IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER THIS THAT PPA WAS FORMED: THE SMALLEST INDEPENDENT/ UNIT OF THE BRITISH ARMY AT 23 ALL RANKS. THE ORIGINAL OFFICERS OF PPA WERE/ THREE FRIENDS WHO HAD SERVED TOGETHER IN THE LIBYAN ARAB FORCE: POPSKI,/ ROBERT PARK YUNNIE AND JEAN CANERI./ The work of MI6 was a closely guarded secret - its role and very existence was not officially recognized until the Intelligence Services Act of 1994 and the authorised history of the service ends in 1949. On April 21, Caneri led all PPA, with his headquarters organized as a fighting patrol, into the watery maze around Lake Comacchio where, with the partisans of the Garibaldi Brigade and units of the 27th Lancers, they fought Germans for seven days. McCallum and his gunner were killed when a Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon destroyed their jeep as McCallum was leading his patrol into a village on the lake. PPA vehicles are shown during a 48-hour rest and refit period on the campus of the University of Padua, Italy, in the spring of 1945. Yunnie's B patrol moved up into the mountains to a village called Esanatoglia. There he had an encounter with a beautiful spy, established a headquarters in an abandoned monastery, and recruited an Italian ex-officer named Guillelmo Guardone on the spur of the moment. Yunnie was notoriously hard to please in his selection of men, but his choice was often unerring. "Gigi" served with the PPA until the end of the war. He earned his keep immediately, spotting a German armored car that he sneaked up on the patrol during a shoot-out. The next day Yunnie had a sudden premonition of danger. Rousing his patrol he headed over the mountain, leaving behind Gino, who had become very ill. A few days later the partisan rejoined: the Germans had sneaked up on the monastery and, enraged at finding it empty, shot up the town and its partisan band. Gino escaped by pretending idiocy. By this time PPA personnel had gained between them a DSO, a Distinguished Conduct Medal, 6 MCs, 10 MMs, and 14 Mentions in Despatches; HM King George VI had personally requested an account of the unit’s exploits.

PPA crossed the rivers Po and Adige and ran into a large force of Germans at Chioggia. Using bluff, as Popski would have done, Caneri laughed off the fact that he had only nine men in three jeeps, saying there were large forces behind him, and persuaded the German commander that to continue fighting was hopeless. The commander surrendered his 700 men.

Memorial details

Fighting with Popski's Private Army. Greenhill Books, 2002. ISBN 1-85367-500-8. Corporal Ben Owen, Yunnie's gunner On Sunday, March 30, 2008, Popski’s birthday, the PPA Memorial was unveiled by Sir Robert Crawford CBE, director-general of the British Imperial War Museum, assisted by Captain Campbell, and dedicated in the presence of nearly 250 PPA, LRDG, SAS, and Partisan veterans, relatives, and friends. It sits in the center of the Allied Special Forces Association’s Memorial Grove within the British National Memorial Arboretum (inspired by the USA’s Arlington Cemetery) in Staffordshire, in the very center of the United Kingdom. The other telling factor that determined the path of a battle was that there was just one tarmac road along the coast and this had to be used to supply the forward troops of either army with fuel, ammunition and other supplies. It was when this ‘line of communication’ got over extended that either army’s advance came to a grinding halt and went into reverse and this happened to both armies several times before the final advance of the Eighth Army from El Alamein to Tunis. Montgomery made sure that he would have the equipment and sufficient supplies to sustain the distance before he launched the final battle. The commandos immediately went ashore and took up positions to cover PPA’s landing. Popski went in with them and met Yunnie on the beach. Yunnie reported that, because his message confirming the landing point reconnaissance inland had shown heavy German traffic everywhere, the German Army was now in retreat. He said he did not think PPA had any chance of survival in the crowded enemy situation. On 1 October 1909 the War Office's Secret Service Bureau began its work. It soon developed 'home' and 'foreign' sections which became MI5 and MI6. The purpose of MI5 was to protect Britain's secrets while MI6's task was to find out the secrets of potential enemies abroad.

Sanderson, James Dean, "Behind Enemy Lines" Pyramid Books 1959, Chapter 10. Mainly of interest as an example of the exaggerated accounts of the PPA's exploits. Peniakoff became the British-Russian liaison officer in Vienna before demobilisation, naturalisation and achieving fame as a British writer and broadcaster. In 1950 he wrote the book Private Army about his experiences; it sold very well, was reprinted several times that year, and has continued to be reprinted (also titled Popski's Private Army) well into the 21st century. Willett, John, "Popski" MacGibbon and Kee 1954. Out of print but usually available at a price. This book is written as a companion to "Private Army" and does not treat Popski's military career in detail. THE PPA MEMORIAL WAS FUNDED BY PPA VETERANS AND THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIEND, AND ERECTED IN 2008 BY FOPPA/ THIS PLAQUE WAS GIFTED IN 2010 BY MICHAEL BLAKE AND ROBERT CUMMINGS IN MMEORY OF TROOPER PAT BLAKEBBC News story about the 2007 discovery in the desert of a bag lost by an LRDG despatch rider (incorrectly thought to be a PPA despatch rider) during the war.

During WW2, Peniakoff sustained two injuries to his left hand: the first, during the desert campaign, resulted in the loss of a finger, while the second, towards the end of the war in Italy, necessitated amputation of the entire hand. [7] In the 36 months of its existence, 20 of them spent on operations, PPA had been more of a brotherhood than a military unit, a brotherhood created and led by Popski. Though at its peak it numbered no more than about 120 men, its contribution to the war effort was impressive. In Egypt he married Josephe Louise Colette "Josette" Ceysens, an Egypt-born Belgian, on 10 November 1928. They had two daughters, Olga and Anne, born in 1930 and 1932. After receiving his commission he divorced Josephe in March 1941 and sent the family to South Africa. [2] On 2 April 1948 he married Pamela Firth in Chelsea. [8] Death [ edit ] The Eighth Army’s various battles against Rommel’s Afrika Corps were fought up and down a coastal strip of fairly flat terrain and the main reason for this was that the land to the south was soft sand and practically impassable for tanks and heavy vehicles. I think the only unit that safely negotiated this inhospitable land was the ‘Long Range Desert Group’ that was equipped with American Bantam Jeeps which had four wheel drive and low reduction gears. This famous unit, the forerunner of the SAS (Special Air Service), penetrated deep behind enemy lines creating mayhem by blowing up fuel and ammunition dumps and destroying aircraft on the ground. This reminds me that there was another unit lead by a man called Popski who was either a Pole or a White Russian. I saw some of his men once and a right lot of cut throats they looked. His unit was known as ‘Popski’s Private Army’ and they too operated behind the German line both in North Africa and later in Western Europe.Plaque 4, left-hand column]: POPSKI'S PRIVATE ARMY/ NO. 1 DEMOLITION SQUADRON/ 28TH GARIBALDI BRIGADE/ TO THE ETERNAL MEMORY OF/ ARRIGO BOLDRINI (BULOW) - GOLD MEDAL FOR MILITARY VALOUR/ AND THE PARTISANS OF 28TH GARIBALDI BRIGADE/ UNDER HIS COMMAND IN PORTER FORCE, BRITISH EIGHTH ARMY,/ DURING THE 1944 CAMPAIGN FOR THE LIBERATION OF/ THE CITY OF RAVENNA/ AND/ WITH ETERNAL GRATITUDE/ TO THE 604 HEROES WHO FELL IN THE ACHIEVEMENT OF VICTORY./ [Right-hand column is the Italian translation.] Popski's Private Army, officially No. 1 Demolition Squadron, PPA, was a unit of British Special Forces set up in Cairo in October 1942 by Major Vladimir Peniakoff. Popski's Private Army was one of several raiding units formed in the Western Desert during the Second World War. The squadron also served in Italy, and was disbanded in September 1945.

Rankin, Nicholas (7 October 2011). Ian Fleming's Commandos: The Story of the Legendary 30 Assault Unit. Oxford University Press. p.162. ISBN 978-0199361113. His father took him to England, where Peniakoff resumed his studies at St John's College, Cambridge, reading mathematics. He initially had conscientious objections to participation in World War I, but by his fourth term at Cambridge his views had altered, and he went to France to volunteer as a gunner in the French artillery. He was injured during his service with the French Army and was invalided out after the Armistice in November 1918. [2] With the raiders at Barce was an observer and guide, Major Vladimir Peniakoff. In the raid he had a finger smashed by a bullet; the finger was amputated next day in the desert and at the same time some shell splinters were taken from one of his legs. However, he said, he “enjoyed himself thoroughly” and was determined to have his own independent unit operating along the lines of the LRDG and SAS. The Oldest 2nd Lieutenant in the British ArmyPopski's activities during the World War I are mysterious. In the introduction to his memoir "Popski's Private Army", he writes that he "left [Cambridge] ....to enlist as a private in the French army", that "eleven days later I reported to my battery, a full fledged gunner." and that "I was invalided out of the army shortly after the 1918 armistice". However, his biographer, John Willett, was unable to find the slightest trace of his service in the French Army, and, having access to the family papers, found several pieces of correspondence to his family indicating that Popski was working in war industries in 1916 and 1917. Did he serve briefly in the French army, as Willett thinks is possible? Did he invent the whole thing? Or did he in fact serve on the Western Front and the records are lost and the correspondence misleading? We may never know.