MEMOIR
True Heroism
You can’t write this stuff
Denis Rake was 39 when he asked to join the SOE (Special Organizations Executive) and became a spy. Twenty-seven years later in 1967 he was asked why. He said he felt a duty to prove that gay men were as courageous as their straight friends in fighting Hitler.
Born in Brussels, his father was the London Times correspondent there and his mother a Welsh soprano with a personality to match her coloratura. Denis did not have much of a childhood. He was given away to the circus at the age of three and became a child acrobat. He did not really rejoin the family until he was fourteen at the outbreak of WWI. When he arrived Denis found his father in the hospital, where together with the head of the facility Nurse Cavell, the two were running an escape route for British subjects. Young Denis ran messages for an American neighbor until he got caught.
His mother decided it was time to get back to England. Denis left his father in the hospital and started a perilous journey with his mother who did not have much time for him previously. At the front line, the two had to separate. Denis was given to some officers to be taken to Dunkirk. Once there, Denis showed his extraordinary courage.
At the age of fourteen Denis went back across the lines to get his mother out. Once in England, it was Denis who had to bail his high-strung mother out of trouble. Again, he was given away, this time to a Lady Abercrombie who signed him up at Earl’s Court College of Cable and Wireless. This skill would prove fateful or providential in Denis’ life.
After the war, Denis went back to Brussels where he befriended a British diplomat. In his irrepressible way, he got a job with the Cirque Royal as an assistant to an animal hypnotist. He was nearly 18 when he discovered his inclination towards men. They became lovers until the older Englishman’s wife showed up.
The diplomat was moved to Athens and Denis decided to join him. One evening, he was invited to sing at a soiree given by Lady Bentinck, the wife of a British minister, where he was accompanied at the piano by a “European prince.” This developed into Denis’ first serious love affair that lasted until the relationship became a political liability for the royal and the two had to separate.
Back in England, with the help of his mother, Denis found work in musical theater. He continued to make a living on stage for 15 years until World War II broke out.
The war needed men. Denis signed up with the Navy and was assigned to the Lancastria and the Polux. As luck would have it, Dennis cannot swim, and both ships are sunk by the Germans. Denis nearly drowned, twice.
In 1940, one August evening, Denis was in a pub and overheard a conversation. England needed French speaking spies. French is his first language. Denis decided to join the SOE and become a radio operator.
So there he was, a 40-year-old gay music-hall actor who drank and needed sleeping pills having to train for what was to be one of the most dangerous covert jobs. Needless to say Denis was not like anyone else. Although he was willing to risk his life, he refused to jump from airplanes, physical training, work with explosives or even carry a gun. However, they needed him so he stayed.
Denis was sent to France via Gibraltar where the Brits kept a good bar. From there he was put on a ship whose captain was an ex chorus boy with whom Denis performed in Mercenary Mary. Then onto a submarine staffed by gruff and morose Polish sailors. They were to drop Denis off the coast of Juan Les Pins.
This turned into a true comedy routine as Denis carried a great deal of money, two suitcases, one containing a 60-lb radio, and a fishing pole to get into a minuscule rubber dinghy. The fishing pole was his cover to look like a fisherman in case he was sighted. Denis having almost drowned twice before did not find this either a good prospect or process. In haste he paddled away from the shore.
The resistance contact was Dr. Levy, a gynecologist and father of two daughters. He helped put Denis up until the new orders arrived. Then Denis was off to Lyon to work for the famous American journalist and spy, Virginia Hall.
Denis’ life as a spy in Lyon was definitely not glamorous, but it was colorful, ironic, and truly dangerous. He almost got caught with his radio during a search on a tram. He continued to perform in cabarets. At a child’s birthday party Denis was invited to a table full of allied spies who were a bunch of German officers. In the end he was betrayed by a young agent who himself was turned in to the Germans by his own aunt.
Once his cover was blown in Lyon, Denis needed to leave and search for work in Paris. He was caught and ended up in a French prison at first and then in a German one in Dijon. The Germans severely knocked out some of his teeth and then made him sing. This, according to Denis, was the fist time in his career he “was given the bird.” With the help of a priest Denis managed to escape though he almost died in the filth of the swill bin in which he hid.
In Paris without papers and money, Denis couldn’t find a hotel. He decided to hide in plain sight. He goes to Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit a famous nightclub where he had been known before the war under his entertainment name, Greer. The place had become a German officer hangout.
The bartender recognized “Mr. Greer” immediately and brought his favorite drink, a dry martini. A very handsome German officer befriended Mr. Greer that evening and gave him a bed that night. Well-educated, from an old German family, and an anti-Nazi, Max Halder and Denis became lovers and developed a domestic life. Max worked for the German administration while Denis was a spy during the day and a cabaret entertainer by night. Max never learned Denis’ real name.
Denis described, “For the first time since my Greek experience, I found myself deeply and emotionally involved. Few that I met have been as kind as Max. In everything he did he was gentle, gracious and grateful. We could forget about the war and the horror which it represented to both of us.”
By this time Denis Rake was working for Heslop and Wilkinson, two English spies in Paris, who were just as homophobic and unpleasant to Denis as the German officers were to Max, since the latter never hid his affection for Denis Greer. The relationship became dangerous for both men. One day Denis just walked out without saying anything to Max. It was probably the best way Denis could protect him.
The irony never ends. Denis, Heslop and Wilkinson had to go back to Lyon. They did so by jumping on a moving train. Denis the stage man had to imagine he was acting in a western to manage the jump.
In Lyon, Denis picked up a new radio set. He contacted London and the three were instructed to go back yet again into occupied France. They planned to cross at Limoges. Denis spent the night at the Hotel Au Chasseurs. The French police ran a check and found quite a bit of money on Denis. On the way out of the hotel the patronne shouted “don’t forget his two pals … both wearing dark suits, blue shirts and green ties. One has a tie with dots, the other was plain.”
But the French police has other plans for Denis. The Commissaire, M. Leon Gutte, wanted to join the resistance, and told this to Denis at the house over a dinner prepared by Madame Gutte. Denis was to go back to Lyons and tried to arrange something for the commissaire, who said, “You’ll have to give me your English word of honor not to try to escape.” Denis answered, “I’ll give you my word.”
Of course Virginia Hall told him to go back to England, but Denis couldn’t do that. He explained, “I believe in this man, think of the number who will suffer if I don’t go back. I gave him my word as an Englishman.”
So Denis went back to Limoges only to find that Gutte had ordered to transfer him to the prison at Castres. One of the policemen who accompanied Denis to Lyons now accompanied him to Castres. “Let’s have a drink before you go to this bloody prison.” At the gate Denis gave the man his watch, “I’d rather you have it than some stranger. You know, you really ought to try to get to England.”
In prison they broke Denis’ foot. Once again, he told them nothing.
It was 1942. The tide in the war was changing. One day, the French released the war prisoners, just like that. Denis went back to Heslop and Wilkinson to discuss their return to England. They told him to “Fuck off.”
Denis decided to help two English sergeants who had killed some Germans in an escape attempt. They were headed for Spain. The sergeants didn’t speak a word of French, so for the whole journey they kept their mouth shut.
The three crossed the border in the snow and arrived in a small village. The Spanish police let them sleep for 30 hours before picking them up and taking them to a camp. Here, Denis met the most important person in his life, Alex Shokolovsky. They spent some time together in Spain. Alex moved out first, then Denis. It took a while for Denis to be released as the English thought he had died in Dijon. The present Denis was suspected of being a German spy.
In 1943, back in England, Denis became an instructor. Alex had also joined the SOE. He and Denis saw each other and shared a room now and then. After Alex is shipped out to France, Denis stayed back in England. He was sent to a hospital suffering from nervous and mental exhaustion. They also repaired his foot.
In 1944, Denis became depressed. Eventually Maurice Buckmaster, the head of SOE, came by and asked him if he wanted to go back to France. The next morning Denis was back in London. He walked down Baker Street and heard “Eh alors, you don’t want to know an old friend?” The young man in a British Army uniform was none other than the policeman who took him to the Castres prison. And he still has the watch. “You see, I made it. You’d better have your watch back. Look it’s still going.” Denis replied “Please keep it, I hope it will go on bringing you luck.”
Denis flew through a storm and landed on a grass strip at night. Who else could have waited for him but Alex. They were supposed to join the network of one of the most famous spies during the war, Nancy Wake, who together with John Farmer, armed the French resistance.
If Denis thought his first two missions were failures, he made up for them in this third. Nancy and John ran a huge organization coordinating the efforts of several maquis. Denis was their radio operator. One could say these were Denis’ happiest moments. He was totally free to be himself and was instrumental in the resistance movement.
Unfortunately it came with a very high price.
Alex and Denis were traveling by car accompanied by two other Frenchmen. They ran into a German patrol. Alex managed to talk his way out of it; he wore the disguise of a French policeman. The four drove away but shortly after, they were attacked with machine gun fire. Alex died, cut in half, by bullets in Denis’ arms.
The only thing that kept Denis from losing his sanity was the war itself. They went on fighting.
One day their camp was attacked by the Germans and a sustained gunfight took place between the resistance fighters and the German troops. Denis was wearing shorts made out of Nancy’s slacks. While the others were fighting, he hooked up his aerial and started transmitting. The Germans retreated. The Germans were losing the war. One day they just packed up and left.
Nancy, Denis, and John heard the Germans were leaving Vichy and rushed to the city. Nancy Wake, Denis Rake, and John Farmer were the first Allied officers to enter the city. France was being liberated.
Epilogue
Denis’ father died in a hospital in Belgium. Nurse Cavell, Dr. Levy, and the Priest who helped Denis escape from the Dijon prison were all executed by the Germans. Max Halder died on the Eastern front.
After 1945, Denis became part of the regular army and went to post war Germany. He later became a butler for Douglas Fairbanks. In 1967 he was interviewed for the film The Sorrow and The Pity. And that was where I heard of him for the first time.
