Военная телеграфистка и переводчица, работавшая с норвежским Сопротивлением
WAAF telegraphist and translator who worked with the Norwegian Resistance
As a young woman, “Gusta” Green — as she was known since childhood — undertook a dangerous wartime enterprise for which her parochial North Country upbringing appeared to provide scant preparation. Yet she rose not just to the risks of living in German-occupied Norway but also to the hazards of being taken there by submarine and being twice evacuated via Sweden.
Sigrid Augusta Green was born in 1920 in Darwen, Lancashire, the only daughter of Stafford Green, who owned a small business furnishing mill machinery and supplies, and his Norwegian-born wife Sigrid, née Svenssen. Gusta was brought up to be bilingual in English and Norwegian, matriculated from Darwen Grammar School in 1938 and read English at Manchester University until leaving on the outbreak of war to join the Civil Defence organisation in her home town.
The war began in earnest for her in October 1940, when a lone Luftwaffe bomber machine-gunned Darwen High Street before bombing and destroying the building containing her father’s business. He survived, but as a result of the incident Gusta resolved to take on a more active role in the conflict. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and qualified as a wireless telegraphist.
Whether her posting to RAF Rednal in Shropshire, where a squadron of the Royal Norwegian Air Force was based, was a coincidence or an imaginative move by her posting officer is uncertain; suffice to say that her ability to speak to the airmen in their own language was picked up by the station commander, and she was summoned for interview in London.
By the spring of 1943 the delivery of tanks, weapons and war supplies to Russia by sea round the North Cape was well established, but the loss rate had become untenable. Only 13 of the 36 merchantmen that sailed with Convoy PQ 17 in June 1942 reached Russian ports, and 210 aircraft, 430 tanks, more than 3,000 vehicles and almost 100,000 tons of war cargo were lost. Better intelligence was needed about German naval sailings from the northern Norwegian coast.
Communications with “Milorg” (Military Organisation) , the Norwegian Resistance, were patchy and the organisation was receiving mixed messages from different agencies in Britain: the Norwegian government in exile, the British Secret Intelligence Service, the Special Operations Executive and Naval Intelligence. It was the last named that decided to dispatch Gusta to Norway with a suitcase radio transceiver.
With instructions to encode and transmit to England intelligence on German naval movements gathered by Milorg agents situated along the northern Norwegian coast, Gusta was sent to Scotland, then to Scapa Flow and finally to Lerwick in Shetland. From there she was taken by submarine and, after being kept in the captain’s cabin for the entire voyage, was brought to the conning tower to embark in a rowing boat tossing alongside the outward curving hull.
In her characteristic direct manner she demanded of Hans Rönning of Milorg, who had come out from the coast to meet her, why he hadn’t come in a motor boat. He explained that silence was essential because of the German watch along the shore and then helped to row her towards a faint and distant light onshore.
She was moved inland to the region between Bergen and Stavanger. Subsequently, although she was never told how, intelligence on German naval sailings provided by Milorg residents in the north reached her swiftly for encoding and transmission to London. Using her codename Nora for local and Milorg contacts, she kept as low a profile as possible. Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi who had taken control of the Oslo Government in February 1942, had his informers in every town, however small; there were more than 300,000 German occupation troops in the country and the Gestapo were everywhere.
Recalled to London after three months, she was passed from one safe house to another along an escape line into Sweden, then flown home in a Mosquito aircraft registered to the British Overseas Airways Corporation that was flown to Stockholm to collect ball bearings essential for the British aircraft industry. Earlier in the war this trade had been conducted by motor torpedo boats, which used their agility to slip through the Skagerrak between Denmark and Norway, but the introduction of the high-speed Mosquito proved more effective. Gusta travelled in the converted bomb bay, which she later described as “absolutely freezing cold”.
Provided with new codes, she returned via Stockholm in a civilian-registered and unarmed Mosquito, again in the converted bomb bay, and a different route back into Norway. The value of the intelligence transmitted by Gusta was proved by the reluctance of the German Admiral Raeder to risk his warships against the stronger convoy escorts provided after early 1944.
Gusta returned to England by Mosquito in mid-1944 but her contribution to the war effort was not over. After debriefing, she was reassigned the Bletchley Park radio intercept and decoding centre in Buckinghamshire as a telegraphist-translator. Her parents died without ever knowing of either of her wartime roles, believing she had spent the war in England.
On demobilisation, she secured permission to study in Norway and on return to England began work in Blackburn Royal Infirmary, eventually taking charge of the X-ray department.
She remained unmarried; her wartime RAF fiancé having been shot down and killed in 1942.
Augusta Green, WAAF telegraphist and translator, was born on December 3, 1920. She died on October 12, 2012, aged 91
Воевал на торпедных катерах на Адриатике, потопил или повредил 21 цель
Coastal Forces officer who commanded a motor torpedo boat in the Adriatic, where his flotilla managed to sink or immobilise 21 ships
Standing 6ft 6in tall, John Collins was always known as Tim, a name derived from his naval sobriquet Tiny Tim and which followed him throughout a gallant war record to successful subsequent careers in business and racehorse ownership.
Soon after his birth in 1923, his health prompted his family to return from South Africa to Birmingham where his father set up a business as a furrier. Tim flourished at school and obtained a place at Birmingham University, but the outbreak of war saw him volunteer for the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was called up in 1941, selected for officer training at HMS King Alfred and in 1942 appointed to Coastal Forces, joining a motor gun boat then being built in Devon.
He took part in army support operations along the North African coast, subsequently joining, as second-in-command, a 70ft Vosper motor torpedo boat (MTB) based initially at Malta and then Sicily. During attacks against enemy forces in the Straits of Messina he was slightly wounded and spent time in hospital in Tunisia.
By November 1943 Collins had rejoined his flotilla which was based at Bari on the east coast of the heel of Italy. This port was packed with shipping in support of the 8th Army’s drive to the north and was considered to be pretty safe from attack by a much depleted Luftwaffe. This judgment was shown to be catastrophically wrong on December 2 when a surprise night attack by 105 Junkers 88 bombers from Luftflotte 2 sank 28 ships.
Many of the 1,000 casualties were caused by fire, after petrol from a fractured bulk pipeline flooded into the harbour; further damage was caused by the explosions of two ammunition ships which shattered windows seven miles away. But the worst effect was caused by the mustard gas bombs carried in the American Liberty ship John Harvey. Of doubtful legality, these were intended to be used in retaliation should the Germans employ chemical weapons.
Mixed with oil, the gas had a devastating effect on anyone swimming in the harbour, producing blisters and burns. Collins and another Coastal Forces officer, Lieutenant Claude Holloway (obituary, June 8, 2012), were among those who leapt in to help survivors and thus were badly affected with mysterious symptoms that baffled medical staff. By the end of the month 83 of the 628 hospitalised military victims had died. The presence of mustard gas was at first concealed but the number of witnesses forced the US high command in February 1945 to admit to the accident and to deny the intention to be the first users of gas in war. For his bravery, Collins was appointed MBE.
In early 1945 he was able to rejoin the 28th Flotilla which had been re-equipped with powerful radar-fitted American boats. Commanding MTB 406, he took part in a series of fierce actions in the Adriatic where this flotilla chalked up a remarkable record, firing 51 torpedoes to sink or immobilise 21 ships. Collins was awarded the DSC and Bar.
At the end of the war in Europe, Collins was appointed Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Pridham-Wippell, C-in-C Plymouth, where he met his first wife, Gillian Smith, a Wren officer.
He was demobilised in 1946 and chose to join his father-in-law’s bank, Morgan Grenfell. His career in banking included a year in New York working for JP Morgan and a firm in Canada. He became a director of the Hudson’s Bay Company and subsequently a director of Morgan Grenfell in 1957.
He was noted for his excellent memory — it was said that while others would be burdened by files and briefcases, Collins would consult rough notes on the back of a bus ticket He succeeded Sir John Stevens as chairman of Morgan Grenfell Holdings from January 1974. Other appointments included director and chairman of Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Group until 1988, director of Rank Hovis McDougall, chairman of Oxfordshire St John’s, High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire. Friends knew him as a man of few words, modest to the point of shyness, but with an ability to carry board members with him.
His death was much remarked in the horseracing world. He was one of the key figures in the rescue of Cheltenham racecourse from property developers. He was an enthusiastic owner of several racehorses; his best was the two-mile chaser Remittance Man, which won 15 races.
His wife Gillian died in 1981. In 1986 he married Jennifer Cubitt. He is survived by her, the son and daughter of his first marriage and the two stepdaughters of his second.
Lieutenant John Collins, MBE, DSC and Bar, Coastal Forces officer and chairman of Morgan Grenfell Holdings, was born on April 24, 1923. He died on September 4, 2012, aged 89
'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'
