D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Mildred Shutz
Mildred Shutz, Age 100, Special Operations Executive
Interviewed 17 September 2023
A veteran of SOE - Winston Churchill’s secret organisation tasked with "setting Europe ablaze" - Mildred Shutz was a secretary who originally trained in Bedfordshire with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry - FANY.
Members worked in hospitals and drove ambulances and some like her were trained to work in espionage.
She said: "I didn’t know anything about it at all until I started working in it. It stands for Special Operations Executive.
"It was not like a regiment. It was a gathering of people from various countries, occupations, and they were put together really to organise underground movements overseas.
"I don’t consider I was chosen. I don’t think anybody was really chosen. Except people already serving in the forces who lived overseas and were very familiar with the way of life so they didn’t stand out as a stranger.
"Your every move was watched.
"We were in an office and two of us went out for lunch and sat in this churchyard eating our sandwiches and then someone played back what we had been talking about.
"To see that you were genuine and on the right side."
Aged 17 she was asked if she wished to serve overseas and signed up for general training, including parachute training.
The group she was in was dispatched for training without even being able to say goodbye to colleagues they were working with.
Some recruits would join the signals divisions and some would be undercover agents overseas organising acts of sabotage with local resistance groups and pass information.
The training was not just physical but also included initiative tests.
It was taking place at the time of D-Day and because of the training for recruits such as Ms Schultz was cut short in the Summer of 1944 so they could be sent abroad as soon as possible, some to help with the administrative demands of the war and others to take part in acts of espionage and resistance.
German intelligence discovered and broadcast the name of Ms Shutz and the others she had trained with. Despite this the decision was made to send the group anyway and before all of the training was done.
Ms Shultz was sent to Italy to work as a secretary.
The Allies were advancing through the country which they had invaded the year before D-Day. In fact soldiers who fought in Italy jokingly referred to themselves as "The D-Day Dodgers."
That was ironic because of how fierce the fighting was in Italy.
She and others were in FANY uniforms at headquarters in areas where the Allies had control but was also called upon to undertake more dangerous jobs.
"The real pukka people were those who lived behind the lines," she said.
"Organising all the time. In my case I don’t know what happened to all the ten. Those I did know we were working in the office. In my case an officer got to know me quite well and said ‘Would you like to accompany me behind the lines? I have to go in and survey landing strips.’
"Because you could drop people in by parachute but you couldn’t get them out. So they had to find their way out or they would send a small plane. It had to be a small plane and a small landing strip.
"So I went with him. He surveyed the area and I was to watch out to see if anybody was around and shout.
"The lookout I suppose."
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