A thought provoking and well attended visit by pupils from the school.

When WW2 started Elvira Burbeck was suddenly out of work and looking for something new to do, so she joined the Ministry of Labour. A friend recommended she join the FANYs (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). However, as Alvira was in a protected job, she was rejected. She tried again, this time with help from a colleague, and was accepted, and within a month she was sent to Algiers, Algeria. When she arrived in Oran, Algeria, the danger set in, as she was told they would have to go by train to Algiers to avoid any U-boats in the area. Her group decided to fly, which was very exciting for Elvira, as it was her first time in a Mitchell Bomber aircraft. When she arrived in Massingham, Algeria, she worked for an Intelligence officer, processing intelligence coming in from France. Elvria’s role in Massingham involved getting agents ready to be sent into France. She made sure the agents were in the right clothes, and made sure the agents knew how to act when they landed. Elvira was posted there for 10 months. After this, she had several postings in: Rome, Algiers, Italy, Canada, and Sri Lanka. Whilst in Italy, she was involved in finding road and rail targets for agents to bomb. After the war she was offered a job with the Foreign Office in Rome, but she turned it down, hoping to be posted to Bangkok instead. After thinking about it, she accepted the post and the Italians get back on their feet. Overall, she remembers the niceness of everybody, and the joy of working with such nice people during a very serious time. She recalls never feeling like she was at a disadvantage, everyone was valid and everyone’s contribution mattered. Elvira remembers a funny story about a poisonous snake ending up in a lavatory whilst based at Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the chaos that followed.

In firstly describing his earlier life, Bob recalls growing up in Paris and joining the special detachment force at the beginning of the Second World War. He then recalls arriving in England to undergo specialised training, and from this point onwards was made a saboteur. Bob remembers his first jump, and the speed at which saboteurs would have to seek, report and destroy enemy objectives. Operating in small teams of five to six individuals, he recalls the importance of discretion and trust among his network. As a member of the SOE, Bob was required to have a forged identity and resultantly, landed himself in troubled situations with the enemy. He recalls one particular incident on Christmas Day 1943 where, having missed the enforced curfew in Paris, he was taken by the German patrol. In an attempt to escape, he was shot in the lung and as a result, thought he had died. It was a slow recovery as not only did he have to remain in hiding from the enemy, but could only receive medical attention once he had returned to England in February. In the rest of his interview Bob discusses D-Day, the allied liberation, his post-war experiences in Asia, and the dive school he established in North Africa where he trained frogmen. Bob's account provides a series of exciting, moving and fascinating stories of his experience in the SOE both during, and after, the Second World War.