Professor M. R. D. Foot in his official history of the British Special Operations Executive in wartime France describes an 'atmosphere of adventure and daring often with a touch of light opera thrown in'.He records that the initial raid attempt on occupied Europe after Dunkirk resulted in the three British participants having to row home. (It took thirteen hours.) Churchill called it a 'foolish fiasco'.Plans to drop the first parachutist agent into France were marred by his last-moment refusal to jump. A later raider dropped on the roof of a police station. A third, a Frenchman, jumped and then quietly went home to his wife for the remainder of the war. Another parachutist hung in a tree all through a dark night, to discover at dawn that his feet were inches from the ground. Peter Churchill was horrified to have ebullient and noisy Frenchmen, like football supporters, taking him to a rendezvous at a secret air strip.Agents, not infrequently, spoke imperfect French, or none at all. One, questioned by the Gestapo on a train, and unable to speak French, pretended to be a dolt and got away with it.
