The Royal Air Force Special Duties (SD) Service was a secret air service created to provide air transport to support the resistance movement in Axis controlled territories. The service helped develop and support the resistance by bringing in agents, wireless operators and supplies. Parachute drop was the primary method by which the Special Duties units delivered supplies and most of the agents to the occupied countries. They also developed an air taxi service to pick up agents, political leaders and special communications from occupied Europe and bring them to England. On the outward flight the air taxi service also delivered agents and high value packages to France. Special Duties flights flew to target fields in Vichy France, Occupied France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece. By the end of the war Special Duties units were also operating in the Far East. The air units were controlled by the Royal Air Force, and worked closely with the SOE and the SIS.
Formation
After the end of the Battle of France in June 1940, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, advocated the development of a resistance movement in Europe. His aim was two-fold: to develop a spirit of resistance in the Nazi occupied countries, and to develop a fifth column of resistance fighters who would be able to assist in the liberation of their countries when the British returned. To support these aims a method of communication and supply to the resistance needed to be developed. To this purpose a highly secret organisation separate from MI6 was formed which had no official existence. Formed on 22 July 1940 under Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, it was called the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Known only among the highest levels of the cabinet, extensive efforts were taken to keep its existence secret. The SOE cloaked itself by interacting with other agencies under seemingly unrelated names. Traditional armed service organisations might deal with the Inter-Services Research Bureau, the Joint Technical Board, or the Special Training Schools Headquarters. At the Admiralty the naval service dealt with the NID (Q), at the War Office the MO I(SP), while at the Air Ministry the operative entity was known as the AI IO. Most never gained an insight that these entities were the same organisation, nor did they penetrate the nature and extent of it
To support the movement forming in Europe a clandestine air service was necessary. Foreign Office officials approached the Air Ministry to ask if agents could be parachuted or flown into France and the Low Countries. They received a frosty reception. Air marshal Charles Portal, commander-in-chief of RAF Bomber Command, baulked at using aircraft just to ferry spies. His Air vice-marshal, Arthur Harris, did not want to divert aircraft and pilots needed elsewhere "to carry ragamuffins to distant spots". Others, notably Churchill, disagreed. The SOE got its support and the Special Duties service units were created. Harris was told by the Air Ministry to provide the air services support, which he did, though he continued to argue that it was taking resources away from the main task.
The air units created and the missions they were performing were kept secret. This sometimes proved a challenge. In one instance in 1942 poor weather resulted in a Whitley flight having to return without dropping its agents. On the return trip the plane crashed along the English coast, killing all aboard. Among the dead were five SOE agents dressed as civilians. It was explained to the public that they were members of the press along to observe the results of a bombing raid. When a local newspaper pressed further, asking why so many press members were aboard the flight, the Army Special Investigation Branch made a visit to the paper and the story was suppressed. Said a pilot after the war: "Even when high ranking officers who were not in the know asked about the work we were doing we had to lie like old Harry. It was court martial if we breathed a word about the job. Not even the mechanics knew about the passenger flights". For the special duties aircrews, who they were and what they did remained a secret until the war had been over for over 30 years.
Initially a flight of aircraft was formed on 21 August 1940 by 11 Group Fighter Command and set aside to support the effort. Control was transferred to 3 Group on 2 October 1940. The needs of the SOE grew, as did those of the air units supporting them. Eventually two "Special Duties" squadrons were created by the RAF as a link with the underground movements in the occupied countries. A third was added in 1943 to work in the Mediterranean theater. In the last year of the war a fourth was added for the Far East. The squadrons worked in support of SOE and the SIS, though with SOE organising, arming and supplying a civilian army, it required the lion's share of the air transport services. The peak effort was reached just around the time of the Allied invasion of occupied Europe in June 1944.
Training The first task of the RAF was to deliver agents to France trained in the selection of fields suitable for their aircraft to land and take off again. These agents had to be fluent in French to blend in. Once the agent was in place and had selected a number of potential locations for landings he was ready to receive an operation.
Operator training French nationals trained as agents were presented to the RAF to be specially trained as 'operators', known in French as the chef de terrain. Training initially was done at 'F' section in London at Tempsford's Station 61, the so-called "Joe School." The training was completed at RAF Tempsford, with the aid of the special duties pilots from 161 Squadron. This was done during the dark of the moon, the pilot's off periods. Commented one pilot after the war: "We had to have decent fields, so we brought back men of the resistance movement to teach them the sort of places to select and what to do to help us to land."Stuart, James RAF Fly-by Nights Beat Gestapo Evening Standard, 16 June 1945 The operators learned what to look for in selecting a field: a clear path without trees or telephone wires, with at least 600 yards of clearing. The ground had to be firm. They were to avoid mud at all costs.
The agents trained were either of French heritage, were French expatriates living in exile in England, or were resistance members picked up from France and brought back to England for training. Some of them had been pilots in the French Armée de l'Air. Agents were trained at the false airfield at "RAF Somersham" in signaling aircraft in Morse code and in laying out a flare path. Supply drop flare paths were made with 5 flashlights forming an "X". For a Lysander landing the skeleton flare path was made with 3 flashlights that formed an inverted "L".
To avoid problems the RAF strongly preferred to land on fields handled by operators they had trained. If an operator started to pick out less than desirable landing fields he would be recalled to Tempsford for remedial training. Following a mission in April 1942 that almost resulted in an aircraft and pilot being lost on a boggy field the RAF insisted they would only land aircraft on fields handled by an operator that 161 Squadron had trained. If the agent failed the training he would not be allowed to manage landings. Operators who passed their training were said to be qualified to "lay on an operation".
Pilot training The special duties squadrons had to recruit and train pilots for their command. Being a secret organisation, recruitment was a problem. Some pilots were drawn to the SD squadrons by personal contacts, others by the pilot's own experience in escaping from the continent. All of them had an "Above Average" pilot rating. Many had also qualified as navigators. Self-reliance in navigation was an important quality for the SD pilots. Many judged it a more essential skill for a successful SD pilot than piloting the aircraft itself. A pilot had to fly in the dark of night over enemy occupied territory, frequently in weather that grounded other squadrons, and navigate by himself to a small dark field in the middle of France. Pilots had to be self-reliant, capable of thinking and acting on their own. Hugh Verity wrote a set of instructions for the Lysander pilots in A Flight of 161 Squadron. These were guides offered from an experienced Lysander pilot to the novitiate, but were more helpful tips rather than a set of hard fast rules. 161 Squadron did not have rigid rules they followed, as conditions and obstacles such as bad weather, low cloud and fog, boggy landing fields, or possible enemy action were too variable. As 161 Squadron commander Charles Pickard often remarked: "There's always bloody something!"
It took about a month for a pilot to complete the training and for the commanding officer to determine if the pilot would be able to do the job. Training required the pilot to be extremely comfortable with the layout of the aircraft's controls. He had to learn how to work out a course to his target and back. The course set was made up of a string of pinpoints, navigational terrain features which were identifiable and whose location was sure. The course was a -wide corridor designed to avoid German flak emplacements. On his trip the pilot flew from pinpoint to pinpoint, staying in the corridor until he reached the target area. He would practice this by flying by navigation alone over England by day, without making use of the radio to ask for a homing bearing, flying from navigation point to navigation point. The flights would be repeated at night. Next they practised night time landings and take-offs from a grass field. This training was done at "RAF Somersham", a "dummy" airfield near RAF Tempsford initially used as a decoy during the Blitz. It was later put to use by the RAF and the SOE for training of agent operators and Lysander pilots, as the rough field approximated a typical landing ground in occupied France.
The final test for a Lysander pilot was to navigate over the continent through a corridor free of flak to a pinpoint target in France south of Saumur. The target was described to the pilot as a light. When the pilot arrived over the target he found a brilliantly lit rectangle. It was in fact a prison camp, whose bright lighting of the fence wire made it a "pinpoint" of uniquely brilliant quality. When the pilot returned and reported on this astonishing target he confirmed he had made it there and was made operational.
Operations
Parachute drops of supplies
Supply delivery was the primary undertaking of the Special Duties squadrons. To support the burgeoning resistance forces a great deal of material was needed, and the needs increased as numbers in the resistance increased. In May 1941 an Air Ministry staff officer estimated that to supply 45,000 resistance fighters in the field would require 2,000 sorties a year. Supplies delivered included arms, ammunition, plastic explosives, radio sets, bicycles for transportation, bicycle tires, food, clothing and medical supplies. Specialty supplies included radio crystals, printer's ink, and for the Norwegians, skis and sleds.