The Secret WW2 Learning Network is an educational charity registered in the UK - a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) No. 1156796
Two years ago, The SWW2LN partnered with Cranleigh Arts Centre in Surrey in a joint fund-raising day for both charitable organisations.
The topic was our developing knowledge of Winterfold, SOE’s Special Training School, STS 4, later STS 7, the Students’ Assessment Board (SAB), on the village’s outskirts.
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Author: Paul McCue
Our friends at AJEX, the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and women, kindly invited us to their (restricted numbers) Annual Service of Commemoration in honour of National Armed Forces Week which took place at the National Memorial Arboretum.
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Author: Paul McCue
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Perseverance has at long last paid off for SWW2LN Friend, Barbara Cronk, a member of the Rolfe family.
Barbara had long wanted a plaque on the Paris house where Lilian had been born. Not only did she persuade the Paris city authorities that there ought to be one, but she impressed them enough with Lilian's story that they decided to obtain all necessary permissions and fund it themselves.
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Author: Paul McCue
Keeping a social distance and in a relevant outdoor bubble, Paul McCue, Eddie Jones and Tony McCallum of The SWW2LN welcomed the Chief of Staff, the Regimental Sergeant-Major and another Warrant Officer of the Intelligence Corps, while Colonel (retired) Nick Fox wore his two hats of Deputy Colonel Commandant of the Intelligence Corps and Friend of The SWW2LN.
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Author: Paul McCue
Just as we had started events again, the Covid regulations changed from 9th September 2020. Fortunately, we were still able to stage our annual commemoration at Brookwood Military Cemetery (Memorial to the Missing 1939-45) on Sunday, 6th September for Jewish agents of SOE.
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Author: Paul McCue
SWW2LN/National Trust information board unveiled at Bellasis House, Headley Heath, Box Hill, Surrey – formerly SOE’s Special Training School STS 2.
Bellasis House, named just Bellasis in WW2, was one of the first six of the training schools of the Special Operations Executive.
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Author: Paul McCue
For the second year running, the annual ceremony at the F Section Memorial at Valençay in central France had to be cancelled, as a public event, due to the pandemic.
We at The SWW2LN were nevertheless aware that there were a number of UK-based relatives of agents waiting to attend a Valençay ceremony for the first time...
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Author: Paul McCue
WWII veteran Stanley, the 98-year-old father of Friend of The SWW2LN, Pat Vinycomb, has two ‘secret war’ connections of a) being taken into the famous Comète escape line ofMI9 after his Halifax was shot down over France in 1944 and b)later being imprisoned in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany...
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Author: Paul McCue
8th November 2020
Remembrance Sunday and ArmisticeDay in COVID-Restricted November, 2020
On Remembrance Sunday, 8th November 2020, a wreath was placed during the RBL ceremony in Liss, Hampshire, commemorating the trainee agents who passed through STS 3,Stodham Park, in the village 1941-1945.
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Author: Paul McCue
Belgian SOE Agent’s name corrected on the
memorial to the missing 1939-45, Brookwood Military Cemetery after 63 years – all thanks to the SWW2LN.
Belgian Defence Attaché, Captain (N) Renaud Flamant visited Brookwood on Sunday, 4th July 2021. He was taking part in the monthly Last Post ceremony in which he highlighted the death in service of Sergeant René Michaux...
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Author: Paul McCue
Easter Sunday, 4th April saw just six members (ref. ‘Rule of Six’ governmental guidelines) of The SWW2LN participate in a three-stage outdoors commemorative activity in Brookwood, Surrey.
First stop, in the Glades of Remembrance (Pine Glade) of the civilian cemetery, was at the ashes graves of...
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Author: Paul McCue
Within the ranks of SWW2LN supporters, we have been honoured to number three ‘secret war’ veterans. One, Dr. Steve Weiss, who served with the OSS in occupied France during WW2, is sadly no longer with us and we await, post-Covid restrictions, his memorial service.
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Author: Paul McCue
Despite the new regulations, we adapted to the ‘maximum of six’ and managed to squeeze in three small-scale talks/walks in late September 2020 about the French Resistance’s involvement in attacking the Atlantikwall, recreated in 1943 on Hankley Common in south-west Surrey.
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Author: Paul McCue