On page 181 and page 110 in Norman Bentwich's book "I Understand the Risks" (Gollancz 1950) an Austrian Jewish refugee who fought on the Tobruk raid is identified as Capt. F Hillman/J Kennedy, MC, MM. This is almost certainly the same man described above as a member of the SIG Team. Charles Butt, writing in the Journal of Military History, Vol. 50 Aug 1999, page 64, says he "recalls Captain "Charlie" or "Chunky" Hillman, MC, MM, originally of the Royal Pioneer Corps, who went on after North Africa to command a Field Security Section in occupied Germany in 1945/46. He hated Germans but had a reputation for personal bravery with both of his medals being earned the hard way on operations behind enemy lines. Later (1955) he commanded 147 Field Security Section in Nicosia and Famagusta, Cyprus, during the early days of EOKA it is thought he emigrated to Canada after retirement from long service with the British Army. Jim French, writing in "The Rose and Laurel" , Journal of the Intelligence Corps, December 1997 p.33, says "as an NCO with BAOR 1948-50, I was with 309 Field Security Section in Hamburg with OC Capt Hillman, who clearly loved the pastries of his native Vienna.

He had been in the Foreign Legion and SAS and won an MM and MC ". And WO Hillyer-Funke served under his command in an internment camp for Nazis in Wolfsberg, Carinthia 1945-47, as Capt. Leo Hillman (Intelligence Corps archives, Michael Potter, 1999), and later again in Cyprus, where he described him as "a good and crazy man! I liked him!".

Major Fred Warner aka Werner , PC and later SOE, writes in his book on page 39 "Don't you know there's a war on?" (privately published) that Hillman was " one of the most decorated foreigners in the British Army, small, stout, with gold rimmed glasses, looking more like a professor than a tough paratrooper he had come to Britain via the French Foreign Legion and Norway; he spoke English with a cockney accent and always introduced himself as Baron von Schnitzelberger. He always chewed garlic , a habit picked up in the Foreign Legion, and so always sat alone to eat. He was dropped by SOE into Vienna in early 1945 and eventually interrogated the head of the Vienna Gestapo."

APPENDIX 2

Maurice Tiefenbrunner was born on Dec 18th 1915 into an Orthodox Jewish family in Wiesbaden, Germany, as one of eight children. Maurice was something of an athlete and scholar and his father a devout and well known teacher. On Oct 28th 1938, Jews of Polish origin, like Maurice's family, were deported by Nazi law to Poland. He was 22 years old.

A brother in Antwerp managed to obtain papers for Maurice to enter Belgium, which he achieved with hair-raising adventures via Warsaw, Prague and Rotterdam. From Antwerp, he contacted Jewish agents of the Irgun, illegally transporting Jewish refugees into British Palestine (Israel). Via Paris and Marseilles, he made it to a ship with a group of 20 others, and eventually set sail on the SS "Parita" with 950 Jewish refugees on a vessel meant to carry 250!

After 70 days instead of the intended 10, of wanderings, touching Rhodes, Smyrna and other ports, and begging for food from passing liners (including 20 bottles of beer from one passing cruise ship), his group took over the ship from the Greek crew, hoisted the Israeli flag and then beached the vessel on the sea front of Tel-Aviv on Aug 22nd 1939. It was a Friday night and thousands of Tel-Avivans came out to greet them with food. Then they were promptly interned at Sarafand Army camp by the British! Two weeks later war broke out and Maurice was consequently made a "legal" citizen as an amnesty was declared.

Allowed only to enlist in non-combattant units for political reasons by the British, Maurice (and thousands of other Palestinian Jews) joined the Pioneer Corps. He fought in and escaped from France via St Malo with hundreds of other Palestinian Jewish troops, in 1940, fighting with the BEF. Regrouped at Aldershot he joined the 51st Middle East Commando and fought in the battles in Gondar and Keren in Ethiopia/Eritrea where he was wounded trying to rescue a wounded comrade, promoted and Mentioned in Despatches. Maurice was finally returned to Egypt with the 51st Commandos and then took part (in Dec 1941) on an early raid on Tobruk. They inflicted heavy casualties on the Italian garrison before withdrawing but were now down to one third strength. The 51st were thus disbanded at Geneifa, and this is where Buck recruited Maurice and other Jews into the SIG around March 1942.

After the SIG raid with the Free French in June 1942 (described above), Maurice took part in a few smaller raids and then was recruited with about 14 other surviving SIG into the SAS under Stirling. He took part in one of the several Commando raids from Naval destroyers, with other Palestinian Jews, on Rommel's HQ in summer 1942 in the Derna area. Rommel was not at home but he remembers many German officers were killed and his force re-embarked with no casualties.

(Before the SIG raid on Derna, Maurice and five friends were ordered by Buck to accompany him to King Farouk's Royal Palace on a secret mission to "persuade" HRH not to back the "wrong side" in the war. This was successful).

In Dec 1942, Maurice, still with the SAS and now with 5 remaining members of the disbanded SIG following the large raid on Tobruk (Operation Agreement - in which he did not take part), went with Col David Stirling and Major Oldfield on a 100 man raid behind Italian lines, with the aim also of destroying German targets on the way. Maurice was in a jeep at the rear of a convoy of 50 vehicles, and broke down. Seen by Italians, he and his driver (from Lancashire) were soon surrounded by armoured cars and after destroying any sensitive documents which may have incriminated them, were captured on Dec 18th 1942. When the Italian army collapsed he was taken (as an important SAS prisoner) with 8 others by Italian submarine to Bari. On the way they tried to overpower the crew but failed and were punished by being locked up. As the Allies advanced on the POW camp at Bari, he was moved to a POW camp at Udine. His cover (prepared before the raid) was that his name was Tiffen, born in Montreal but taken to Palestine as a child!

Then Italy surrendered and the POW's were about to be liberated by the advancing Americans when the Germans appeared and shipped them off, in dreadful conditions, to Wolfensgarten in Austria. A group, including Maurice, tried an escape en route but were recaptured. Then they were shipped to Thorn in east Germany. As the Russians advanced, the Germans force-marched them yet again for 5 days to Fallingsbostel near Hanover where he met POW's from the famous "Wooden Horse" escape from Stalag 7, and Palestinian Jewish friends he had known in 1939 - 40 who had been captured in Greece/Crete in 1941. He was finally liberated in May 1945 after 30 months as a POW.

When the Allies separated SS prisoners from Wermacht, the Germans retaliated and separated Jewish POW's from others for several weeks. Other than this Maurice says he suffered no discrimination as a POW of the Germans, though there are British POW eye-witness accounts of Palestinian Jewish troops who were murdered by Germans in Crete and Greece.**

Back in Britain he was tracked down by Capt. Buck who tried to persuade him to join the SAS fighting the Japanese. He declined! Maurice and his newly wed wife, Friedel, spent several evenings with Buck enjoying nights out in London. Some weeks later, Buck's sister telephoned Maurice with the sad news that the Captain had been killed in a plane crash whilst on a raid against the Japanese. Maurice would have been on that raid had he accepted Buck's invitation (52).

Demobbed, Maurice went to Israel and fought in the War of Independence throughout 1948 (Woodside Park Synagogue magazine,Sept. 1963 and his unpublished autobiography seen by the author).

At various times, Maurice has worn the insignia of the 51st Middle East Commando, SAS, and the "neutral" overalls of the SIG - not to mention the Pioneer Corps and the Israeli Army. For many years after the war he lived in West London and Israel with his wife Friedel and large family but is - at time of writing - living in his eighties happily in Jerusalem. He has the 1939-45 Star, Africa Star, France and Germany Star and War Medal. He was Mentioned in Despatches for courage in the battle of Keren in Ethiopia.

(**Letter dated 12/11/97 to the author from Edwin Horlington of the British Veterans of the Greek Campaign Brotherhood; " I know of one case where 12 Jewish Pioneer Corps men were found with their throats cut in a cave just SE of Kalamata. This was attested to by the Chief Clerk to the Senior British Officer at Kalamata).

(I would like to most sincerely thank Maurice Tiefenbrunner for speaking with, and writing to me, at length and providing me with such unique first hand accounts of his experiences as well as some very rare photographs. Also thanks go to Jeffrey Tribich and his mother Mala Tribich (a Holocaust survivor) for their help in putting me in touch with Maurice in July 1997. Equally, I thank the patient staff of The Imperial War Museum Reading Room and the PRO at Kew for all their help as well as Sean Waddingham, whose enthusiasm for Naval history prompted me to get on and write a long planned article on the incredible Jewish lads of the elite SIG).

APPENDIX 3

PRO HW 1/643 - Message intercepted and received in German by British Intelligence interception on 13.6.42 and forwarded to Prime Minister Churchill as file CX/MSS/1071/T6, stating -

"Most secret document - only to be opened by an officer - from Supreme Command of The Army to Panzer Army Africa - are said to be numerous German political refugees with free French Forces in Africa. The Fuhrer has ordered that the severest measures are to be taken against those concerned. They are therefore to be immediately wiped out in battle and in cases where they escape being killed in battle, a military sentence is to be pronounced immediately by the nearest German officer and they are to be shot out of hand, unless they have to be temporarily retained for intelligence purposes.

This order must NOT be forwarded in writing. Commanding Officers are to be told verbally". (I am grateful to my friend and former teacher, the eminent historian and author, Dr John P Fox, visiting lecturer in Holocaust Studies and International History, for pointing out this document to me, as further evidence of what the SIG faced if captured).

REFERENCES

• (1) "Middle East Commandos" Charles Messenger, W Kimber 1988 p.109

• (2) Most Secret WO 201/732 PRO; a letter by General Airey 1/4/42 also includes a sentence where the group is called "Special Operations Group", with "Operations" later struck out and "Interrogation" written instead above it. I am indebted to Desmond Duffy of Welling, brother of the late Lt Michael Duffy, Commandos, kia on the Tobruk raid with the SIG, for pointing this out to me in a letter of 16.12.2000. The SIG are mentioned in his superb memorial book to his brother, "One of the Many", Pentland Press, 1993, with some very rare photos taken on the Tobruk raid approach.

• (3) "Guerrilas in Uniform" Eric Morris, Hutchinson 1989 p.85

• (3i) "European Jews from Palestine in the British Forces" Y Gelber, Leo Baeck Year Book 35 1990, London, p 329

• (3a) Kahane had an Iron Cross from WW1, had 20 years service in the regular German army, and had been a Town Clerk in Austria until forced to flee to Israel after the Anschluss. He joined the SAS/SBS after the SIG was disbanded and fought in the Aegean Islands with the famous Anders Lassen, VC, taking part in the raid on Santorini, among others, where there was bitter hand to hand fighting; he was one of the oldest members of the raiding party, leading his section in the capture and killing of many of the German garrison there ("Anders Lassen" by M Langley, New English Library, 1988 pp 199 and 210). For Kahane's SIG particpation in the Benghazi raid of June 1942, see "Rogue warrior - Paddy Mayne", Bradford and Dillon, Arrow Books 1989 pp 43 - 4 and Appendix 1 and "The Phantom Major", V Cowles, Collins 1958, pp156-61.

• (4) "Massacre at Tobruk" Peter Smith, W Kimber 1957 p.27

• (5) Morris p.84

• (5A) Shai was born in Germany in 1922, emigrated to Israel aged 16 years in 1938 and brought up at Kibbuitz Ginnegar. He joined the British Army aged 18 years.

• (6) "Now I Can Tell - Middle Eastern Memoirs" Rev Isaac Levy, privately published 1978 p.49

• (7) Levy p.50

• (8) Morris p.86

• (9) WO 201/727 PRO

• (10) "The Phantom Major" Virginia Cowles, Capital Book Club 1958 p. 135 and Collins edition on Kahane pp 156-61

• (11) Cowles p. 135

• (12) "Tobruk Commando" Gordon Landsborough, Greenhill Books 1956 p. 31

• (13) Cowles p 135

• (14) Cowles p. 136: Shai (see note 5A above) agrees with this description but adds that there was another French officer - Gitterchen - and that the SIG team were armed with a luger and Spandau each, several grenades, as well as a double edged bayonet that could be used as a dagger

• (15) WO 201/727 PRO

• (16) Cowles p 137;J Gordon p105

• (16a) Gordon - see note 28a - says they carried P-38 pistols, Mauser rifles and Schmeisser sub machine guns (p106).

• (17) "The Raiders" A Swinson, Purnell 1968, p.115

• (18) Cowles p. 139

• (19) Cowles p. 140-1

• (20) Morris p.89

• (21) Cowles P. 141

• (22) "The Commandos" R Miller, Time-Life 1981 page 85

• (23) "British Special Forces" W Seymour, Sidgwick and Jackson 1985 page 196

• (24) "Providence Their Guide - the LRDG" David Lloyd-Owen, Harrap 1980 p 99

• (25) Cowles p.142

• (26) WO 201/727 PRO

• (26 i) According to John Bierman (letter to author 6.8.99) the US Military Attache in Cairo had sent coded messages to Washington about the impending raids and the Germans had decyphered them!

• (27) WO 201/727 headed "Capt. Buck's Party". Barrie Pitt ("The Crucible of War; Year of Alamein 1942" - J Cape London 1982) is quoted in "March or Die; France and The Foreigh Legion" by T Geraghty, Harper Collins London 001 p213, as saying "Bruckler" re joined the Foreign Legion after WW2 and served with an Englishman Jim Worden, to whom he told the story of his betrayal of the raiders. After, he alleges he had been personally decorated by Rommel and then posted to Tunisia, where he was again captured this time by Americans. In may 1945 he was released by the French at Setif POW camp, Algiers, as he volunteered to rejoin the Legion to fight Algerian nationalists. In the 1960's Bruckner told Worden he still feared being hunted by the British as a war criminal.

• (28) Landsborough p. 33, quoting Swinson. In an interview in 1999, Carmi says he and Shai were ordered by Buck to take Essner to a POW camp but dispose of him en route. Carmi says he gave the order to shoot Essner and Shai pulled the trigger himself (John Bierman interview with Carmi in letter to author 6.8.99).

• (28a) "The Other Desert War", J W Gordon, Greenwood Press, London/New York, 1987, pp106-7. I am grateful to Prof Asher Tropp for pointing this book out to me.

• (28b) "One of the Originals" by J Cooper, Pan, 1991, pp54-7

• (28c) "Raiders from the Sea" by J Lodwick, Greenhill books, 1990 pp.141-2

• (29) Smith p. 27; Haselden, with native clothes and a beard, easily passed for a Bedouin and he knew the desert and many of its inhabitants very well. As WDLO (Western Desert Liason Officer), he co-ordinated British and Bedouin agents (Gordon p78-9).

• (30) "Commandos and Rangers of WW2" J Ladd 1978 page 123

• (31) Smith p.54

• (32) Morris p. 125

• (33) Smith p. 55

• (34) Landsborough p.68

• (35) Landsborough p.51

• (36) Smith P.60

• (37) Smith p.81

• (38) WO 201/750 File 1403 PRO

• (39) Langton - see below (50)

• (40) WO 201/745 PRO

• (41) Landsborough page 34

• (42) "The LRDG" W B Kennedy-Shaw, Greenhill Books 1989 p.25

• (43) WO 201/745 PRO

• (44) "A Long Journey Home" by Maurice Tiefenbrunner, Israel, Jan 1999, chaps. 4 to 7. M Crichton-Stuart ("G Patrol", W Kimber, 1958) also fails completely to mention the SIG role in their various raids.

• (45) Smith p.88

• (46) WO 201/750 PRO

• (47) Post Raid Report - WO 201/742 PRO

• (48) Landsborough p.215

• (49) WO 201/750 PRO

• (50) Unpublished ms by Col T B Langton, Imperial War Museum

• (50a) "Raiders form the Sea" by J Lodwick, Greenhill books 1990 p 50-51

• (51) WO 201/741 PRO

• (51i) Research by author John Bierman (letter to M Sugarman 6.8.99) suggests Capt. Buck, 1st SAS, was in fact captured after the Tobruk raid and spent the rest of the war as a POW with Yitzhak Ben Aharon - see note 52 below. After liberation he married and was posted to the occupation forces in Germany; he was killed Nov 22nd 1945 aged 28 years, near Chard, on a flight to Germany. He was cremated on 28 Nov 1945 and interred at Reading, where a CWGC plaque (panel 1) bears his name, son of Lt Col. Cecil and Eleanor Buck of Yately, Hants, and husband of Celia nee Wardle. However, Buck's post-raid report (see note 27) appears to have been written immediately after the raid, so Bierman's allegations may be incorrect. Buck was born in India on Dec 12th 1916 and read German at St Peter's Hall Oxford, where he was also a university fencer. Commissioned into the Punjabis (No. 1A1117) he transferred in 1939 to the 1st. Battalion Worcestershire Regiment. I am most grateful to Sheila Jepps, Buck's niece, from Broadstairs, for some of the above information (letters to author 2001).

• (52) On pages 54-5 of Leah Rabin's book "Rabin, Our Life, His Legacy" (Putnams, New York, 1997), in describing her childhood in Israel, she writes, " In 1941 whilst at summer camp.........a dashing British Officer on the Haifa-Tel-Aviv road gave me and a girlfriend a lift on a lorry loaded with Indian soldiers. Although he was British this Captain was born and bred in India. Since he loved music and opera and was a sranger to Tel-Aviv, I casually invited him to stop by and visit our home. Home hospitality to the Forces was very in vogue, but I never expected to hear from him. Well, he sent a letter two weeks later asking if he could call. I was only thirteen at the time. "Leah, what kind of relationship have you established with a British Officer?" my parents asked. One afternoon he appeared at our door. Captain Buck turned out to be a multi-lingual cultural whiz. My father and mother took a shine to him, and the Captain even lost his heart to my sister Aviva - who by no means lost her heart to him. Later Captain Buck moved to the.......Commandos and was assigned to work with the "German Platoon" of the Palmach - learning everything from German slang to German songs, gearing up for a mission behind enemy lines in the Western Desert......when the war was over, his marriage to a pre-war sweetheart was tragically cut short as his RAF plane crashed en route to a military location. I learnt about this from Yitzhak Ben Aharon, a prominent Labour Party leader, who had been a close friend of Captain Buck when they were prisoners" It is an amazing coincidence that the wife of an Israeli PM should have known one of the British heroes of the SIG!
  
  

  Beginnings Page 1 - Beginnings Page 2 - Raid on Tobruk - Appendix & References
  
  TOP