“But Why Three?”
But why three? Just the three of them, only the three bodies found inside the plane. The question went around and around like an endless circle in my mind. All newspaper correspondence published in 1956 confirmed there were only three RAF men found inside the Thompson. This also corresponds completely with the account given to my mother by the man in the black bowler hat all those years ago. Also, given what Stanley Jack had told me, there had to be at least five bodies. I understand that if Stanley’s story bears any truth, then the reason why the official version would not account for the two additional passengers inside the craft would make perfect sense, but what about the press? Why would they report that only three bodies were found inside the doomed craft? The original article of the plane’s discovery was published almost immediately upon the find. This surely, long before the British Military of the day had any time to conceive any form of governmental cover-up or alternate story.
Whose version of events was I to believe? The government line of the day or Stanley’s? What reason had he got to lie to me knowing my father so well, this fact evidenced by the photograph album that he had left for me? They were obviously very close, and he, without doubt, had flown with my father during the larger part of the conflict.
Had only three bodies been found that day? All three were reported to have been still strapped into their seats. If two additional passengers were also on board I consider that reasonably they could easily have been washed away at sea. This could account for both Stanley’s version of events and the press accounts of the day. It is possible that they are all telling the truth isn’t it?
Now the car, and the uncomfortable feeling I was being followed and watched. Why had I attracted this attention? My gut feeling on all this was that Stanley had been telling me the truth and this was a truth that somebody somewhere did not want me to publish. I had already published the story so far. I’d updated the online thread regularly. So was it my search for evidence, factual information to support the story, that was causing the problem? Were they worried that I would find out much more or something unknown about this very old, but equally massive war-changing top-secret mission?
The boys in blue, my old mates at the station, had made their discreet off-record enquiries for me. The car, a green Renault Clio was there in the UK parked in the street outside this old lady owner’s flat that day, the very same day, Saturday March 19th 2005. I had seen that registration number attached to a blue Ford Mondeo in France. So the plates were false. Somebody was without doubt following me. Just how far were they prepared to follow me became the next big question?
I made some decisions. Doreen and I had initially planned to travel from France to Bulgaria via Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania, taking in all the old wartime sites along the way. We had plenty of time and were in no hurry whatsoever. That old bugger (no, not Doreen!), the BMC camper was holding up well. I had a reluctance to travel across Germany anyway. It wasn’t an initial reluctance but one that had grown after visiting Granddad at Windy Corner. It wasn’t racism or anything that shallow, but a feeling of general inappropriateness. Both Dad and he had died fighting Germany and I wasn’t keen to visit German war sites for now. I would, yes of course later on, but not on this particular trip. After much discussion, and indeed curiosity, we changed our original planned route. We would now travel south and follow the Western Front’s First World War Hindenburg Line. We would start with Passchendaele, the Somme and onto Verdun and then into Switzerland. From Switzerland to Northern Italy, Slovenia to Serbia and enter Bulgaria at its north-western tip. Doreen was as cross with me as ever. “You silly old fool,” she said. “This isn’t a game Brian,” she shouted at me. Doreen had wanted an immediate end to the trip at this point, but I would have none of it. I did choose not to update the lads back home with my new and drastically changed travel plans. For the time being, I would continue to allow them all to think I was still heading for Germany. If someone was reading my updates for a more sinister reason, then they too would lose track of me for the time being.
In 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front following its invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium, and also controlled many important industrial regions in France. Both sides had dug into their trenches following the race for the sea and the Battle of The Marne. These trenches were heavily fortified on both sides and meandered across the countryside, remaining unchanged in their original basic locations for most of the war.
The Western Front saw numerous offensives between 1915 and 1917 with heavy losses to all following ongoing artillery bombardment and infantry advances. Barbed wire, mines and machine gun nests, which repeatedly inflicted severe casualties, led to the ultimate stalemate of wartime gains. The entrenchments remained fixed and the fighting became nothing more than one of charge and counter charge and so on. Little ground was ever gained.
The Battle of Verdun left 700,000 men dead and was just one of many costly offensives. The largest well-known battle was that of the Somme which resulted in more than one million casualties. Another, the Battle of Passechendaele, resulted in a further 600,000 casualties. This deadlock was never broken but ultimately led to new military technology in an effort to push forward. These developments, principally tank and aircraft designs alongside, and more horrifically, poisoned gases. The adoption of improved hand-to-hand combat tactics was developed largely as a result of massive previous human losses.
Germany’s Spring Offensive (1918) followed the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litvsk. Her war on the eastern front was over and now all efforts could be concentrated to the west. Germany managed to advance some 60 miles, making the deepest advance in land gain
on either side since 1914. The Germans almost made a breakthrough was but the inexorable advances made by the Allies in the latter half of 1918 forced them back and following the possible, indeed inevitable defeat of Germany on the battle field, the German government was forced to agree an armistice. In 1919 the terms of peace were finally agreed following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
The Battle of Verdun followed a nine day delay caused by bad weather and commenced on the 21st February, 1916. Following a massive eight hour artillery bombardment, with little retaliation, the Germans made a slow advance on the town and its forts. Having failed to keep control of the French Fort of Douaumont however, heavy French resistance did eventually halt the German advance some seven days later.
Germany then turned its attentions north and to the Le Mort Homme, from where heavy French shelling was being endured. Following intensive fighting, Germany captured the hillside positions in late May. An attempt by the French forces to recapture Fort Douaumont on 22nd May failed. Using the poison gas diphosgene and the capture of Fort Vaux, on the 7th June German forces advanced to within 1,200 yards of the final ridge over the town of Verdun. The advance halted there on the 23rd June with the later summer months seeing the French force the invading army into retreat, but just 1.3 miles backward. The Battle of Verdun, also known as the Mincing Machine of Verdun, became the ultimate symbol of French determination and resistance.
Diphosgene gas was developed as a pulmonary agent for chemical warfare by Germany. It was used as a poison gas and fired from inside artillery shells. Its first ever recorded use was by Germany in May 1916. Germany developed diphosgene gas because the vapours could destroy the filters housed within French-made gas masks that were in use at the time.
Allied commanders witnessing the carnage of Verdun became concerned about the ability of the French army to withstand such ongoing and enormous human loss. The original joint French/British plans for an attack at the river Somme were changed and the British would now take the lead during the attack. This would serve to relieve pressure on the French, and also the Allied Russian forces who equally were sustaining huge human losses.
The Somme offensive began on the 1st July following a week of heavy rainfall. The British divisions of Picardy, supported by five French divisions to the right flank, attacked a
fter an unprecedented week-long heavy artillery bombardment designed to destroy opposing German lines. The French divisions were successful in advancing but British artillery failed to destroy numerous German-held trench positions and heavy barbed-wired perimeters. The British lost 57,000 men in one single day, the biggest loss of life in any single offensive, the largest number of men to be killed, wounded or missing ever to be recorded throughout the entire conflict.
After regrouping, the Battle of he Somme continued during the months of July and August. Despite heavy reinforcement of German lines, some slight progress was eventually made. A complete military breakthrough was believed unlikely however. In August of that same year, General Haig switched tactics to form a series of small unit incursions. This had the effect of straightening out the front line in preparation for a further massive artillery bombardment and thus allowed for a major British push forward. This final Somme offensive would see the first ever use of tanks in combat. They were, however, extremely and technologically limited in practical battlefield use due to their mechanical unreliability and to the limited supply numbers that were made available for use. The new British tanks advanced just 3,500–4,500 yards in total.
Producing the by now predictable and limited gains, the final phase of the battle took place in October. Throughout the entire period of the Somme offensive only five miles of land was taken and all original battlefield objectives had failed. In total, British casualties were over 420,000 and the French, 200,000. Germany suffered a loss of 465,000, although this figure is disputed.
August 1916 saw a change in the German leadership along the western front. Falkenhayn resigned and was replaced by General Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff. In recognising the huge German loss of both Verdun and the Somme, Germany’s military capacity to continue fighting was now becoming recognised as unsustainable. For most of the remainder of 1917, Germany’s wartime position became one of defensive control rather than offensive incursion.
Throughout the winter, the German forces created a prepared defensive position behind their original front lines at Verdun and the Somme. This section of their rear-guard front would become known as the Hindenburg Line and was built using effective and well tested defensive principles developed during the defensive battles of 1915. The Hindenburg Line was intended to shorten the old German front line by at least 30 miles and free up ten German military divisions who would then be able to concentrate their efforts elsewhere. The Hindenburg Line, the construction of which was first spotted by British long-range reconnaissance aircraft in November 1916, was a line of fortification stretching from Arras to St Quentin.
Blog update: “Tuesday 29th March. We are in Sofia. We have arrived in Bulgaria. Switzerland was stunning having taken the famous green mountain scenic and tourist route. Swimming in Lake Garda, Italy, was I have to say, warm and magnificent. It has been many years since I dived off a rock into a lake.”
We had motored on through Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia and had not seen a Ford Mondeo, well a blue one with tinted windows that is, on the entire journey. My plan to change route last minute and to not put this changed update onto the forum had clearly worked. Then, I kept thinking back to what Doreen had said: “You silly old bugger.” Maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe seeing this car again at Windy Corner, even though it had false plates fitted was after all, purely coincidental.
My immediate gut feelings of Bulgaria? Tuesday 29th March, 2005, yes March and it’s already too bloody hot! We’ve enjoyed a lovely drive down through the hills and subsequent journey through a marvellous canyon pass en route. The necessary personal matters such as a good bath and a decent meal are now on the cards. So now I’ve booked us both two days in a rather impressive, but also very inexpensive hotel. One gets the sense of value of the Great British Pound against the Bulgarian Leva now at an exchange of 3 to 1, in my favour that is! I feel like a King and could easily get used to living in luxury for just a few quid a day, very quickly. A full three course meal and two beers for less than a fiver, and that’s hotel prices! I hope that Bulgaria’s ambitions to join the European Union next year (2006) don’t destroy this exceptional value for money. I’m going to take three days of pedestrianised sightseeing of the capital, Sofia and then do some more travelling again. I need a chance to update my thread online and rest my poor old weary bones. I’m getting a bit too old for camping these days.
I visited the Nevsky Cathedral, the Palace of Culture, the Boyana Church, the National Museum and so much more; far too much to mention without boring you all so I’ll avoid it. If you are anything like me, looking at other people’s holiday snaps drives me to insanity so I’ll avoid falling into the same trap. Vitosha Boulevard is apparently the seventh most expensive shopping centre in Europe they tell me; well I had to have the guided Sofia city tour didn’t I? Been there, done it and yes, I did buy a T-shirt! Normal service will soon resume I promise and I’ll stop rubbing it in lads and return back to the story of my dad now. Pressing upload, job done!
A strange thing happened today, Thursday. I visited the Commonwealth war graves cemetery in the capital. I had taken directions from the hotel reception. I was to take tram 18 from Slavekov Square, famous for its second-hand book stalls. I found it without problem and just a couple of hundred yards to walk. I caught the tram as planned and got off at the flower market as told. The war graves site is part of a much bigger complex, Sofia Municipality Cemetery. To say it is huge just doesn’t explain it well enough at all. It must be a ballpark figure of at least sixty acres and probably bigger. I don’t care to over-estimate this approximation.
I walked in through the main central entrance. A security guard caught my eye and I politely asked for directions. There was no way on earth I would successfully manage to navigate my way through this huge labyrinth. Through a serious of exchanged polite hand-gestures I understood the basic direction which I needed to take, and seemed to understand it was at the far rear wall. I started to walk, just a city map and my mobile telephone in my hands. The outer wall of the complex was reserved for crematorium ashes, urns sealed inside stone-covered vaults, stacked a multitude high, one on top of the other. Clearly there were many many thousands of them around the entire outer perimeter wall. I was both saddened and shocked at the apparent lack of care and poor condition in which I found them to be. Many had fallen to pieces and the enclosed clay-pot and even plastic urns were clearly visible. Many had the ashes just poured into them without any sight of an urn at all. To my astonishment I found countless human ashes had somehow just been poured out onto the road and pavement walkway. I found the whole experience and sight deeply disturbing.
I hadn’t walked more than perhaps fifty yards when I became aware of the presence of a car, which had stopped alongside me. The driver I soon recognised to be the security guard who had given me directions earlier, just minutes before. He beckoned me in to join him and I sat beside him on the passenger seat. There it was, a chauffeured ride in the car all the way to the site of the war graves. For such a kind ride I was extremely grateful, it was indeed a much further walk than I had envisaged it to be. After thanking him and shaking his hand I got out and walked across to the entrance gate to the site.
I was the only person there and just as I had found it to be the case at Windy Corner, the condition of the area and upkeep of the graves was without complaint. I found everything to be clean, tidy and perfectly maintained. I was so relieved to find it so, given the poor condition I had seen the rest of the municipal cemetery to be in. The signage I read soon clarified why. The Commonwealth Graves Commission maintained this section whereas the rest of the cemetery was the responsibility of Sofia City Council.
Then just as quickly as he had left, the kind helpful security guard arrived back again. This time he had others with him. He had returned with colleagues, an additional security guard but the other, the third man, a real bonafide Bulgarian Police Officer with apparently no sense of humour and a gun. I naturally felt quite
threatened. They did not enter the war graves site but the policeman immediately beckoned me over to the gate; one which he was now casually leaning on. I stopped taking photographs and walked back over toward him.
The two security guards, one of whom I had obviously already met, talked in Bulgarian amongst themselves, with an apparently aggressive air to their manner. The policeman however spoke faultless English and to his credit remained extremely polite to me throughout. I wondered just what on earth I had done wrong. Maybe it was the camera? The signage clearly permitted photography. What else could it be? I thought.
I lost count of the amount of questions I was asked. So many questions but always politely framed. I accounted for my entire journey and was required to explain my presence there. I was asked for my papers. I felt an eerie sense that perhaps this new nominate for EU membership had not as yet quite managed to shed its old communist culture. After ten minutes of intensive questioning, I was allowed to continue with my visit, although I wanted to clarify if the photography was problem, to which the reply was “no”. I had assumed that as the map and the camera were the only clearly visible effects I had on my person when the security guard had originally given me a ride, that perhaps the camera must have been the reason he returned with reinforcements. Somehow it was this that had caused him such concern.
Interestingly, I had left my passport back at my hotel room and was reminded that it was an offence to be in Bulgaria without personal ID carried at all times. My apologies had been accepted and my verbal statement of identity accepted. The only condition the police officer imposed on my visit was this: “You can take photographs for two minutes more and then you must leave here.” This policeman’s consent in allowing me to continue appeared to be much to the discontent of the other two. I did exactly as told and left after taking just a few more photos.
I would ponder upon this strange but true event for many days. If the pictures were not a problem, then what was? The paranoia started to creep in again. The blue car that I had seen four days ago had now gone. I certainly wasn’t aware that I had been followed there that day. How could I have been? It was not until after this visit that I updated the forum, so nobody could have possibly known where I was going beforehand. Well actually I correct myself here. It was known that I had intended to visit the cemetery but nobody could possibly have known exactly when.
I cannot be so important that extensive covert surveillance was in place all the way across Europe, surely? I’d now travelled two and a half thousand miles and for the last couple of days used public transport. No, it wasn’t possible and even if it was, why would such covert cover be blown over a concern for a war grave cemetery, a cemetery that had no connection with my father’s secret wartime story? The cemetery contained seven graves of allied bomber crew members shot down over Sofia from WWI. The only possible connection there could been was that my dad may have been one of them. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t buried there.
I talked it over with a chap back at the hotel, over a beer or two. He was a Bulgarian business man and his view of what happened and why did seem to be a bit more realistic. The municipal cemetery was known to be vandalised regularly. The urns were stolen for the metal content, usually made of brass, and this was done without any regard or dignity for the dead. The would be thieves simply poured the ashes out onto the ground. It made sense to me. The plastic and pot urns remained. This matter, a subject of huge embarrassment to our next-in-line EU accession member state, was something that they would like to keep secret. The man explained that the camera had perhaps given the impression that I was a foreign journalist, given also the city map and my British accent. “Yes, this had to be the case,” I reluctantly agreed with him. This too made sense given that police officer’s final statement to me. What he had said when I simply enquired, “What is the problem if it is not the camera?” His two word reply; “It’s politics.”
On the Saturday, Doreen, The Winjin’ Pom and I travelled upward out of Sofia. We travelled north of the city to visit the village of Thompson, as previously outlined in chapter one. Having stayed a full two nights in the region and despite the fact that many locals spoke good, if not fluent English, I was saddened to discover that I knew more about their local history than they did. I failed to find a single person who knew why their home village had been given the name it had. It seemed that Major Frank Thompson and the other commandos had fallen into a sad, forgotten and very distant past.
From Thompson we travelled east to Balvan, a small village west of the ancient capital, Veliko Tarnovo. Balvan was the scene of the fiercest fighting between the Bulgarian partisans and the Bulgarian gendarmerie. After the war, the communists had built a huge monument to honour their fallen comrades, sadly a monument that
from a distance appeared to resemble that of the fast food giant McDonald’s logo, a stretched letter M. Only a few of the trapped, and hugely outnumbered, partisans managed to flee the battle site and later survive. One of which such stories led us to the family house of Mitko Palauzov.
Mitko Palauzov was the youngest of the Bulgarian partisans to be killed. He was just fourteen years of age. His father had fought in the battle of Balvan and had survived, taking refuge in a secret dug-out hiding hole (a zimlanka) within a sympathiser’s garden. Mitko was with his mother. She was a nurse and attended the sick, the wounded and dying in another secret dug-out. The hospital, an infirmary hidden below ground, was located near Osenikova Polyana, a hillside in the district, Uzana. With his father in hiding and facing certain execution if caught, the local village doctor had been forced, by torture, into giving away the secret location of the hospital. The fascist Bulgaria gendarmerie arrived there not long after the battle, just five days, and upon arrival had thrown six hand grenades down into the hospital dug-out. Mitko Palauzov, just a boy standing alongside his mother the nurse, was blown to pieces. A monument to his memory can still be seen today in the town centre of Gabrovo.
This saddest story of all continued further. Mitko’s father, a partisan and resistance fighter and a card-carrying member of the communist party, was in his later years murdered. A new political system that he and so many others had fought for, to create a new future for the poor of Bulgaria, a system of political fairness, justice and equality, was now hijacked by pro-Soviet puppets, an unelected totalitarian state with which he had strong disagreement. A dictatorship that wished to expel him from the party he had helped to create. He was quoted as saying to the regime at the time, “I fought for the right to hold this membership card and I will fight again before I let you take it from me.” Whilst in Sofia, he was murdered by poisoning following an invitation to attend a meeting held by the Bulgarian Communist Party.
The family of Mitko Palauzov gave us the warmest welcome one could ever receive. I believe that you will be hard pushed to find a warmer and more generous welcome than that offered to the stranger in Bulgaria. A feast fit for a king and I felt like bursting open with the amount that I ate that day. Simply the best of homemade village rakia, the local spirit distilled from grapes, plums or anything else for that matter. It leaves one with a rather thick head the following day.
Thursday 17th April saw us arrive at the mighty Buzludzha building having spent the preceding night just a mere 10 miles down the road at Shipka. Shipka Pass, central Bulgaria was the site of four major battles fought between the Russian Empire, the Bulgarian Volunteers and the Turkish colonial occupiers of the time, the Ottoman Empire. During this period of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), it became the site of a major victory when 5,500 Bulgarian Volunteers supported by 2,000 Russian soldiers defeated a military incursion to take the pass. The Ottoman Central Army were beaten back despite the Bulgarians being heavily out-numbered.
Russian forces had taken the pass from the Ottomans and gained control of the region in July, 1877. The Russian General, Stoletov, then commissioned three main defensive positions at the head of the pass; 7,500 defenders (5,500 Bulgarians and the 2,000 Russians) at St. Nichol
as (now known as Peak Stoletov), the Central Hill and other crucial reserve emplacements in between,
The Ottoman Commander, Suleiman Pasha, had the fighting force of the central army behind him, amounting to over 38,000 combatants. Pasha was determined to regain military control of the pass in what was apparently nothing more than an action of military pride. He could have simply bypassed it, if he had chosen to. August 21st saw intensive bombardment by his forces against Russian/Bulgarian positions and predominantly, the location of St. Nicholas. The attack proved fruitless and was stalled by Bulgarian Volunteers who were dug-in 100 yards to the south. At dawn the following morning, Ottoman forces moved their heavy artillery canon further up toward the mountain side and continued to bombard the pass. Suleiman’s infantry then moved in to out-flank the opposing Russian flank. On August 23, the Ottoman forces attacked all Russian/Bulgarian positions. The military effort again concentrated on St. Nicholas Mount where the majority of poorly equipped Bulgarian Volunteers were positioned.
Pride and arrogance had given Commander Pasha a deeply misconceived and false sense of security. The Ottoman, believed the volunteer positions would be easy to capture. The first military retreat that day was of the Russian positions on Central Hill, the Bulgarian Volunteers at St Nicolas held fast throughout. Regrouping and later with the fresh reinforcement of the 4th Russian Rifle Brigade, Ottoman offensives were again halted. On the 26th, Ottoman forces did finally reach the Russian trenches situated on St. Nicholas hillside but a counter bayonet charge of Bulgarian Volunteers soon forced them into retreat. During the siege, both Bulgarian Volunteers and the Russian soldiers completely ran out of ammunition. They repulsed ongoing and uphill Ottoman charges by throwing rocks, wheels and even the corpses of fallen comrades downward and into the lines of the Ottoman advance. It is noted as the most gallant military stand of the entire Russo-Turkish war.
Pasha continued to be driven and now blinded by his military pride, would attempt to retake the pass once more during the year 1877. The Russian and Bulgarian Volunteer defences had been pounded continually during August of that year, but Ottoman reinforcements were now extremely limited due to the ongoing siege of the city of Plevan to the south. On September 13th, Suleiman Pasha again began to shell both the Bulgarian and Russian defence lines. The bombardment continued for five full days until on the 17th Suleiman launched a full frontal assault yet again against the St. Nicholas hill-side positions. Upon successfully capturing the first line of defence trenches, Ottoman forces finally moved upward toward the summit.
The military gain was extremely short lived. The new Russian commanding General, Fyodor Radetzky, brought forward Russian reinforcements. This Russian counter-attack proved to be a vital defensive action in this second major battle and the Ottoman forces were driven back from all captured ground. Additionally, secondary Ottoman assaults to the north were also repulsed. Between January 5th and 9th, 1878 the final battle for Shipka Pass was fought, a further crushing defeat for the exhausted Ottoman Central Army. This would be the last attempt made to retake the Shipka Pass and thereafter, the Ottoman rule over Bulgaria collapsed.
Now, what of the mighty Buzludzha itself, a building I have completely fallen in love with? A short drive east along an old side-wooded roadway Buzludzha is a building that evolved from a completely different era. Here on the Central Stara Planina and named from the origins of a Turkish word buzluca, the literal meaning glacially. Today a more modern Bulgarian translation of the word Buzludzha however reads as ‘the highest road’. The building is situated at the site of the final battle of Bulgarian rebels in 1868, led by Hadji Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha opposed to Ottoman rule. Standing at 1441 meters high, Buzludzha is Bulgaria’s largest ideological monument to Communism.
Over 6,000 workers were involved in its seven year construction, this number including 20 leading Bulgarian artists who worked solidly for 18 months on the interior decoration alone. Designed by architect Guéorguy Stoilov, it is undoubtedly one of the most impressive architectural buildings I have ever seen. I can liken it only to a flying saucer that has somehow unexpectedly just landed there. The construction was funded by a small (but expected) donation from every citizen in the country. This voluntary donation of one leva (30 pence) formed the largest portion of funds required to build this most impressive structure. Buzludzha was finally unveiled in 1981 on what was the 1300th anniversary of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.
The monument was built on the peak by the Bulgarian communist regime to commemorate events of 1891 when the socialists led by Dimitar Blagoev met in secret at the site in order to form an organised socialist movement. Since the collapse of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1991, it is no longer maintained by the Bulgarian government and has fallen into disrepair. It is now found to be abandoned, vandalised, and internally devastated. To this day, buried in the monument’s concrete structure is a time capsule explaining the significance of the building.
Bulgaria’s bloodless revolution (1989) ended with the disbandment of the Party. Ownership of the monument was ceded to the state and with no further interest or use for it, it was left to ruin and decay. It stands today as an iconic monument to a now abandoned political ideology. Every year Bulgarian Socialists still gather at Buzludzha to mark the founding of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party.