SOE-stations: NEW BOOK - BRIGGENS - S.O.E.'s Forgery and Polish Agent Training Station

This web page has brought two wonderful people into my life who contacted me from Mauritiius and Poland and who have shared Briggens related photographs, documents and memories with me that helped to complete the book. They have become special close friends. I cannot thank them enough, or the web, for bringing us together.

I hope there are more of you out there who would wish to see their loved ones remembered in the pages of SOE Stations history. Please do contact me, I need photographs and memories of any of the stations.

Staying with Briggens, are you related to any of these fantastic forger sergeants?

Or perhaps you can tell me more about someone in this group of Briggens staff

below? I haven't got their full names or know much about them.

'Briggens is Des Turner's second history of the Special Operation s Executive, his first revealed the secrets of Aston House. This second book gas taken 11 years to complete and is the first time that Top Secret Briggens has been investigated. The personal stories contain all the human emotions:-

"I now fully understood why I could be shot if I revealed any of this!"

Pauline Florence Preston. Technical Secretary.

"The Poles walked in, planted their dummy plastic explosives in the most vital

places, with a calling card, then swiftly and quietly departed

without being detected!"

Captain Morton Grainger Bisset. Commanding Officer.

Describing a training raid on the de Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, Herts.

"We were attacked by a German aircraft. The train came to a juddering halt and
all on board jumped down onto the track and ran to take cover in an adjacent forest."
Jerzy (Jeff) Maciejewsky. Forger/Printer.

"I think it was the first time I had seen men cry."
Pamela Catherole Leach. F.A.N.Y.

This is the true story of an S.O.E. country house at war and the lives of the people associated with it. Initially, Briggens was established to train Poland’s elite fighting force, the equivalent of our S.A.S., they had escaped from Poland and made it to Britain. Here they were taught to command men, to parachute, to fight hand to hand and to carry out acts of sabotage.

In complete contrast there was a mainly British contingent specially chosen for amazing printing skills to deceive the enemy by producing a multitude of counterfeit documents and miniature and microphotography techniques. Central to both groups were the girls of F.A.N.Y., who provided the cooking, laundry, transport and counselling. There are moving human stories of bravery, courage, skill, tragedy and humour. For the resident staff at the mansion it was a relatively safe posting, hard work but coupled with a degree of leisure time to enjoy sports, the local pubs and dances.

By contrast the Polish military trained extremely hard and when qualified as first-class agents awaited their turn to be dropped back into Nazi occupied Poland in civilian clothing with a fake identity and forged papers. They faced extreme danger; hazardous weather conditions, a 5 to 6 hour flight over enemy held territory, a parachute drop in the dark, and location of their reception committee on the ground, before actually leading, organising and supporting the resistance guerrilla battle against a vicious and brutal enemy.

S.O.E., and the British High Command found it difficult, at times impossible, to satisfy the constant Polish demands for aircraft and supplies of arms and food for the resistance in Poland.

The story expands with the growth of both the forgery and training departments. The latter group overflows to other country houses at Audley End, Chicheley Hall and various Holding Stations, even as far as setting up a supply base in Italy. It concludes with the tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising and Poland’s ultimate loss of freedom and self-determination.