Bob McFarlane, 24th November 1923 – 30th January 2017
Eulogy presented by André Saunders – a friend – Bob’s Funeral on 14th February 2017 in Melrose.
It is a huge honour and privilege for me to be able to stand here today and add a few words about Bob, and perhaps try to fill in a few gaps in a period of his young adult life which, like many ‘old soldiers’ who have experienced the horrors of war at close quarters, he seldom spoke about.
Some years ago, I was a guest at a Kelso & District Probus Club meeting when my wife Veronica introduced Bob to me as someone with a similar interest – for diverse reasons – in “spy radios”. In the course of many subsequent chats, another picture of this gentle, modest, self-effacing, yet amazing man slowly emerged, that of a wartime agent, as a radio operator behind enemy lines, in the ultra-secret S.O.E. or Special Operations Executive.
Bob was just 16 and barely out of school (the McLaren High in Callander), when WWII broke out, and like many young men of his time, he was soon to “sign up” to serve his country, in 1941, in the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Regiment (initially wearing the Royal Armoured Corps and later on the Royal Dragoons uniforms). One day, a Tank Regiment ‘old-timer’ – after outlining the chances of surviving a direct shell hit on a tank- suggested that Bob should perhaps consider ‘volunteering’ for a transfer – to a ‘safer’ posting.
This Bob did, in fact applying for a ‘special’, unknown, ultra-secret assignment. This led to him being asked to attend an equally secret interview in London. He was to be met at the station, but wasn’t, so he hailed a taxi, asking the driver if he knew ‘Fawley Court’ (near Henley-on-Thames), receiving the reply “Sure…..That’s where they train all the spies”!!
Germany had invaded Yugoslavia (and Greece) in 1941. Two separate resistance groups soon emerged – the pro-royalist “Chetniks” under Draza (later General) Mihailovic (supporters of the young King Peter the 2nd, by then exiled in London) and the first to offer support to the Allies – and the “partisans”, who were communists led by Joseph (later Marshall) Tito. (Coincidentally, the exiled King Peter was born just a few weeks before young Bob!).
The S.O.E. was Churchill’s “baby”, formally created in July 1940 … to “Set Europe Ablaze”. As well as parachute training (to be dropped behind enemy lines), agents were to be trained in armed and unarmed combat, weird and wonderful weapons (such as ‘exploding rats’), demolition techniques, and morse-code (in Bob’s case, much of the training took place in the Arisaig/Morar area, with parachute training at Ringway (now Manchester Airport) and in CAIRO, the S.O.E. station covering the Balkans & N. Africa). (Talking of weapons, it so happens there is an auction of some S.O.E. ‘equipment’ taking place in Tunbridge Wells today).
The Allies (and the S.O.E.) initially supported the pro-royalist “Chetniks”. However, it began to emerge that the Chetnik resistance was, at best, increasingly ineffective, with rumours of ‘collaboration’ with the enemy. In Dec’ 1943 Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Tehran and agreed to switch support to Tito’s communist “partisans”. (It seems Churchill also agreed to post-war communism in eastern Europe).
In fact, a few weeks before, the young Bob (still only 19), had already been parachuted, with a bulky, heavy “B2” spy-radio, into enemy-occupied Yugoslavia, in the dark – landing in a tree – and hoping/maybe praying he would be met by the partisans (and not the ‘enemy’ and certain death). He was in fact following in the foot-steps, or indeed the parachute “slip-stream”, just weeks before, of the late Brig. Sir Fitzroy Maclean (the recently appointed U.K.’s special envoy to Tito).
I often wonder how many 19-year olds today can imagine such a scenario ……not knowing who would “meet/greet them”, or when they might get their next meal … or change of clothing … or sleep in a bed. Bob was continually on the move, with the partisans, always in mountainous areas sleeping rough, in the open, in all weathers, dealing with enemy encounters, as well as carrying the heavy ‘B2’ radio – 32 lb excluding the generator – used to send regular coded messages back to Cairo (and later Bari in Italy), re’ enemy movements, the partisan successes, etc.
There were occasionally “lighter moments”, for example …
- The partisans (and Bob) spent much of their time on rough terrain, in the mountains, in winter, with inadequate footwear. Bob asked H.Q. for a ‘drop’ of boots an several hundred duly arrived, but were found to all be left feet, which some of the partisans wore regardless, until the situation was rectified!
- On another occasion Bob, who had been missing his daily porridge, requested a special “drop”. It arrived in due course – not a packet of “Quaker Oats”, but several hundredweight! Bob said the partisans’ culinary skills were put to the test, devising clever ways of serving up porridge!
- As I said earlier, the radio was very heavy, but Bob never dare let the radio out of his hands. He was eventually found a donkey to carry its heavy battery and the hand generator for charging it. Unfortunately, on a narrow mountain path, the donkey fell over the edge, complete with the battery life-line. Bob’s despair was soon alleviated when a partisan arrived with a “replacement”. Asking where it came from, the answer was – “See that German truck down in the valley, with the open bonnet? Well it won’t be going anywhere for a while!”
Bob was thus able to transmit a request for a replacement battery and generator (but probably not the donkey!).
With the war in Europe nearing an end, Bob returned to the U.K. in late 1944, thinking his war was over. Instead, he was given 4 weeks’ leave, sent back to Fawley Court in London, to upgrade his morse speed to 25 w.p.m., (more than twice the now-abandoned speed requirement for radio hams, some of whom are attending here today). He then found himself on a troop-ship bound for India, and ultimately Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), to undergo further “parachute-” and in particular “jungle” training (including dietary training on delicacies such as monkeys’ legs, snake steaks, and weevils cooked in mud!!).
Around April 1945, Bob was “dropped” into a Malayan jungle clearing. He was picked up by a Malayan-cum-Chinese resistance group with whom he had to face, as Bob himself said, “formidable Japanese jungle-fighters”. (In a presentation which he gave in Sep’ 2014 to members of several radio societies, at the Museum of Communication in Burntisland, Bob said he could talk ‘all night’ on this particular period of his ‘war’).
In August 1945, the first-ever A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It took the Japanese jungle-fighters in Malaya a long time to believe their war was over, but Bob eventually trekked through the jungle to TELUK on the Malayan coast where he caught a small steamer to Singapore. Arriving at Singapore harbour, Bob said his thoughts then were “Thank God I’ve “made it” and am going home”. But no! He was in fact put in charge of a Signals Section of the Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan, landed on Japan’s KURE island and shortly after, found himself in Hiroshima – with a British Army great-coat as protection against the deadly nuclear radiation, which indeed destroyed many of the photographs he had been able to take.
But finally, Bob made it back to the Britain, still only 22 (I was in Prim. 3!)! Surely a real hero, without the likes of whom, we would all be speaking German (or maybe Japanese) today. Sadly, as officially, the S.O.E. had never “existed”, and was thus shrouded in secrecy, there was little or no recognition (until more recently) – no medals, no ‘gongs’. The S.O.E. was “officially” disbanded in January 1946 (just months before the execution of Mihailovic) but was in fact re-branded as what we know today as MI6 (the “foreign” section of the Secret Intelligence Service)
So, on behalf of all of us here today …. who know the sacrifice you and your fellow S.O.E. agents made …. a special “Thank You, Bob”.
I would now like to ask the Rev. Tom Nicholson to read out a short, but poignant poem, perhaps Bob’s favourite, and with which he ended all his talks and presentations.
The following poem (sometimes referred to as “Yours”) was written on Xmas Eve 1943, by arch-cryptographer Leo Marks (in memory of his girl-friend Ruth who had recently been killed in an air crash in Canada). Marks invented the “Silk Code” where poems, often printed on parachute silk, were used to encode messages to and from agents. This method was later replaced by the now better-known “one time pads” (which consisted of two unique ‘pads’ with columns of computer-generated 5-figure groups. The agent had one, his ‘minder’ the other – unbreakable unless the enemy got hold of one or the other & the deciphering book)
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.