Frank Thompson
Frank Thompson, the eldest son of Edward John Thompson (1886–1946) and Theodosia Jessup Thompson (1892–1970), was born at Darjeeling, India, on 17th August 1920. His parents were Methodist missionaries and soon after Frank's birth, his father taught Bengali at Oxford University. (1)
Frank Thompson's younger brother, the historian Edward Thompson (1924–1993), recalled, the boys' upbringing was "supportive, liberal, anti-imperialist, quick with ideas and poetry and international visitors". (2) Frank and Edward attended the progressive Dragon School. Frank went on to become a star pupil at Winchester College, whereas Edward was enrolled at his father's old school, the Methodist-founded Kingswood School. (3)
Frank Thompson was a growing influence on Edward's political ideas. Roderick Bailey has pointed out that his political consciousness rapidly matured, particularly when a boyhood friend was killed with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Frank and Edward both became strong supporters of the Popular Front Government. (4)
Freeman Dyson, one of Frank's schoolmates later commented: "His loud voice, his quick mind, his intense interest in all kinds of things and people, his crazy jokes, and his disrespect for authority epitomised some characteristics of young Frank, whose youthful and radical energy turned him swiftly into a strong anti-fascist militant." (5)
In the autumn of 1938 Frank Thompson began his studies at New College. Although he originally studied classics while at Oxford University he developing an interest in philosophy and indulged his love of poetry and languages. "A fine poet, he was a remarkable linguist: by the time he was twenty-three he had added to Latin and ancient Greek a command of modern Greek, German, French, and Italian, as well as Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croat, and Bulgarian, plus a little Arabic." (6)
At Oxford he joined the Labour Party but early in 1939 he became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He formed, too, a close relationship with a young undergraduate, Iris Murdoch (1919–1999). It was assumed that they would marry but the relationship was broken when she fell in love with Franz Steiner. (7)
A strong opponent of appeasement he was deeply shocked by the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was determined to take part in the fight against fascism. Thompson was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in March 1940. Four months later he was posted to the newly created ‘Phantom' (general headquarters liaison) regiment. Anxious for action, he volunteered to join a squadron of the regiment at that time fighting in Greece but arrived in the Middle East only after the campaign was over. From May 1941 until April 1943 he served with Phantom's Middle East squadron, first as a patrol officer, then as intelligence officer, and for the last year as second in command. (8)
In September 1943 he joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) that had been formed in 1940 after Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare, wrote to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, suggesting "a new organization to co-ordinate, inspire, control and assist the nationals of the oppressed countries who must themselves be the direct participants." Dalton added that this new organisation "must use many different methods, including industrial and military sabotage, labour agitation and strikes, continuous propaganda, terrorist acts against traitors and German leaders, boycotts and riots." (9)
Lord Halifax passed the letter to Winston Churchill whose directive to Dalton was "now set Europe ablaze." Thompson was enthusiastic about his work. He wrote to his brother: "There is a spirit abroad in Europe which is finer and braver than anything that tired continent has known for centuries, and which cannot be withstood… It is the confident will of whole peoples, who have known the utmost humiliation and suffering and who have triumphed over it, to build their own life once and for all. I like best to think of it as millions - literally millions - of people, young in heart whatever their age, completely masters of themselves, looking only forward, and liking what they see." (10)
Thompson was desperate to fight with the partisans in Europe to fight against the German Army. An old friend James Klugmann, who had been a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, was a senior officer in the in the Greek section of the Special Operations Executive. (11) According to Klugmann's biographer, T. E. B. Howarth: "His pre-war knowledge of Yugoslavia and of its youthful anti-Fascists enabled him to make a widely praised contribution to the briefing and organization of Special Operations Executive agents. During his wartime career in Cairo, which culminated in his promotion to the rank of major, he was much respected and liked for his intelligence and warm, good-humoured manner." (12)
Klugmann arranged for Thompson to lead a mission into Bulgaria. In January 1944, Thompson parachuted into occupied Macedonia to help the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Macedonia led by Mihajlo Apostolski. In May he was caught, brutally interrogated, and, following a show trial in which he defended himself in Bulgarian and pronounced himself a communist, he was executed by firing squad alongside twelve captured partisans on about 10 June 1944 (sources conflict as to the precise date). Together they died giving the clenched fist salute. (13)
Frank Thompson became a war hero in Bulgaria after its liberation by the Red Army. His grave in Litakova became a national monument and he had a railway station named after him at Prokopnik. Frank's poems, letters and diaries were collected by Edward Thompson and published as a book, There is a Spirit in Europe: A Memoir of Frank Thompson (1947), three years after his death. (14)
Primary Sources
(1) Roderick Bailey, Frank Thompson : Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (3rd January, 2008)
Thompson's childhood home, at Scar Top, Boars Hill, Oxfordshire, did much to encourage independent thought.... Tagore, Gandhi, and Nehru all came to the house; so too did John Masefield, Gilbert Murray, Sir Arthur Evans, and Robert Graves. Their father's break with the Methodist church only added further stimulus.
After the Dragon School, Oxford, where he gained a solid grounding in classical languages, Frank Thompson won a scholarship to Winchester College. His political consciousness rapidly matured, particularly when a boyhood friend was killed with the International Brigades in Spain, and still more after he went up, again a scholar, to New College, Oxford, in autumn 1938. There, for a year, he read classics, developing a greater taste for philosophy than literature, and indulged his love of poetry and languages. A fine poet, he was a remarkable linguist: by the time he was twenty-three he had added to Latin and ancient Greek a command of modern Greek, German, French, and Italian, as well as Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croat, and Bulgarian, plus a little Arabic.
(2) Frank Thompson, letter to Edward Thompson (25th December, 1943)
There is a spirit abroad in Europe which is finer and braver than anything that tired continent has known for centuries, and which cannot be withstood… It is the confident will of whole peoples, who have known the utmost humiliation and suffering and who have triumphed over it, to build their own life once and for all. I like best to think of it as millions - literally millions - of people, young in heart whatever their age, completely masters of themselves, looking only forward, and liking what they see.
(3) Christos Efstathiou, E. P. Thompson: A Twentieth-Century Romantic (2015)
Frank Thompson led a partisans' mission, but the Bulgarian resistance movement, in comparison to the Yugoslavian, was very small and disorganised. After months of pursuit in the Balkan Mountains he and most of his hungry comrades were caught in May 1944. They were tortured, interrogated and condemned to death by Bulgarian fascists...
His grave in Litakova became a national monument and he had a station named after him at Prokopnik. Edward and his mother were present at the ceremonial burial in 1945. Edward visited the place in later years searching for anything that would connect Frank's murder with cold war conspiracies.