The Foxley Report: Plotters against Hitler

By Bernie Ross

Adolf Hitler: Foxley Report target  

Find out more about the men and women who would have been key players in the plot to kill Hitler if the Foxley Report - commissioned to examine the feasibility of assassinating the German leader - had been acted upon.

Key figures in the Foxley Report

Code name LB/X

The exact identity of LB/X, who drew up the Foxley Report, remains one of the mysteries surrounding the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

L/BX may have been a staff officer called Major HB Court - a name mentioned in SOE personnel lists. However, as his file no longer exists, we cannot prove definitively whether he existed or not.

However, a Major HD (Harold Darlington) Court, did exist, and was in SOE. Some of the Foxley documents carry the initials HDC, yet the authorship of Foxley has always been attributed to a Major HB Court. Was this a typing error? The answer may never be known. Nothing is known of Major HB Court, but here is what we know of Major HD Court.

Major HD Court of the SOE

According to the SOE files, Major Court was a civil engineer before World War One, and enlisted into the Divisional Engineers as a sapper. He moved into the Deal Battalion of the Royal Engineers, Royal Naval Division, in September 1914. He spent some time in the Devonshire regiment and the Army Cyclist Corps, based in Bulgaria. His duties involved mobile intelligence on topography.

He then transferred to the Field Survey Company of the Royal Engineers, in Bulgaria. Their function was to set up observation posts and look-outs for enemy fire. They would then chart and triangulate in on these and report their findings. Their position would be highly dangerous, as the enemy never likes to be rumbled.

Court had a good knowledge of topography, maps and their use, and a technical, mathematical approach to triangulating in on the enemy - all skills that could have stood him in good stead, years later, when called upon to formulate a plan to kill Hitler. He left the army after World War One with an MBE and MID (Mention in Despatches), and little is known of him until he showed up in X Section of SOE.

The Foxley Report: Plotters against Hitler

Top officers

Adolf Hitler: His interference with strategic decisions may have aided the Allies

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General Sir Hastings Ismay

Ismay was knighted in 1940. Throughout World War Two he held the post of deputy secretary (military) to the War Cabinet. In 1944 he was instrumental in getting the go-ahead from Churchill to proceed with the planning of a plot to kill Hitler.

Major General Colin McVean Gubbins: SOE code CD

Gubbins began World War One in the Royal Artillery. By the end of the war he had been awarded the DSO, the Military Cross, an MID, the 1914 Star and the British War and Victory medals. He was fluent in German and French and an able reader in Russian. A Scottish Highlander of small stature, he was an exceptionally inspiring leader.

In 1919, he fought in Russia on the side of the White Russians, and in 1920-1 he fought a losing battle in the Anglo-Irish war.

He was appointed chief of staff of the British Military Mission to Poland in the summer of 1939, and later received the Polish Croix de Vaillance. In May 1940, now a Brigadier, Gubbins commanded specialist assault troops of a new kind - later known as the Commandos. In November 1940 he was appointed director of operations and training at SOE. By the time of the Foxley Report, Gubbins had been promoted to the rank of Major General and appointed the SOE's Executive head. After the war he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur and the KCMG.

Brigadier Sir Stewart Menzies: SIS code C

Menzies began his carreer as a cavalryman in the Life Guards, and was decorated after World War One. In 1939 he became head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), which eventually became MI6. He presided over SIS for 12 years, and was knighted in 1943. He was a fairly brusque Scottish character and frequently had clashes with his counterpart at SOE, Colin Gubbins, over resources. Menzies, in his role as 'C', proved himself to be of serpentine mind and a consummate politician.

SOE Council

Air Vice Marshall Alan Patrick Ritchie CBE: SOE code AD/A

Ritchie joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917, and had a long career in the RAF. He was of typical fighter-pilot mould, and by the 1920s he was flying aircraft in Russia for the British and White Russians. He, like Boyle, remained counter Bolshevik. At the end of World War One he was decorated with a CBE and an Air Force Cross.

Between January 1940 and his joining SOE he was briefly in charge of RAF intelligence in France, but soon became Air Officer Commanding 93 Group, Bomber Command. He became SOE's Air Advisor, and was an ex-officio member of its Council from February 1944 to July 1945.

Major General Gerald Templer: SOE code AD/X

Major General Templer's battle triumphs earned him the name of 'The Tiger of Malaya'. He came to X Section by way of injury, having been returned to London, in September 1944, to convalesce from wounds inflicted while he was commander of the 6th Armoured Division in Italy.

Colin Gubbins gave him a job within X Section. Templer had served in the War Office's Military Intelligence Directorate in the late 1930s, and this, combined with his background as a combative leader, made him a suitable candidate to head the German Directorate, the newly named X Section, in November 1944.

Air Commodore Archibald Robert Boyle: SOE code A/CD

Boyle began his career in the army in 1907, was an infantryman during World War One, and was awarded the CMG and OBE, and two military crosses. From 1918 he exchanged the battlefield for air intelligence, and there remained for 20 years.

He was another bluff Scotsman who, during World War One, combined the posts of director of security, director of intelligence and director of personnel services - helped in this task by his wealth of experience and tact. He was the member of the SOE Council in charge of the formal dealings with SIS and MI5.

Lieutenant Colonel Ronald H Thornley: SOE code AD/X / AD/X1

Thornley had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Germany, and was a fluent German speaker. He was armed with an extensive knowledge of several European countries, due to his work as a businessman, pre-war.

He volunteered for military service in 1939, and he scored the highest marks on his SOE staff training course at Brickendonbury Manor. He headed up X Section until November 1944, when Major General Templer was appointed head of the newly named 'German Directorate', and he then became Templer's deputy.

Minor players

Mrs Clara Marguerite Holmes: SOE code X/AUS1

Mrs Holmes, formerly of SIS, had worked for many years before the war in Austria, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. After she joined SOE, she helped smuggle large quantities of forged documents and other 'black' propaganda material into Austria and Germany, until it became too difficult.

She played a key role in the recruitment and briefing of agents, and became an expert writer of letters in code. Prospective agents, dropped into Germany, would use these coded letters and 'letter boxes' to communicate with London, as radio communication was risky.

Miss EB Graham Stamper: SOE code X/AUS

Little is know about Miss Graham Stamper, but the fact that she and Mrs Holmes were formerly of SIS tells us something of their calibre.

The Foxley Report: Plotters against Hitler

By Bernie Ross

Fictional characters, from 'Killing Hitler'

The Sniper (based on Captain WE Bennett)

Edmund Bennett grew up in Manchester. Before the war he spent two years in East Germany, working for a textile firm, and became fluent in German. At the outset of war, he joined a Highland Regiment and saw action in North Africa. He fought as a machine gunner at the Battle of El Alamein, and later was posted to Washington, where he became Britain's youngest military attaché, working closely with the Pentagon.

In March 1945, the SOE sent a cable to the US, asking top officers to sound him out for the sniper mission, a month before Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. This was not taken further, though Bennett was said to be keen. The keenness may have been misplaced, however, as his American wife said her husband was a poor shot. On his return to England, Bennett became the manager of his family's company, before moving into the nuclear power industry.

The POW character

The Polish POW character is based on the fact that Polish and German PoWs were trained by SOE for use in operations, and were sent into Germany for secret operations. However, little can be gleaned about these individuals from the official papers.

The SIS officer

Rachel Cathcart is a fictitious character. The Foxley report fails to provide any identifying information on the actual assigned SIS Officer.

The Luftwaffe POW

Unteroffizier Deiser was an NCO in the Luftwaffe who was captured by the Allies. He is only briefly mentioned in the Foxley report. However, it is known that he had an anti-Nazi uncle in Salzburg, who owned land that would have provided an ideal drop zone for the Foxley sniper team. The report also noted the worrying fact that his wife was a fervent supporter of the Nazi cause.