Secret War: The Belgian Hit List | Free Documentary History

[Applause] [Music] Edwin Hardy Amy British style icon celebrated fashion [Music] designer friend of the Queen a famous name on saval R but as a young man he was also one of Britain's most unlikely spy masters with a secret wartime past Hardy Ames would always deny it but now we can reveal for the first time the truth about how he masterminded a ruthless campaign of assassinations he worked for S soe the Special Operations executive Winston Churchill's secret army Amy sent agents into occupied [Music] Belgium and played a deadly game against a brutal enemy he worked with the resistance to eliminate what ever stood in the way of Liberty including some of the Germans most feier [Music] agents you need only one shot one well Place shot now we can open the official files and show for the first time the role played by this most unlikely Soldier and just how far he was prepared to go [Music] Hardy Amy was born in 1909 in maav veale London the son of a civil servant his mother was a saleswoman for a clothing firm before the war he worked in various fashion houses and ran a textile Factory in Germany in the [Music] 1930s there he saw Nazism On The Rise but politics didn't interest the flamboyant Fashionista Amy was having the time of his life his career was taking off by 1934 he was designed director at Fashion firm less and he mingled with Hollywood stars like Ginger [Music] Rogers the one thing that risked undoing everything was his personal life Hardy Ames was gay something that was illegal at the [Music] [Music] time but the war changed everything for everyone as Britain stood alone in 1940 40 Hardy Ames was called up for officer training this most unmilitary man found himself in uniform orbe it a tailored one soon he was serving as a captain in the intelligence [Music] Corp Amy spoke fluent French and impeccable German and his business skills meant he was an efficient organizer this skill set quickly came to the attention of a shadowy organization that used the seemingly Bal title of M1 brackets [Music] SP but this was cover the organization was the Special Operations executive or S [Music] soe its mission was to break all the rules rules of warfare Churchill gave it the order to set Europe Ablaze using Guerilla tactics sabotage and propaganda s soe also set up resistance networks throughout occupied Europe it employed numerous spies sabur and trained killers [Music] its recruits were taught to kill with their bare hands to parachute into enemy [Music] territory operate radios and place explosives it didn't recruit in a conventional way um it chose linguists it chose Patriots um it shows people who in the conventional jargon of the of today thought outside the box and an awful lot of people were confining their thoughts very much inside the box in the early part of the war Amy was just such a free thinker and so s soe came calling his personnel file shows what an exemplary if particular recruit he [Music] was this officer has done very well on the course he is far tougher both physically and mentally than his rather precious appearance would [Music] suggest then in November 1941 he went into action he was sent to London to work in t-section of s [Music] soe t-section was in charge of Belgium its job was to strike of the enemy in the occupied [Music] country Amy quickly found himself planning and executing missions into Belgium he also supervised training and recruiting of t-section Agents but Amy's flamboyant side and charm always showed through this docu lists a series of Shakespearean code names to which Amy has added what a wonderful cast May I do the [Music] costumes despite the levity Ames was involved in a deadly game he planned in detail the parachuting in of waves of Belgian [Music] agents and the clandestine Landing of radio operators between July 1941 and October 1942 45 agents many selected by Ames went into Belgium their mission was to make contact with men like Marcel frankon a young Belgian determined to strike back at [Music] Germany for Marcel frankon taking on a ruthless well-armed opponent was an enormous task it was hard to know how to hit back at such an enemy so he welcomed the help of s soe but Hardy Ames was soon running into trouble t-section was finding it hard to make contact with men like Marcel frankon and it was dealt a number of severe blows throughout 1941 and 1942 despite sending over 40 agents into Belgium the section was failing because in Belgium Amy faced a formidable enemy the Germans were firmly in control the well organized counter Espionage system was waiting for his agents it excelled at catching s soe spies and breaking up their resistance networks there were uh two main German Services who were active against the networks there was first the ab who was fighting the Allied intelligence but there was also the gimel poit who was active directly against the networks to protect uh the Army against uh the spies but also against [Music] saboter these German units were especially skilled at targeting s soe's Achilles heel the radio whose signals were easily intercepted and [Music] tracked special detection units from the secret police were listening out for S soe radio operators every time you use it you can be detected by the funk AB so the section of the ab specialized in the detection of the uh clandestine radios uh so the first radio operators uh were very soon arrested by the [Music] fun the Germans locked up many of these agents radio operators here at the notorious sanil prison in central Brussels the code names of the agents they they caught are a roll call for the early failures of t-section and Hardy Ames agent intersection caught March [Music] 1942 Terrier caught April [Music] 1942 balaclava caught May [Music] 1942 sometimes the Germans did something even more Sinister they turned some of these captured agents then they used their radio sets to contact London and so disinformation one in particular would become notorious in t-section armor compion he was used by the Germans from early 1942 he duped t-section for months requests were radio to London for more weapons money and agents to be sent by Parachute only to be dispatched straight into a [Music] trap what's more Belgium was crawling with fascist [Music] sympathizers volunteers ready to hunt down resistors or spies and often they had an added incentive money [Music] these paid informers caused havoc and one Nazi sympathizer and active agent on the German payroll became Infamous Prosper Desa d was the ab's number one Belgian agent he had served in the Canadian Air Force in 1918 been charged with rape and embezzlement and even done time in Belgium he was a nasty piece of [Music] work after the invasion of Belgium he worked for the Germans masquerading as an Allied Soldier or Airman he infiltrated resistance networks and Escape lines that were set up to smuggle down air crew and agents out of Belgium and he was good at his [Music] job this man had an extraordinary capacity to inspire trust and to present himself like autic resistor some people say that because of the action of prosper desit and his collaborators about 1,000 resistor were arrested Marcel franken's small group of resistors would encounter Desa to their cost [Music] Desa infiltrated an escape line that Marcel's group often used then again in June 1943 Marcel franken's friends in the resistance came across Desa this house in Ru Jean vanm in Excel housed another resistance cell from franken's group led by Marcel demoso it was busy planning an assassination attempt on Leon deg the Belgian fascist leader but the Germans were tipped off by Desa the resulting battle went on for hours eventually the Germans captured the safe house and most of the [Music] occupants everyone would be executed including Marcel demoso whom they captured a month [Music] later [Music] back in London Amy and his colleagues were in despair the Germans were winning 32 s soe agents had been captured we still over and over Desa had hindered Amy's [Music] plans first an elaborate propaganda Mission an S soe agent set up a news service with London using carrier pigeons to send out copies of Belgian [Music] newspapers Desa busted the network then he hindered a boy's own s soe plan for two agents who were pilots to to steal an me1100 night fighter from a Nazi Airfield now it was getting personal amies wanted toit's head s soe was desperate for a solution to the situation that could turn the tide so they decided to do something about [Music] [Applause] it they plan to Stage a wave of assassinations across Mainland Europe Europe including in Belgium in June 1943 a top level s soe planning committee meeting took place the men present plotted the operation and set a start date October the 1st minutes from the meeting State execution campaign the council considered a paper recommending a concerted campaign against SS and gapo officials The Proposal was accepted but should for the most part be confined to civilian officials rather than [Music] soldiers news of the assassination operation soon began to filter through to all Departments of s soe this was Hardy am's chance to get desit his Target would be the collaborators and sympathizers who helped the Nazis to rule the operation was renamed rat week it was ready to be put into action a call went out to all country sections to identify targets for assassination all Ames had to do first was get it approved by the Belgian government in Exile led by Uber pello pello government was made up of politicians who had fled their Homeland in the chaos of 1940 it was beveled by infighting everyone had their own agenda when it came to intelligence the belgians had two agencies based in London the C the civilian intelligence service and its military rival the dim SE all this made for confusion nothing could be done in Belgium without the say so of these different groups so Amy turned on the charm and threw himself into the mission letters flew back and forth between his department and the Belgian government via its representative Idis FL and Amy began to show just how far he had come from flamboyant fashion designer to ruthless spy Master August 1943 copy to idz floor it is proposed to hold a so-called rat week in all the occupied countries when a certain number of quislings are to disappear could you please create a list of possible candidates yours major H Amy when the belgians stalled an increasingly impatient Ames began to press for a [Music] response am I to understand that your authorities do not want our boys to participate the matter is really getting very urgent all across Europe all other governments had granted their approval for the assassinations Amy was under [Music] pressure it was about to get worse in August Amy was promoted he became acting head of t-section with the new post the personal burden on Amy to get the belgians to play ball mounted yet further rat week in Belgium depended on him at the same time A Familiar name cropped up in s soe correspondence in a letter from MI5 it ratcheted up the tension still more the letter showed that MI5 also needed Amy to take out Desa would you please refer to my letter of the 19th of August 1943 referring to the notorious Belgian Prosper Desa I would be very interested if you would let me know how the matter now stands in particular with regard to Desa and whether or not your proposed rat week has taken place then a bombshell from the Belgian government in Exile Amy received a letter from his Belgian contact refusing to allow the rat week hits on collaborators or quislings including [Music] Dita my authority do not for the time being think it advisable to take special measures against belgians collaborating with the Enemy this would involve too many difficulties the difficulties they feared were reprisals the Germans were notorious for murdering civilians across Europe in any area where sabotage or Espionage occurred their reaction was even more aggressive if one of their own a soldier or an agent was killed the Belgian government in Exile feared such a bloodbath and wouldn't budge they stuck to a belief in judicial process lists of traitors are being made up with a view to meeting out to them their just sentence after the war by late October the official deadline had passed and Amy seemed [Music] defeated I am sorry the Belgian authorities will not allow us to carry out rat week as originally intended it looked as if Zita and others like him were safe there the story of rat week appeared to end on the surface it seemed it had been a failure but it appears that Hardy Ames would not let the belgians stop him he turned to his top agent Andre J wendelin wendelin was a t-section star who had volunteered to return to Belgium he was in Belgium on a mission with another Agent P leaderer their mission was to establish links with Belgian resistance [Music] groups Amy to send wendelin a top secret weapon from s soe's inventory one that had been specifically designed for assassination and that had been IR marked for rat [Music] week it was called The Well Rod it had been designed specifically to kill enemies of the state or anyone who was a nuisance to S soe the pistol was affectionately known as the bicycle pump or assassin's pistol critically if it fell into enemy hands it couldn't be traced the well Rod is what's described as a sterile weapon it had no there were no numbers there no maker names on it um there was nothing to indicate who had made it or or or be able to make it traceable the Royal Belgian Military Museum was Beed one of these rare weapons 20 years ago by former members of the Belgian resistance yes certainly uh this the keeper of firearms Paul dufo shows just what a useful killing machine it really was the way to to load a well Rod pistol is the same as for a normal so-called automatic pistol put from one to seven cartridges in the magazine and then put the magazine in two places as you can see the magazine is also the handle of the pistol to load the pistol or to make it ready to fire just push the bolt forwards and you just turn the back of the bolt to close it completely and handle the pistol being sure that the safety behind the handle is well pushed forward and just pull the trigger like [Music] that the design of the well Rod made it the perfect weapon for a discrete execution because it was silent the main purpose of course is to kill ins silent inside the tube you have uh rather important quantities of washers like that between the washers you have a rubber washer and the ballet while passing through the HS is of course leaving the barrel quicker than the sound which is kept inside the tube and that's the purpose of this silencer is is to delay The Sounds coming out of the tube the choice of caliber for the well Rod was also a deliberate design [Music] decision the 765 Browning has a muzzle speed of about 900 ft per second and we can say that uh in a device like the uh well Rod pistol it could be subsonic that's very important for a silence pistol like that to uh be used to kill people without making too much noise the only thing you will hear is the firing pin and the bullet stopping into some body or something [Music] November 1943 Amy was ready to send in the well rods the mission was called tible 2 his plan was backed up by the head of operations for S [Music] soe it is far better to send the five well rods and let them do what they can a handwritten message on the back of the note makes no Illusions as to what TI's mission was tibble the pistols are intended for the elimination of your enemies let us know as soon as you have any [Music] results even though well rods did make it into Belgium no one can be certain that these or later batches were used to kill collaborators most police records were destroyed in the last months of the [Music] war but what is clear is that a lot of killing did occur in 1943 and 1944 and Marcel frankon was involved his small group of sabur ended up working as an action Squad with the front pons a group of communist inspired partisans was [Music] aot Marcel's job was specific it was to kill anyone working against the group [Music] back in London amies was eager to impress his superiors he explained that groups like The frond of lond pons have been extremely busy a rat weak memo of the time talks of a collaborator being arrested interrogated and shot through the nape of the neck then as rat we continued even better news filtered out of Belgium more violence and retribution had been kned out Nazi sympathizers pro-nazi activists and rexist politicians were killed it lists the murders Amy was able to show more results and placed it under the heading rat week it was a success for the dress maker spy and even when it was officially over the killing [Music] continued as 1943 turned to 1944 m s franken's group continued to execute any collaborators they could [Music] find in [Music] for even now decades later Marcel frankon feels no [Music] remorse suem but one person who had so far managed to elude the killings was the number one target Desa however a new s soe agent Francois mat had him in his [Applause] sights mat was sent to Belgium in early 1944 he was to make contact with Marcel franken's group and coordinate their [Music] activities he took with him two weapons they had to choose which weapon they they will bring with them they they're free to choose and I found choose a little uh 380 automatic C because it's small and concealable and a Well Road it was to be used to kill people because it's not a weapon for wi it's a weapon to eliminate [Music] something and so one night mat decided to make his move on zit because the Z was known as being very often in a dancing Place uh in the center of brisen so it was decided to to [Music] act he sted out the location for hours but Desa never showed it seemed AA had got away with his crimes once again despite this Amy and his men managed to transform the overall picture in Belgium throughout 1943 and [Music] 1944 they had turned the page on their early [Music] failures in November 1943 Brussels newspaper Vans delivered the daily editions of lir but the resistance had been at work and replaced the Nazi sponsored Edition with a resistance printed version bearing articles ridiculing the Nazis it was a magnificent propaganda [Music] success sabotage of operations and armed attacks were also on the increase and Marcel frankon was in the thick of it for resistors blow up supplies of oil and fuel locomotives and barges they also blow up factories and cut communication lines Group G another prominent resistance organization was especially active its great achievement it sabotaged the entire Belgian high tension electricity [Music] Network the resistance with s soe's guidance was managing to harass the Germans on a daily basis and turn the tables and soon Amy would be at the heart of one of the most successful stories of s soe wartime activity and a masterful t-section operation Operation Overlord was the planned Allied invasion of Mainland Europe by the of 1944 it was clear to everyone even the Germans that it was coming so the Allied Supreme command needed the resistance in Mainland Europe to ramp up its sabotage and harassment operations Behind Enemy Lines in the days before D-Day they swung into action the US Army Air Force joined the ra F in dropping more and more weapons to S soe agents as sabotage operations escalated still [Music] further Amy's t-section was deeply involved hundreds of canisters of arms were dropped into [Music] Belgium and soon his involvement would go far [Music] deeper on June the 6th 1944 the Allies finally attacked the beaches of Normandy it was the greatest amphibious operation ever undertaken in the weeks after D-Day the Allies pushed further into France but eventually the advanc slowed supplies couldn't keep up with demand all the Allies badly needed was deep water ports at the close of the war the Germans Institute a program of of demolitions their aim as they withdrew towards the Reich was to destroy anything that might be of use to the Allies this included ports and railways in France for example after the Normandy Landings The retreating Germans had rendered virtually all Port equipment unusable the Allies were now vulnerable everything hinged on the capture of the last major port left antp antp was critical it was the key port now if we captured antp intact if the the cranes and the uh the infrastructure was in one piece it allowed us to reinforce the the troops in Northwest Europe so Amy and his agents were given the mission of protecting antp t-section was at the heart of an S soe Plan called counter Scorch counters Scorch involved using resistance groups under s soe control to prevent the destruction of this vital strategic Target Amy sent in two wireless operators they helped resistance teams notably from Group G to defend the port the two agents kept the men at the Port informed and supplied with regular drops of weapons and ammunition as well as detailed instructions as Allied ground troops approached in early September 1944 any German attempted to destroy the cranes or docks was robustly seen [Music] [Applause] off anp's Port was held it was a massive success amazingly ANP was taken almost intact the whole Port system of canals and docks fell undestroyed into Allied [Music] [Applause] hands the saving of antb Port enabled supplies to continue to flow to the advancing Allied armies Belgium was liberated in nearly a week [Applause] [Music] now came the chance for [Music] Retribution in concert with Amy resistance forces came out of hiding to police the Handover when the Allies arrived and the word went out to catch The Wanted Man Prosper Desa Amy's former fo was tracked down imprisoned and then executed in Brussels 4 years later it was a Triumph for Amy and the Belgian resistance Eisenhower praised their work in an open letter they can be justly proud of having by their devoted heroism contributed so largely to The Liberation of their beloved [Music] Homeland Hardy Ames was now sent to Brussels he was promoted to leftenant Colonel and for 6 months headed an soe Mission designed to wind down the resistance networks he had helped [Music] create it was a personal moment of Glory for the dress maker from made [Music] veale [Music] after the war Hardy Ames went back to the Glamorous world of fashion with a wealthy co-investor he set up the label that bears his name Amy then penned countless designs for Queen Elizabeth II and became her couturier but all memory of his role in Rat week and the wider successes and failures of t-section seemed to be conveniently forgotten in fact Hardy Amy rarely acknowledged his part in s soe or the details of its Belgian missions if approached about rat week he simply told people sorry our boy I don't know anything about it Hardy Amy was knighted in 1989 and it was only after his death that some of the truth about this dress maker spy surprising past began to [Music] emerge [Music] [Applause] [Music] he

Channel: Free Documentary - History

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, History Documentary, World War Two, World War Two Documentary, Secret War Documentary, WWII, Second World War Documentary, Special Operations Executive, Irregular Warfare, Sabotage Missions, World War Two Commandos, Commandos, Secret Warfare, Espionage WW2, OSS, Office of Strategic Services

Id: yE-xCuBPm1Y

Length: 49min 12sec (2952 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 24 2023