The Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force (SAARF)
by Les Hughes
As early as 1943, Allied planners were concerned with the possibility that Allied prisoners of war might be the target of localized or wholesale violence during a collapse of Nazi Germany, or that the chaos surrounding such a collapse would, at the very least, impose considerable hardship on the POWs. The planners suggested that the POW Contact Teams that were then attached to the various Allied Armies might be expanded to include airborne teams that would parachute into the vicinity of POW camps with which it was desired to make early contact, thus possibly pre-empting many potential problems.
It was not until February 1945, however, when the defeat of Germany appeared imminent, that SHAEF was provided with a mandate for dispatching troops whose mission would be to secure the safety of Allied POWs and to provide for their early evacuation. As a result of its mandate, SHAEF created, in March of 1945, The Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force, a designation mercifully shortened to simply SAARF by most of its personnel and by those who had cause to refer to it.
A golf course and its facilities at Wentworth, which formerly served as the Headquarters of the 21st Army Group, was allocated as SAARF's Headquarters and training camp. Both America's Office of Strategic Services and its British counterpart, SOE, provided training and support personnel and, along with the 1st Allied Airborne Army, operational personnel. SAARF remained, however, under the control of SHAEF. SAARF was genuinely an Allied unit: Brigadier J. S. Nichols, a British officer, was selected to command, and Col. J. E. Raymond, an American, was appointed Deputy Commander.
On the operational side the make-up was even more international: 120 French, 96 British, 96 American, 30 Belgian, and 18 Polish personnel. Many of the British and French personnel were drawn from special operations units, while the Poles appear to have come from the Polish Independent Grenadier Company. The majority of the 96 Americans were drawn from the OSS and from elements of the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions. (A small group, fewer than a half-dozen men, came from the 13th Airborne Division. And one radio operator, who was known to his buddies by the sobriquet "Shipwreck" Kelley, came to SAARF from the U.S. Navy, perhaps via the OSS.) Not all operational personnel were men: there were several women who had served with distinction as SOE agents in Nazi-occupied Europe.
The basic operational unit of SAARF was a 3-man team (admittedly, something of a misnomer, considering the presence of women on some teams) that, with a few exceptions, comprised two officers and an enlisted radio operator. All personnel were to be airborne qualified; those who were not were sent to the No. 1 Parachute Training School at Ringway, and refresher training was conducted by RAF 38 Group. Because the time available for training was limited, the personnel in each team were usually of the same nationality, unlike the OSS/SOE Jedburgh teams, the national make-up of which, whenever possible, had been intentionally mixed. Although the female personnel had established enviable records of bravery and daring in their previous assignments, it was decided early-on they would not be used in an airborne role.
In March 1945, the Allies crossed the Rhine and the collapse of Germany proceeded more rapidly than anticipated. On 21 April, in response to a request from the Belgian government, eight of the ten Belgian teams were dispatched to Brussels to be employed, in a ground role, by the various Army Groups to obtain early information regarding conditions in some POW camps. A few days thereafter, SAARF was restructured: the 60 teams that had completed their training were retained in an airborne role while the remaining teams were re-designated air-transportable and were to use ground transportation, usually jeeps, in conducting their missions.
Conditions in the POW camps were believed to be poor and there was great uncertainty regarding Hitler's plan for a final stand. There were many scenarios for what the Germans might do with the POWs, and none was pleasant to contemplate. If the Germans abandoned the camps before the arrival of the Allied armies, the POWs would be threatened by starvation and disease and, perhaps, by random violence at the hands of the populace or the military. Any effort to force march the POW population deeper into Germany and use them as hostages would result in the deaths of many. And the willingness of the Germans to ignore the provisions of the Geneva Convention suggested even worse scenarios.
It was envisioned that the SAARF teams would drop near the POW camps, reconnoitre the situation, and report the conditions they found. Although it was thought unlikely that the teams could directly influence the movement of POW's, they could direct drops of food and medical supplies into the camps if conditions warranted.
On 15 April a request was received at SAARF requesting that teams be deployed at the POW camp at Altengrabow. The request was discussed at SAARF for several days and then rejected. On 23 April, in the face of information that the POW's were on the move and consequently in distress, SAARF received an urgent request that it deploy its teams on six POW camps. On 25 April SAARF issued orders to implement a plan to drop six teams at the POW camp at Altengrabow, a plan that had been drawn up in response to the earlier request. Major Phillip Worrall, of SOE and the South Wales Borderers, was the senior officer among those whose teams were on standby that day; command of the operation fell to him.
The operation was code-named VIOLET and its mission was to obtain information regarding Allied POW's in Stalag XIA and other, smaller camps in the Altengrabow area between Magdeburg and Berlin, which lay between the advancing Allied armies in the west and the Russian Army in the east. Although the exact POW population of Stalag XIA was unknown, estimates placed it around 20,000, the majority of whom were Russians, with perhaps as many as 100,000 more in the immediate vicinity.
The plan called for three aircraft to drop six teams at three sites near Stalag XIA. Just as SAARF was a multi-national unit, so, too, would be the make-up of the mission. Dropping at DZ1 would be a British team, code named ERASER, headed by Major Worrall, and a French team, BRIEFCASE, headed by S/Lt. Cousin, whose real name was Pierre Cambon and whose grandfather had served as ambassador to Germany in the years preceding WWI.
Dropping at DZ2 would be a British team, PENNIB, under Major Sam Forshall, and an all-OSS team, CASHBOX, comprising Captain J. Brown and two radio operators. Dropping at DZ3 was SEALINGWAX, a French team under Capt. Soual (whose real name was Paul Aussaresses), and an American team, PENCIL, led by Capt. Warfield and including his fellow officer from the 504 PIR, Lt. Meerman, and an OSS radio operator. The teams would meet for the first time at the briefing.
At the briefing, each man was given a document, written in English on one side and in German on the other, identifying him as a member of SAARF and requesting cooperation for the team and its humanitarian mission. It is doubtful that the document provided any great feeling of security to those who carried it.
At 2030 hours on 25 April the three planes lifted off the runway from RAF Great Dunmow. Operation VIOLET, the last airborne operation of the war in the ETO, was underway.
The teams were scattered in the drop, and within a couple days the British team, ERASER, was captured and taken to Stalag XIA. They were soon joined by S/Lt. Cousin of BRIEFCASE and the two OSS radio operators of CASHBOX.
Major Worrall informed the Camp Commandant, Col. Ochernal, of his mission, and he urged Orchernal to cooperate. After some thought, tempered, no doubt, by the knowledge that the Russians were drawing nearer to the camp each day, Ochernal informed Worrall that he could, under close supervision, transmit messages to his superiors, and like a conjuror pulling a rabbit from a top hat, Ochernal produced a SOE radio. Cpl. Jones, Worrall's radio operator, soon made contact with SHAEF and then with SAARF Headquarters, and, after satisfying a number of checks and counter checks, the SAARF radio link to Stalag XIA was on the air.
Worrall identifed the SAARF personnel who were prisoners and reported they were being well treated and had established an Allied Control Commission under a Russian Colonel in readiness of liberation. The Germans were still in control, Worrall emphasized, but the Commandant had gone to Magdeburg, accompanied by an American POW, to contact the Americans.
As the Allies had approached the area, the situation outside the camp had deteriorated. A request for an airdrop of supplies was vetoed by SAARF Headquarters as it was felt that liberation was imminent. And as an indication of the coming shift in control, a group of Russian POWs, selected by the ACC, was armed and assisted the German guards in maintaining order. Still, the atmosphere in the camp was one of great tension. On 2 May Worrall received word from SAARF Headquarters that Col. Ochernal had struck an agreement with the Commander of the American 83rd Infantry Division, MG Robert Macon, then headquartered at Zerbst: Macon would provide the trucks necessary to begin the evacuation of POWs to Zerbst, and Ochernal would provide safe conduct for travel.
On 3 May seventy trucks loaded with rations and thirty ambulances complete with medical teams arrived at Altengrabow to a tumultuous greeting from the POW's. Also in attendance were some forty war correspondents attached to the American Ninth Army who were shepherded by an enthusiastic Public Relations Officer eager to see the liberation of the camp portrayed as an all-American show. The evacuation proceeded with the American, British, French, and Belgian POWs being evacuated first. The Americans had promised to provide a twice daily shuttle service until all of the Western POWs were evacuated. On the afternoon of 4 May the Russian Army arrived at the camp, and the atmosphere changed considerably.
The balance of the Western POWs, all Frenchmen, were allowed to leave, but the Russians angrily blocked an effort to evacuate a group of Poles who had asked to be repatriated to the West, as well as a group of Italian POWs. The following morning, Worrall, over his protests, was told by the Russians that he and the other SAARF personnel had two hours to get their gear together; then they would be evacuated to the American lines. The Russians would handle all camp-related matters from that point on.
Operation VIOLET had run its course. It had achieved its objective, although perhaps not quite as planned and as the result of more than just a little good luck. Even though there were no casualties among the operation's personnel, VIOLET proved to be a harrowing and bizarre experience for some of the French personnel. The French team SEALINGWAX was dropped about 15 miles from its DZ and landed in the middle of the area controlled by the German Scharnhorst Division. The team managed to elude the Germans only to be captured, on 15 May, by the Russians, who, after three days of interrogation, concluded the team were dangerous counter-revolutionary agents and sent them to a POW camp. Further interrogation ensued, focusing on the details of SAARF, until, on 7 June, the team managed to escape, arriving back at SAARF Headquarters just in time to participate in the unit's disbandment ceremonies. The team's experience with the Russians presaged the shifting alliances the world would soon witness.
VIOLET proved to be SAARF's only airborne operation: the balance of the unit were air-transported to their assignments. SAARF teams were spread across northern Europe to assist local military governments in establishing radio links, in translation and interrogation, in monitoring the movement of German forces back to Germany, in screening the inmate populations of German prisons to determine who were political prisoners and who were criminals, and in searching for Nazis who had been identified as possible war criminals.
For one American, SAARF was a bizarre and nearly ignominious end to an illustrious wartime career. As the leader of the 101st Airborne Division's Pathfinders, Captain Frank Lillyman may have been the first American paratrooper to set foot on French soil during the Allied invasion. And though Lillyman no doubt found himself in more than one precarious situation while serving with the 101st, nothing prepared him for the likes of Harold Cole.
In a war that produced more than its share of villains, Harold Cole was in a class by himself. Cole began his career in treachery in 1927 when he deserted from the West Kent Regiment. He again joined the British Army at the outbreak of the war, and again, after Dunkirk, he deserted, but this time to the Germans. At long last Cole found an organization suited to his sense of ethics: The Gestapo, which had use for someone who could pass so convincingly for a downed British airman or an escaped British soldier.
From about 1940 or 1941 until the end of the war, Cole was instrumental in betraying to the Gestapo a large number of downed RAF airmen, British agents, soldiers, and escapees, and members of various resistance groups. Cole's base of operations was Paris, where he had his own room on the top floor of Gestapo Headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch. Later, he was moved to Berlin where the Gestapo and RSHA kept him busy. Before Berlin fell, Cole managed to make his way to the south of France and the shores of Lake Constance, and there his path crossed that of Captain Lillyman.
Lillyman was operating with a SAARF team in the Lake Constance area when he met Cole, who by then had managed to ingratiate himself with the incredibly naive U.S. Army CIC in the region, who had supplied Cole with an American Army uniform and identity card. As far as Lillyman knew, Cole, like himself, was searching for war criminals.
Cole persuaded Lillyman that a man living in the area, a man who just happened to have a fine Mercedes motor car, was a traitor and should be arrested. Lillyman accompanied Cole to make the arrest, but rather than arrest the 'traitor', Cole shot him dead and drove off in the Mercedes.
The wily Cole immediately reported the incident to the American authorities but altered the story ever so slightly: Lillyman had shot the man and taken the car! Incredibly, Lillyman was arrested and sent to Frankfurt to await court-martial.
Fortunately for Lillyman, the truth of the matter was eventually sorted out and a court-martial was never convened. And not long thereafter, Cole was killed in a shoot-out with the Paris police; no doubt to the disappointment of Lillyman, who must have been sustained through the affair by the hope that someday he might have a minute or two alone with Mr. Cole.
SAARF was disbanded on 1 July 1945. A short-lived and obscure unit, SAARF was a strange note, most of the hardened veterans of airborne and special operations who served in it would have agreed, on which to end one's wartime career. And, yet, one must wonder whether some of these men have not looked back and felt increasingly a sense of satisfaction that their last mission was an humanitarian one.
Insigne
The Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force (SAARF)
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman. 
