Mission "Geisha Ops " "Fungus" Judge " Croatia 1944 ( Yugoslavia ) OSE

Early in 1944 Capt.Sutcliffe was posted to the Photo Reconnaissance Squadron in southern Italyin Brindisi. A chance meeting with Brigadier  Fitzroy Maclean led to him being recruited to join the Special Operations Executive’s (SOE) mission to the Yugoslav partisans. 

 

 Sutcliffe in post war ear 1st Royal Irish Fusilliers Battalion along with " Monty "

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. SOE assigned  Captain Maurice Sutcliffe's team missison "Geisha " in the Papuk Hills in eastern Croatia which included Berditschew, Fintchi possibly G.T.Davies and two members of the American OSS. 

RAF Partizans air drops RAF Special Duty 264th Sqd 

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.

 RAF 267th Sqd Bari linking to Topusko

Lt.Abba Berditchev 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. It is not clear on why and how he split from rest of Yishuv agents and why instructed by OSE Cairo to join Capt.Sutcliffe's team .

 

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 

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

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

Front : unknown SOE, unknown SOE, Sgt.Shalom Fintchi 

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.

Improvised landing strip Topusko

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 Abwehr (intelligence agency ) targeted Capt.Sutcliffe 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 in his place .

Operations "Fungus " and "Judge " Owen Reed Ldr.

 Owen Reed 1942

 SIS Agent Owen Reed ,Croatia 1944

along with Tito's partizans Croatia March 1944

Owen Reed was an army officer who was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6) in Cairo in July 1943, and who subsequently served as an intelligence operative in occupied Yugoslavia. An actor and a BBC broadcaster, who joined the Army in 1940 with the intention of serving in the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), Reed was quickly recommended for a commission and then received such standard training as the RAC offered to its subalterns. But thereafter his war obstinately refused to follow a conventional course. Immediately after sailing for the Middle East his appointment as ship’s broadcaster unexpectedly returned him to his peacetime profession and in the process brought him to the attention of his Brigade’s commanding officer, who then attached Reed to his staff. In Egypt Reed remained with the Brigadier’s staff as a liaison officer - a combination of scout and messenger - until the destruction of his brigade at the battle of Alamein.

Having emerged from the battle unscathed, Reed fell ill with jaundice, and more than six months passed before he was declared fully fit again. Promoted Captain, he worked for the BBC in Cairo for much of the intervening period, juggling news broadcasts with Arabic programmes and office administration, and becoming ever more frustrated about his growing separation from the war. In June he resolved to find his way back into active service. ‘The time has come for me to go’, he wrote in a letter home. ‘To what I don't know. But I've had all I want of Cairo ... So I'm looking for another job.’

One of the few European countries where the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) expanded their activities following the outbreak of the Second World War was Yugoslavia. Until the German occupation in April 1941 SIS operated from the British Passport Control Office in Belgrade and through consulates in Zagreb, Split and elsewhere, recruiting agents from among the British business and academic communities. After the Axis invasion in April 1941 they collaborated with the Yugoslav government-in-exile and worked through Yugoslav officers who had escaped at the time of the occupation. They also enlarged their intelligence picture by exploiting their privileged access to signals intelligence. But changing Allied strategic priorities (and competition with the Special Operations Executive - SOE) persuaded SIS in 1943 that they should send British officers into the field to liaise with the Yugoslav resistance forces.

By the time Owen Reed recovered his health, hostilities in North Africa had ceased, and there seemed little prospect of returning to regular military service. But repeated visits to GHQ finally opened the door to SIS (masquerading under the deliberately bland cover name ‘Inter-Services Liaison Department’ - ISLD), who were recruiting field officers for infiltration into Yugoslavia. In July 1943 Reed had little knowledge of Yugoslavia and spoke no Serbo-Croat, but he could offer SIS his broadcaster's experience in the collection of information, a proven ability to work alone in remote territory, a basic knowledge of military staff work, and at least some evidence of linguistic aptitude. Following his recruitment he received a rudimentary training and was then despatched to Croatia with a radio operator and an interpreter to work with Tito's Partisans.

Reed's first mission to Croatia was the most successful of his three SIS assignments. Promoted Major, he headed the British mission in Croatia until the end of June 1944, representing both SIS under the code-name 'Judge' and SOE as 'Fungus', often working in close proximity to the enemy and regularly enduring bombing and strafing attacks by the Luftwaffe. Through his Partisan hosts he obtained a steady supply of intelligence, including information about the location of enemy installations, which were then targeted by Allied air strikes. At the same time he arranged for the delivery of increasing quantities of supplies to the Partisans and eventually succeeded in organizing landing grounds where transport aircraft could both deposit stores and evacuate vulnerable personnel wounded, orphans, escaped POWs and downed airmen — to the safety of Allied-occupied territory.

In March 1945 Reed’s last assignment brought him back to Croatia under the codename 'Outlaw'; he was now appointed to represent SIS and the British Military Mission to Yugoslavia. During the closing weeks of the war he followed the Partisans’ triumphant final march on Zagreb, entering the city only shortly after it was liberated and establishing himself on the Foreign Office’s behalf as the British Consul. In this capacity he combined his consular activities with intelligence gathering, providing SIS with a remarkably vivid insight into the communist take-over in Croatia. But his freedom of action was progressively reduced, as the Trieste confrontation came to dominate the already troubled relationship between the Western Allies and the Partisans, and he was finally ordered out, persona non-grata, in June.