a failure to communicate the correct password to the sentries on duty. Two weeks later, he and a comrade made up a newly formed patrol group with orders to reconnoitre a feature which had been selected for a battalion attack.

They ran into a strong German force. Sutcliffe got back but he was badly wounded in both legs. He was evacuated to England, where he spent eight months in hospital before being medically downgraded and attached to RAF Dunsfold as an Air Liaison Officer.

He took part in daylight raids as a crewman flying Mitchell Light Bombers in attacks on E-boat pens and missile launching sites. A raid with a Dutch Naval Squadron ran into heavy and accurate anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft flying alongside him went down; it was, he said, one of the most frightening experiences of his life.

Born 10.10.1922in Dublin

Died 8.4.2019 UK

son of William Henry and Charlotte Sutcliffe

brother of Charles Francis Sutcliffe,KIA 5.1.1943 age 21 Tunisia as Lt 1 Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers

educated St Paul's School,London until 1940

enlisted 1940 East Surrey Regiment

165 OCTU,Dunbar,East Lothian

commissioned 1 Bn Royal Irish Fusiliers 1942 (2Lt 233307)

WIA 18.2.1943 Tunisia

Air Liaison Officer,98 Squadron,RAF Bomber Command 1944

Air Liaison Officer,RAF in Italy

Force 266 SOE (Yugoslavia) (Captain) 1944-45

1st Royal Irish Fusiliers (Adjutant) postwar

Liaisoin Officer,R.N. Helicopter Squadron,Malaya

qualified as pilot,Middle Wallop,Hampshire 1954

No 6 Flight,Army Air Corps 1957

C.O. 1 Wing,Army Air Corps (Lt Colonel) 1960s

appointed O.B.E. 1.1.1966

Army Air Corps Branch,War Office 1967

Commander of Aviation,Army Strategic Command

retired as Brig.General in 1977

British Aerospace representative,King Faisal Air Academy,Riyadh,Saudi Arabia (10 years)

married Susan Leonard 1952 (dissolved 1977) (4 sons Michael,David,Sean and Nicholas,1 daughter Vanessa) married Pamela Smith (nee Threlfall) 1997 (1 stepson James Smith)

Croatia 1944 with Berditschev and Shalom Fintchi