Page 132 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 132
FORCE 136
We get some idea of GFA’s importance to the British war effort in the following extract from
the official record of the Special Operations Executive (I have highlighted references to
GFA):25
THE INDIA MISSION
SOE’s India Mission was set up through the initiative of the Secretary of State for
India, who sent Colonel Joyce of the Indian Political Service to Singapore in May
1941 for discussions with Killery. Joyce was quickly convinced of the need for a
special-operations organization in India and the Viceroy equally quickly agreed.
Mackenzie, who had lost a leg in the Great War, was appointed to command the
Mission, first designated GSI(k) (ostensibly a branch of GHQ, India) and after 16
March 1944, Force 136.
....
Early in 1943 Balankura himself did reach China hoping to form a Provisional
Government, and in August he put his ideas to the British Ambassador in Chungking
(Sir Horace Seymour). He said that Pridi regarded Siam’s declaration of war as
unconstitutional and that he hoped to put the clock back to 1941. Would Britain bring
him and other leaders out to form a Provisional Government in India? The Chinese
had taken Balankura’s mission seriously, but the Foreign Office did not. Sir Josiah
Crosby, the former Minister in Bangkok, said he had never heard of the XO Group -
which was of course formed after he left the country. Balankura’s proposal was
written off as ‘a storm in a teacup’.
SOE, on the other hand, saw the young man at least as a source of information and
sent Prince Subha Svasti, who had joined the British Army in England, to Chungking.
The Chinese allowed him and Mr G. Findlay Andrew to meet Balankura, who
continued to urge that Pridi should be brought out. The Siam Country Section agreed.
They undertook to smuggle a message to Pridi promising to send in agents which
should be acknowledged either by courier or by code words over Radio Bangkok.
‘Coconut oil in fifty bottles’ would mean ‘Come’. ‘Groundnut oil in twenty-five tins’
would mean ‘Don’t come’. Microfilm copies of this proposal were handed to
Balankura on 7 September 1943, along with 100,000 Chinese National Dollars and a
diamond ring (provided by Remorset) to bribe the Chinese to allow his couriers to
leave.
25 “SOE in the Far East” by Charles Cruickshank. Published by Oxford University Press
1983
FORCE 136
We get some idea of GFA’s importance to the British war effort in the following extract from
the official record of the Special Operations Executive (I have highlighted references to
GFA):25
THE INDIA MISSION
SOE’s India Mission was set up through the initiative of the Secretary of State for
India, who sent Colonel Joyce of the Indian Political Service to Singapore in May
1941 for discussions with Killery. Joyce was quickly convinced of the need for a
special-operations organization in India and the Viceroy equally quickly agreed.
Mackenzie, who had lost a leg in the Great War, was appointed to command the
Mission, first designated GSI(k) (ostensibly a branch of GHQ, India) and after 16
March 1944, Force 136.
....
Early in 1943 Balankura himself did reach China hoping to form a Provisional
Government, and in August he put his ideas to the British Ambassador in Chungking
(Sir Horace Seymour). He said that Pridi regarded Siam’s declaration of war as
unconstitutional and that he hoped to put the clock back to 1941. Would Britain bring
him and other leaders out to form a Provisional Government in India? The Chinese
had taken Balankura’s mission seriously, but the Foreign Office did not. Sir Josiah
Crosby, the former Minister in Bangkok, said he had never heard of the XO Group -
which was of course formed after he left the country. Balankura’s proposal was
written off as ‘a storm in a teacup’.
SOE, on the other hand, saw the young man at least as a source of information and
sent Prince Subha Svasti, who had joined the British Army in England, to Chungking.
The Chinese allowed him and Mr G. Findlay Andrew to meet Balankura, who
continued to urge that Pridi should be brought out. The Siam Country Section agreed.
They undertook to smuggle a message to Pridi promising to send in agents which
should be acknowledged either by courier or by code words over Radio Bangkok.
‘Coconut oil in fifty bottles’ would mean ‘Come’. ‘Groundnut oil in twenty-five tins’
would mean ‘Don’t come’. Microfilm copies of this proposal were handed to
Balankura on 7 September 1943, along with 100,000 Chinese National Dollars and a
diamond ring (provided by Remorset) to bribe the Chinese to allow his couriers to
leave.
25 “SOE in the Far East” by Charles Cruickshank. Published by Oxford University Press
1983
