Airey Neave (1916–1979)

Fact is once again stronger than fiction. I ploughed my way through 500 pages of Kristin Hannah's bloated and overrated novel about two sisters in the French Resistance, The Nightingale, only to find out that the least credible character in the novel, Isabelle, is based on the real life Belgian resistance heroine Andrée de Jongh. After reading former MI9 agent Airey Neave's swift and delightful biography of de Jongh and the agents of the Comet Line, I also realised that Hannah has somehow show more managed to crib heavily from the life of 'Dédée' (Andrée's code name), down to her idolism of Edith Cavell and working with her father, while somehow stripping her fictional account of any credibility or character. Quite an achievement!

Derivative novels aside, I wish I had read about Andrée de Jongh in the first place. Her story, even told in that breathless 1950s style ("They were a strange pair: the great, powerful, illiterate man of the mountains, with his reverence for cognac and his indifference to fatigue and danger, and the quiet, tenacious Dédée") is far more exciting than the purple prose of a novel - when the Comet Line is infiltrated - twice - and the agents are at risk of arrest, my heart was in my throat! There were also a couple of amusing anecdotes which I would have enjoyed reading about in a story, such as 'Operation Water Closet', where men being lead to safety were passed through the men's toilets at a station to avoid detection. No wonder that the men rescued by the Line felt that 'they were in the hands of some Scarlet Pimpernel organisation'!

Andrée de Jongh was only 24 when she first bravely escorted a downed Scottish airman over the Pyrenees to safety in Spain, and by the time she was arrested and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1943, she and countless other agents had saved the lives of nearly two hundred men, and the incredible feats of the Comet Line continued in her name until the end of the war. She was fearless and determined, a tomboy who 'shone at a moment of challenge and then receded to a modest corner', not a Hollywood cliche. Incredibly, she survived the war, living to the ripe old age of 90, and her story is almost too fantastic to be true, but still more credible than the insultingly trite spin on her life in The Nightingale! I recommend reading about real life accounts of bravery instead. show less

Subtitled 'The Inside Story of Underground Escape Lines in Europe in 1940-1945' - this pretty much tells you what to expect. This is an enjoyable and interesting read, if written in a somewhat staid writing style. The opening chapters see the author (a future Conservative MP & shadow minister in the 1970s under Thatcher - before being assassinated by an IRA bomb in 1979) - explain a little of the setting up of, or rather the lack of, an organised escape coordination unit in London at the show more war's start. Neave then subsequently covers, in the most modest of ways, how he managed along with a Dutch officer, to become the first successful British escapee from the notorious Colditz Castle.

After briefly enjoying his freedom in Switzerland and being told by the British Legation there that he is to jump the queue (there were nine other successful British escapees from assorted POW camps ahead of him!) and 'escape' again - this time to Gibraltar, via neutral Spain and unoccupied Vichy France - in order to rendez-vous in London.

Safely home he is assigned to British Intelligence School Number 9 (the IS9(d) team within MI9 referred to thereafter in the book as "Room 900"). MI9 was tasked with aiding resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory and recovering Allied troops who found themselves behind enemy lines. It also communicated with British prisoners of war. IS9(d)was its more secret and executive branch. Based in two rooms at the War Office in Whitehall - including Room 900 - it was concerned chiefly with facilitating escape and evasion.

Neave tells of his first meeting with MI9's commander Brigadier Crockatt:

"...friendly and relaxed. I could imagine him twenty years earlier. He was of the generation of 1914 and Mons. Behind his smile, there was a look of resignation I had seen before.
He asked me for stories of life in prisoner-of-war camps.
I told him eagerly that in one camp, so it was said, the prisoners tunneled and emerged by mistake in the Kommandant's wine cellar, which was full of rare and expensive wines. The Kommandant was a connoisseur and often asked the local nobility to dinner.
The prisoners managed to extricate over a hundred bottles, drank them, put back the corks and labels after refilling them - I paused - with an unmentionable liquid.
Crockatt laughed. 'We must tell that to Winston'."

Codenamed 'Saturday', the author recollects how he was tasked with co-ordinating the various means of briefing and training new agents with their missions of establishing escape routes across the Pyrenees to Spain, or through occupied France or Belgium to the coast where clandestine return to England could be arranged.
The book is full of tales of extreme bravery on the part of those resistance workers and all sorts of civilians who regularly would risk their lives to aid the Allied cause. There are episodes of betrayal and deception galore, and Neave includes several helpful footnotes to highlight other relevant books to refer to covering similar material (many sadly now out of print, but not all).

Despite the exciting and fascinating subject matter, Neave's writing style is a little understated and rather dry. The book actually became a less interesting read to me on occasions, and I couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty at reading so casually about the immense acts of courage being described. Overall though a book well worth reading if you have any interest in this lesser known subject area within Second World War history. show less

As a historical document, this is the least satisfying of the many books about Nuremberg I have read. Neave makes no excuses for his feelings toward the accused: "...I was contemptuous of men like Keitel and Funk. I was cold toward those Nazis whom I personally disliked, especially Albert Speer.... Only towards those vile men, Hans Frank and Julius Streicher, was I openly hostile."

And why not? "For me [the trial] had brought a strange reversal of fortune by which the escaped prisoner of war show more was set in authority over Goering and the other men in the dock."

While his is a unique viewpoint, the reader must recognize that his war experiences (he was the first British officer to successfully escape Colditz prison, among other adventures) inevitably color his view of the proceedings in a way unlike those writers whose wars were perhaps a little less personal. With that caveat, the book is certainly worth reading.

Neave was assassinated shortly after the book's publication in 1979 in a car-bomb attack at the House of Commons. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) claimed responsibility. show less

At the age of 29, the author served the Allied indictments on the 21 leading Germans awaiting trial at Nuremberg. In this book he wrote his personal record of the 1945-6 trials. As well as giving the highlights of the trials themselves, he provides short biographies of each of the accused.

A fascinating book! Neave obviously has his own prejudices that seem to be connected with his public school upbringing: the security and manliness of the stiff upper lip and fear of weakness. But, his show more counter-transference to the accused Nazis is fascinating. He accurately describes their psychic defences and attempts to deal with both defeat and the destruction of their ideal: Hitler and a strong and superior Germany. show less