Royal Air Force Special Duties Service
The Royal Air Force Special Duties (SD) Service was a secret air service created to provide air transport to support the resistance movement in Axis controlled territories. The service helped develop and support the resistance by bringing in agents, wireless operators and supplies. Parachute drop was the primary method by which the Special Duties units delivered supplies and most of the agents to the occupied countries. They also developed an air taxi service to pick up agents, political leaders and special communications from occupied Europe and bring them to England. On the outward flight the air taxi service also delivered agents and high value packages to France. Special Duties flights flew to target fields in Vichy France, Occupied France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece. By the end of the war Special Duties units were also operating in the Far East. The air units were controlled by the Royal Air Force, and worked closely with the SOE and the SIS.
SD Dakotas in Italy
Hugh Dalton, right, Minister of Economic Warfare, and Colin Gubbins, chief of SOE, talking to a Czech officer during a visit to Czech troops near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
A low flying SD modified Lysander over England
Jean Garcin and some of his maquis resistance fighters in 1944
Resistance during World War II
During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, resistance movements were sometimes also referred to as The Underground.
The first partisan of World War II Hubal and his unit in Poland in winter 1939
A 1941 Soviet poster, inviting disruption of the enemy rear and active resistance at the German-occupied territories
Belorussia, 1943. A Jewish partisan group of the Chkalov Brigade.
Italy, 1943. Italian partisans celebrating the liberation of Naples.