The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 50 No.3 | Dec 2023

Local Group Programmes

Contact: Tony Sinclair Tel: 07518 183211 winchester@hgs-online.org.uk

Winchester

Meetings are normally at 7:15pm on 3rd Thursdays in the Littleton Millennium Hall.

(July) At the July the speaker, David Bickerton brought to life his parent’s experiences of WWII through the discovery of their letters to each other. Don & Linda Bickerton had quite different roles. She was in the WAAF - known as unsung heroines - and he was in the Royal Navy. His expertise was with Motor Launches and this took him to the invasion of French North Africa in November 1942. Don’s experiences took him to Italy and the Axis Surrender which involved taking 275,000 prisoners. The correspondence was more about the social side of the war whilst Linda was involved in Operation Overlord. He did talk about being at Anzio when Rome was liberated in June 1944. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was set up to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe during the Second World War. Churchill gave the orders to set Europe ablaze. The aim was to stir up the local population against the Nazis, but they were classed as Secret Agents not Spies. Churchill’s aim was to bring all background groups into one to damage the Nazis. The Headquarters was in Baker Street and worked with Governments in exile. They organised parachute drops of weapons and other equipment to help the Resistance to fight back against the Germans when the moment of liberation came. The agents had to have good knowledge of countries and were trained in Beaulieu. A highly secret operation in the New Forest gave cover to what was going on in some of the large houses on the Beaulieu estate. They were taught silent killing as well as parachute skills and the uses of radios and morse code. Both men and women learnt the same skills. Different nationalities were trained there but they did not mix! There were 175 staff employed at the Finishing School with a mirror school set up in Canada just in case the UK school was lost. The Germans knew of Beaulieu and named it “The Gangster School”. Guy Burgess and Kim Philby were there to teach mind games to undermine the German troops’ morale. Nick told of how the training involved breaking into Palace House & removing something like a cheque but not leaving any sign of entry! Over 3000 agents were trained there. He went on to talk about Noor Inayat Khan who was a pacifist but joined the WAAF and agreed to go to France to help the French. She recruited women to go into a combat role but didn’t find this easy as she was brought up not to tell lies. Her messages were very long with (September) Beaulieu Finishing School 1940 – 1946 – Nick Saunders It was a great pleasure to welcome Nick to the September meeting.

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