WW2 SOE Maurice Buckmaster signed 25th ann RAF Escaping Society Lysander cover. On 17 March 1941, Buckmaster was ...

WW2 SOE Maurice Buckmaster signed 25th ann RAF Escaping Society Lysander cover. On 17 March 1941, Buckmaster was appointed to SOE's French section and following an attachment to T-Section, the Belgian Section, to assist Hardy Amies from July 1941, he was noted as a future head of F Section. This section recruited agents from among those Frenchmen who had not chosen to directly ally themselves with General Charles de Gaulle. A separate section of SOE, RF Section, worked with those members of the French Resistance who were clearly Gaullist in their loyalties. There was often considerable tension between F and RF sections. In September 1941 succeeding the civilian Henry R. Marriott (a director of Courtaulds French Division), Major Buckmaster assumed command of F-Section supported by Nicholas Bodington working from an apartment in Orchard Court near Oxford Street. His task was to build an organization which could carry out sabotage and collect information about the enemy and provide money and equipment for the French resistance. Between 1941 and 1944 his organization placed 366 agents in France and set up nearly 50 networks. The office later moved to 64 Baker Street, London. In Chelsea, London in November 1941 he married Anna Cecilia Stevenson (née Reinstein). She was the daughter of a Bavarian German hairdresser brought up in East London, and the former wife of the barrister Melford Stevenson. At F Section Buckmaster worked closely with his assistant Vera Atkins, who was also the Section's intelligence officer and a spy mistress. During the war, the F Section handled more than 400 undercover agents, many of whom went missing. After the war, it was Atkins' task to find what happened to them, including agents she had trained. It turned out that Buckmaster had refused to believe, although showed the evidence, that their network had been compromised, thus sending many agents to their arrests and deaths for over a year, despite warnings from agents. During the war Buckmaster usually worked 16 - 18 hours per day and frequently more. In the autumn of 1944 he was promoted to colonel and toured France giving lectures and delivering speeches in a mission based from the Hotel Cecil in Paris and known as, JUDEX, which simultaneously gave opportunity to clear up F-Section's circuits and networks. His wartime service was recognized by an award of the OBE, unusually in the Civil Division, on 3 January 1945, Colonel Buckmaster was discreetly listed as a Civil Assistant, at the War Office, and a Croix de Guerre from the French. At the end of the war Allied commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower said the section had helped shorten the war by six months. , It was the equivalent of 15 divisions, he said. On 23 May 1947 the US Government awarded Buckmaster the Legion of Merit (Officer) which appeared in the London Gazette, he was listed as a colonel with the Intelligence Corps. Good condition. All autographs are genuine hand signed and come with a Certificate of Authenticity. We combine postage on multiple winning lots and can ship worldwide. UK postage from £5.99, EU from £7.99, Rest of World from £10.