Chapter 56: All Flags Flying

[twigsnapper]

Trickfox,

As you can see, I still can't spell. Thankyou for the definition. That pretty much says it.

twigsnapper

[Trickfox]

DID ANYONE NOTICE something about the stories in this forum?
We have Mr. O'Riley from Ireland (most likely) Then we have Mr. O'Leary also probably from the same area. Both are involved in intelligence gathering and or personal body guard duties. Both of them know Peter Wright and understand the Stephenson connection. Both were knowledgeable of the woman involved in the Nazi infiltration in France.

I think Grinder noticed it too.
We be left wondering if they are one and the same somehow???

Maybe they are just friends

One thing is for sure... The light of day must shine upon the real names of these heros who still hide in the shadow fifty years later.

Trickfox

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

So, Mr. Twigsnapper.

Is there still a "Caroline Section D" in operation?
Still a program going forward no matter what the difficulties? Still on thier own schedule? Whatever that might be?

And the other thing I really noticed after thinking hard about the way all of that action in the last chapter came down. The Military was ready to " write Dr. Brown off" but the Caroline Group obviously was not about to leave their men .... dead or alive ....... behind.

And as quiet as they seem to be about. They do seem to "look after their own" and the families involved.

And its a long term situation? Wouldn't it be a temptation to some individuals to take advantage of that situation? I mean, if you have a "group" behind you that obviously is well funded wouldn't it be sort of human nature to want more and more and more for yourself. Big house, fancy cars, big bank account? Elizabeth

[grinder]

You lost me for a moment Trickfox but I can see that both of us have been studying up on the resistance movement. I am not sure that Paul has mentioned the Patrick Oleary group , or " ring" or " circuit" or whatever they called it. If he did I will have to go back and look at it again. I know that I did some reading up on the woman that our Twigsnapper/ORiley apparently worked with occasionally. The Gestapo called her the " White Mouse" and while reading about her I noted that she belonged to the "Patrick OLeary" network. They had to have known each other rather well. Our Twigsnapper has mentioned that this lady had great legs. Which is something he apparently notices. And he visited her while she was living in Austrailia after the war which tells me that they maintained their friendship. Remember his story about the stallion that the station owner shot? Same visit, want to bet?

What are you thinking Trickfox. That our "Tiwigsnapper" is OLeary? I don't know. Strikes me that setting up an entire resistance movement would have taken more time than Mr. ORiley would have hadjust then. He seems a pretty busy guy. He mentions having a desk job for a short time. Notice this was Before his meeting with Dr. Brown and he apparently was "blowing trains" just before that meeting. But whereever he was he might have gone as an "Admirals "flag"?

My hunch is that they both might be Irish , of course from the names and have connections in the "business" of the resistance. But I think that they are separate individuals. Both doing very important jobs. What else have you found out about OLeary? I might be totally wrong here! Wouldn't be the first time!

This thing about being a "flag" attached to an English Admiral. That apparently gives you one helluvalot of freedom to do things without explaining yourself to anyone. You apparently report only to the Admiral. What a cool spot to be in! grinder

[Paul S.]

am not sure that Paul has mentioned the Patrick Oleary group , or " ring" or " circuit" or whatever they called it. If he did I will have to go back and look at it again.

Don't trouble yourself looking too far for that one, grinder, because I don't recognize the reference, and when I first saw "O'Leary" minute ago my mind went "huh?"

So let me know what you find and then we'll both know something...

--PS

[grinder]

REALLY interesting history here and who is that man standing next to him. Can't be our Mr. Twigsnapper, can it? picture was taken in 1946 I guess and he looks sort of like the character standing with Dr. Brown in Paris in 1956. What do you guys think, or its it wishful thinking on my part?

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Natzweile ... risse.html

Albert Guérisse

PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THE PHOTO IN THE LINK. iT WON'T COPY FOR ME


"One of the most well-known inmates at Natzweiler-Struthof was Albert Guérisse, a medical doctor and a Communist resistance fighter from Belgium. Guérisse was in charge of an escape route for downed Allied pilots, called the PAT line, during World War II. He used the code name Patrick O'Leary, the name of a Canadian friend. In March 1943, Guérisse was arrested in Toulouse after the escape line was infiltrated and betrayed by French collaborator Roger Le Neveu.

Guérisse was first sent to the Neue Bremm prison camp in the German city of Saarbrücken, then to the infamous Class III camp at Mauthausen in Austria; in the summer of 1944 he was an inmate at Natzweiler, along with SOE agents Brian Stonehouse, Robert Sheppard and Ian Kenneth Hopper who went by the name Johnny Hopper. Along with one other SOE agent, they formed a group called the "English Officers."

The SOE was the Special Operations Executive, a British spy organization, which carried on espionage and sabotage operations in France and elsewhere during World War II. The SOE was the model for the US Office of Strategic Services"

WELL. It sure sounds like the company Mr. Twigsnapper was keeping in those days. May I ask sir, what you were doing in 1946? And could that dapper gentleman third from the left and at "Pat O'Learys side" in that photo possibly be you? I see similarities?

then there is this too.
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-her ... _mouse.htm

Escape was not easy. She made six attempts to get out of France by crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. On one of these attempts she was captured by the French Milice (Vichy militia) in Toulouse and interrogated for four days. She held out, refusing to give the Milice any information, and with the help of the legendary 'Scarlet Pimpernel of WWII', Patrick O'Leary, tricked her captors into releasing her.

Finally Wake got across the Pyrenees and from there to Britain. She was on safer ground, but had no news of her husband, who worked separately.


Back to the Fighting
Nancy Wake, then 31, became one of 39 women and 430 men in the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive which worked with local resistance groups to sabotage the Germans in the occupied territories.
She was trained at a British Ministry of Defense camp in Scotland in survival skills, silent killing, codes and radio operation, night parachuting, plastic explosives, Sten guns, rifles, pistols and grenades. She and the other women recruited by the SOE were officially assigned to the First Aid Nursing Yeomantry and the true nature of their work remained a closely guarded secret until after the war."

Mr. Twigsnapper did say that she was pretty good with explosives and I have gathered from what he said about her in Austrailia that when the talk turned to planting flowers in the garden or something like that she and he just smiled at each other, remembering their experiences together.

Damn. Pretty special people.

grinder

[LongboardLOVELY]

Since you have found her by yourselves!

Remember the urging to remember the ladies. Evelyn is one of those. Never got HALF of the credit, no, not even a THIRD of the credit that she deserved. Funny how that sometimes happens in what was at the time a real "mans" world. She did all the work and her boss got the credit. As the girl in Enigma said ......" They get to be agents, and I am a CLERK"

One of her bosses, by the way, was a very bright gentleman by the name of Peter Wright. As Paul knows by now, Peter Wright and Townsend Brown had quite a bit in common. And meetings in a rose garden. twigsnapper

In chapter 41, there's a paragraph in there about Evelyn McBarnet and Grace Garner. I couldn't find much about Evelyn, but there's a whole chapter about Grace in the Biopic, The True Intrepid by Bill Macdonald. I think Paul had referenced the book previously.
I'm in the process of researching Evelyn McBarnet, and wow, what a cookie! She has a great amount of talent, and intelligence. If you knew her, Mr Twigsnapper, I'm truly impressed. She must have been a wonderful lady. Peter Wright, he was the one who wrote Spycatcher. The Queen of England did not want that book published. I wonder why? But it managed to get published anyways. Evelyn worked for Grace, who was the Head Secretary for William Stephenson. She was Canadian as I recall. Was Evelyn Canadian too?

More about Evelyn when I've got something more to write about.

LongboardLOVELY

[grinder]

Thanks LBL, that seems to be the flavor of the moment, remembering the ladies contribution to all of this. I guess its easy to overlook their contributions because the men seem so easy to write about but the women are always right there.

Nancy Wade (the white mouse), Grace Gardner, and now Evelyn McBarnet.
And you should add Josephine to the mix too because while she was in Washington she was working for Stephenson too.

What is the other saying? Behind every successful woman, you will find another woman! So maybe Evelyn and Josephine Brown has a feminine understanding and communication link that they didn't bother to share with others? Maybe Evelyn did let Josephine know that she was in contact with her husband, (She wouldn't have had to divulge anything other than ..." I have seen him .... he is getting better" .... I would think that a wife at home, pregnant and worrying, would be due that bit of information. Only seems fair and maybe thats what her friend would say to herself. And asking Evelyn to put those flowers in his room, maybe was the only way that Josephine could send a message to her husband. she somehow knew and was waiting, Damn. So romantic I can hardly stand it. Blow something up. Its turning into a chick flick. grinder

[Victoria Steele]

I just happened to see the " newest registered member" and the name MARK BEAN is up there.

And you have listed electrogravitics as your interest so you must be the same Mark who put on that demonstration of Townsend Browns "tethered saucers" in Laughlin a few years ago.

Thankyou for doing that! It really got me kicked off in this direction! A fascinating field of research!

So will you be joining the conversations here? I just posted here on the chapters side because I didn't know where else to put this and I figured that you would see this the fastest. Welcome! Victoria

[grinder]

Sorry Paul,

I don't know where to put this comment. I was just rereading some of the posts and I "happened" to run on to this which I thought just seemed somehow important to bring up again

This is from Gabe. June 9, 2006

"I think that sometimes we can become frustrated when we do not have everything we want in front of us. I know as I have watched this project grow and more information concerning Dr. Brown arises I sometimes have wanted to know the whole of everything at once about him and his world, yet I have not taken into consideration that if you do not focus on each piece of the puzzle but rather want to look at the whole puzzle at once you miss the present moment. It is like running through the Smithsonian National art gallary with only an hour to spare in order to be able to see everything at once before that hour is up. In the end you really end up not seeing anything"

that struck me as pretty damned good advice. then he ads

Our minds are created to grasp universals through particulars. In other words our minds have to work step by step to grasp the whole. It is truly frustrating at times. I think in my humble opinion Paul that now is the time to stop for a moment and reflect on what you have been given despite the difficulties involved with finding information on Dr. Brown during a time period that the info runs a bit dry. Nevertheless always keep the goal in mind that you are the map maker who will give the map to the many people in the world who will read this book and be able to dig deeper and add more to the puzzle.

REALLY GOOD ADVICE GABE, THANKS grinder

viewtopic.php?p=1541#1541

[twigsnapper]

There has been much talk Paul about how this forum responds and searches and is almost like some sort of living being intent on helping you with this story. If that is indeed a fact and there is some sort of collective conciousness manifesting itself here then perhaps someone should give it a spot to voice itself.

Odd concept I know, but perhaps if we all had one site where we could post observations like Gabes above, that might just give this conciousness more of a voice. It might pull the scattered vibrations together into a recognizable voice.

Paul? I suggest a new post area for that but I will let you name it. I have a feeling that it might surprise you. Object folks is to search through the forum posts and find little gems of truth or accute observation ( like Gabes which grinder just found) and then put them in one place under one heading . Sort of like an Easter egg hunt. And just see what moves to develop. Its a strange request but could you do that? twigsnapper

[kevin.b]

For those of you that have been actively involved all along, it is different for those like myself that just popped up half way through.
I cant absorb all the past details and links, and cant find a method of doing this?
As the book is been compiled in this strange electronic way, would it not be an idea to have an area that provides an index and bibliography section which would grow in the same manner as the rest of the book is doing?
You would presumably have to compile this at some point, so why not now and let it grow and develop .
Then any relevant name or site that is mentioned could be quickly cross referenced and the relevant paragraph etc found?
I dont know if any software is available that would provide quick links to names etc included in the book, but if there is one , or if a google link could be established then everyone could be cross referencing far faster and know what has been mentioned and discussed previously, with these forums THINGS just dissappear under pages of postings.
Kevin

[Paul S.]

Object folks is to search through the forum posts and find little gems of truth or accute observation

Interesting concept. Like Jack Benny said... "I'm thinking..."

Should it be a new top-level topic, i.e. "Gems of Truth" on the same level as "General Discussion" and "Work in Progress" ?

That way each subject gets its own thread. Otherwise it's a single thread under "General Discussion" with a lot of different subjects under the one topic heading.

Anybody else got any ideas?

--PS

[LongboardLOVELY]

Object folks is to search through the forum posts and find little gems of truth or accute observation

Interesting concept. Like Jack Benny said... "I'm thinking..."

Should it be a new top-level topic, i.e. "Gems of Truth" on the same level as "General Discussion" and "Work in Progress" ?

That way each subject gets its own thread. Otherwise it's a single thread under "General Discussion" with a lot of different subjects under the one topic heading.

Anybody else got any ideas?

--PS

Paul,

I like the idea of a new top-level topic called "Gems of Truth" or whatever else you want to call it. I'd start that post by putting up all of what Elizabeth Helen Drake, your two lulu's and Mr Twigsnapper has written or said to you. You may find some interesting connections.

Last year you wrote:

On the other hand, sometimes I feel like I'm making Swiss cheese. I am trying to get used to the fact that there are just going to have be holes.

You know what? Whenever I get to sit down and read a really good book (novel, or otherwise), it's the holes that intrigue me and drive me to keep searching out the subject. I suspect that you'll find that to be true once you're done and IT is published. People will read between the lines, scratch their heads over the holes, and be hooked. And, hopefully, hooked until the second and third books come out

LongboardLOVELY

[Trickfox]

I have heard Elizabeth call it "The golden thread" that is woven into a solid fabrick.

Maybe ?


Trickfox