In 1942 these men sailed from Tresco in adapted French fishing boats to Nazi-occupied Brittany.
They retrieved agents, dropped off supplies and extracted the chief of French Intelligence and his family - together with top-secret German plans of all coastal defences between Cherbourg and Honfleur.
As a direct result of their achievement a great many lives were saved in the later D-Day invasion of France.
(The pictures show the crew - and their trawler N51 - in New Grimsby Harbour, Tresco)
Daniel Lomenech was a Frenchman with an extensive knowledge of the Breton fishing industry. After escaping from occupied France he was assigned to a Royal Navy submarine in 1941 with the rank of Sub-Lieutenant RNVR.
Their mission was to collect agents, passengers and mail delivered to the submarine off the Brittany coast by small French fishing boats. Lomenech was then just 21 years-old.
It was his idea to replace the submarine with a diesel-engined trawler, operating from Tresco, which could blend in with the French fishing fleet. This would allow a more flexible schedule for the shore-based agents......
By early 1942, a 65-foot Breton trawler ‘Le Dinan’ had been located in Newhaven where she was acting as a patrol boat under the registration N51. The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) acquired her and refitted her.
Sub-Lieutenant Steven Mackenzie took command with Daniel Lonmenech as his first Lieutenant. The rest of the crew were mostly recruited from North Sea fishermen who were by then active service ratings in the Navy - ‘Jasper’ Lawn, Cookie Nash, Jock the Engineer....
They sailed from Dartmouth to Tresco to put on their ‘war paint’ in New Grimsby. In the secluded sound, they changed from warship grey and the White Ensign to blue hull, brown upperworks and a French name and number.
In order to test the theory of passing as French trawlermen, they undertook two reconnaissance missions in May, on one occasion landing near Concarneau with impunity - right under the noses of the Germans. Finally in June, after once again painting the trawler in New Grimsby Sound, they sailed on a mission of supreme importance.
The ‘Confrere de Notre Dame’ was the largest and most productive of the Free French intelligence networks operating in Occupied France. The creator and head of the organisation was ‘Remy’ (Colonel Gilbert Renault). The Gestapo were closing in on him - and his family. He had to be extracted from France with his family as a matter of urgency. If any of them were captured and tortured the whole intelligence network might be compromised.
Here is how Sub-Lieutenant Steven Mackenzie described the operation:
“We had an escort of Beaufighters to protect us half-way across the Channel, three planes circling widely about the ship, relieved in relays from St Eval. Even so, we had three hours of unescorted daylight sailing to put us 20 miles from Ushant by the time darkness fell. At 10 pm our air escort left us, flying low and waggling their wings in farewell.
"This was the most dangerous part of the voyage crossing an area forbidden to fishing craft, and where a sighting by German air patrols would give the game away completely. We chugged on under a cloudless sky....
"By dawn we were south of Brest, the sea was like a mirror. At 10 in the morning we were among the crabbing fleet. As we sailed down the Baie-d’Audierne we could see the white villas shimmering in the sun. The lighthouse of Penmarc’h, the highest in the world, beckoned us on. Beyond it lay the Glenan Isles where our business called us.
"We reached our position with half an hour in hand. After an hour and a half nothing had appeared. Then at 6 o'clock in the evening black smoke appeared on the horizon, quickly followed by the appearance of five German corvettes. We held our course anxiously. Would they pass? Had Remy been caught and our plans uncovered?
"As the corvettes came on Jasper the coxswain nudged my arm and pointed to the islands. A tiny white sail had appeared. The excitement grew intense, the corvettes lent the final touch of colour to the situation. They passed us belching black smoke, the nearest less than a cable distant. We could see the captain examining us through glasses from the bridge, watched by German sailors on deck. We held our thumbs and turned our back on them. Then they were past, the casual inspection over.
"We watched the white sail tacking to and fro until the corvettes had disappeared. We let it approach until we could identify it; everything fitted with the description we held. 30 feet long, single mast, green hull.... We made our signal, identified ourselves and went alongside.
"It seemed amazing that so many people could be concealed in that cockleshell of a boat. They had survived a German inspection when the vessel left harbour. Now they emerged. A woman first, then Mme Remy, then three children aged between 5 and 11, a man with several suitcases, and finally Remy himself - a parcel full of papers tied with string in one hand and a six-month baby in the other. (Picture shows Remy and family as they neared Tresco)
"They were helped on board, then the stores we had brought for the fishermen were handed over - petrol, oil, food and tobacco. In five minutes it was over, the warps were cast off. As she passed us to wave goodbye, the French skipper pointed to the sky. A patrolling Heinkel was approaching, but too far to have seen us together. We made gestures of contempt and then headed out to sea.
"We made an offing from the land and hove-to for the night. At dawn we began a slow cruise up the coast. Off the Ile-de-Seine an armed trawler came up from astern to pass close on the port side. As luck would have it, we were on top of a line of unattended nets; while she passed we stopped to haul then in, and were busy picking spider crabs from them when the officer of the watch swept us with his glasses from the bridge. A double triumph this, for Cookie had the crabs boiled in half an hour and we ate them on deck.
"The last and nastiest shock came at about ten in the evening. We were passing Brest, well to seaward, when we sighted three destroyers five miles to starboard. In a craft purporting to be an innocent French fisherman, we felt a little conspicuous as we made maximum speed northwards with dusk coming on.
"As though to confirm our worst fears, a destroyer broke away from the flotilla and headed towards us. For five minutes she held our course, gathering speed. We waited hopelessly for a challenge to blink from her lamp. Then she turned away and stopped. Exercise? We did not wait to see. The sky was growing darker every minute. We set about getting up the Lewis guns. From dawn onwards we would be in British waters, no longer in disguise, and allowed to hit back if necessary.
"At six the next morning, our air escort found us, and the children were allowed on deck for the first time. For 36 hours they and their mother had been shut up in the tiny wardroom cabin. They had not once complained.
"We did not make New Grimsby until three in the afternoon. The blue placid waters of the anchorage unfolded before us. White water boiled and tumbled on the rocks outside whilst within the water shimmered transparent and motionless. All was friendly, welcoming, unchanged. The place was deserted. But within half an hour we heard the drone of an MGB’s engines…..
"Then around the headland, the gunboat appeared, pennants fluttering green and white, bow-wave creaming the deep blue water, and from her loud-hailer came the martial crash of a Sousa march. She drew nearer, the music stopped, and we could see the cheery faces on the bridge.
"The passengers were quickly transferred to the gunboat and N51 was left to herself in the anchorage to resume the drab grey of an auxiliary naval trawler. How many times she changed colours later, I would not like to guess. But the link had been forged: it endured for more than two years!”
Remy, clutching his parcel tied up with string, was in London within days. The parcel contained a Nazi blueprint of the Atlantic Wall - accurate to the last gun emplacement.....
