WHINNEY, PATRICK• 575ior personnel around London in her own car, but later she was put in
charge of the allocation of petrol coupons, a post of some importance
at a time when fuel was subject to strict rationing. At the end of the
war she left the Security Service and took up painting and sculpting,
acquiring an impressive reputation.WHEELWRIGHT.One of the largest and most significant of theSpe-
cial Operations Executive (SOE) circuits in occupied France,
wheelwrightemployed some 20 SOE-trained agents under the
command of George Starr (codenamedhilaire). The network cov-
ered a huge territory in the southwest and was very effective at isolat-
ing the Wehrmacht Army Group G, garrisoned near Toulouse, by
cutting its power and telephone lines. Starr had landed by felucca in
November 1942 and had originally been intended forsprucein
Lyons, but that circuit collapsed just before his arrival. Instead, he
adopted the cover of a wealthy retired Belgian mining engineer from
the Congo (which explained his awful accent) and took up residence
in Castelnau-sous-l’Avignon, where he was so popular that he was
elected the town’s deputy mayor.
WHINNEY, PATRICK.Patrick Whinney’s introduction to unortho-
dox warfare came in 1940 when he was transferred to the Naval Intel-
ligence subsection known as DDOD(I), which, based in the Helford
estuary, ran clandestine operations across the Channel in fishing
boats and fast motor launches. A year later he was undertaking simi-
lar missions in the Mediterranean, first from Algiers and then from
Sardinia. In 1943 he was in command of a flotilla of boats at La Mad-
dalena, Sardinia’s most northerly port, transportingSpecial Opera-
tions Executiveand AmericanOffice of Strategic Servicesagents
to the Italian coast.
After the war Whinney remained in theSecret Intelligence Ser-
viceand in 1949 participated, as its head of station in Athens, in the
infiltration of guerrillas into CommunistAlbania, a task in which he
was assisted byDavid SmileyandRobert Zaehner. Whinney wrote
Corsican Command, an account of his war experiences, but it was to
be more than half a century before the book was published. He now
lives in the Channel Islands.