From the Red Army to SOE

Major Len Manderstam was one of the most remarkable secret agents of the Second World War. Born in Riga and a fluent Russian speaker, he was to be recruited to the Special Operations Executive soon after war broke out and became head of its Russian section.

During the Revolution Manderstam founded a school militia which freed political prisoners and as a teenager became a colonel in Trotsky's Red Army on the Eastern Front. Horrified by Bolshevik atrocities, he rebelled and was thrown into Lubianka prison, narrowly escaping the firing squad. He left Russia for Africa in the 1920s and joined SOE in 1939. He headed the newly-formed Angola section and was involved in clandestine missions to blow up Nazi supply stores and sabotage U-boat fuel. He also arranged single-handed the capture of a Vichy French Ship and its valuable cargo for which he was made an MBE.

After serving in North Africa, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and Germany, he was appointed head of SOE Russian section. His tasks included checking out reports that large numbers of Russian exiles were serving in the German Army and liaising closely with his NKVD counterparts in the Soviet secret service. He later led protests against the forcible repatriation of Soviet prisoners, giving grave warnings to the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden and to the Prime Minister, but to no avail. He described this action as 'one of the most horrible and despicable in British history, condemning more than two million people to execution or the living death of Soviet labour camps'.

These memoirs not only point towards a man of exceptional talent and strength of character but also uncover the little-known networks of the Special Operations Executive in neutral countries.