Interesting to see reference to SF operators.
My father was an SF operator with SOE Force 136 in Burma. Force 136 supplied specialist operators to supply and train Burmese hill-tribes to sabotage Japanese logistics and bases. But also, as in my father's case, they supplied communications specialists to small-sized (40 or so) deep penetration groups who carried out recce and search/destroy missions behind Japanese lines. My father's first operation was just after the Battle of Kohima in 1944, to locate and report back on location and strengths of Japanese units which had dispersed into the jungle and were thought to be re-grouping. My father's group, made up of nearly 40 Gurkhas with their officers, also had discretionary orders to ambush and destroy (no survivors/prisoners to be left) enemy groups if they felt it appropriate (preferably quietly with the kukri). In the event they did set up a couple of successful ambushes, though I believe my father, armed with his M1 Winchester carbine, was kept out of sight just in case he was killed and so ruining the mission having no means of communication. His job was to report back to India each day (at same time sched) by morse, using daily letter-code groups on silk pages, changed daily. He also had to call up supply drops, as they were supplied and kept going by air. Back at base near Calutta, all SOE operatives had their morse-sending styles recorded on disc, as even at high-speed, sending styles are as invididual as hand-writing. This measure was taken incase an operative was killed with equipment and cyphers intact and the Japanese tried to use it to fool the British.
The Japanese would regard a captured operative as a highly valuable prize and would try to force him to send and receive on their behalf. Operatives therefore each had a special little 'tweak' they could discretly insert into a message, as an alert that they were captured and operating under duress. Their cypher codes were printed on silk, so they could be burned without leaving useful residue. As a last resort, every operative was in possesion of a cyanide capsule.
Presumably, captured SF operatives would be beheaded after their usefulness was over. Actually, my father told me that earlier, when he was on his SOE jungle-training course in Horona, Ceylon, they were shown captured film of allied soldiers being beheaded by Japanese captors and were told by their instructor that was what they could expect if captured.
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