Apart from his war service, Buckmaster was a corporate manager with the French branch of the Ford Motor Company, in the postwar years serving in Dagenham.
18 Facts About Maurice Buckmaster
1.
2.
Maurice Buckmaster wrote two memoirs about his service with the Resistance during World War II.
3.
Maurice Buckmaster showed an academic bent and gained an exhibition to study Classics at the University of Oxford, but was unable to take this up as his father went bankrupt.
4.
Maurice Buckmaster was allowed to stay on at Eton for a final year through a scholarship and by tutoring younger boys, and from that point onwards was entirely dependent on his own resources.
5.
When World War II broke out, Maurice Buckmaster returned to England.
6.
Maurice Buckmaster joined the British Army and on 14 October 1939 was commissioned to the General List as a lieutenant.
7.
Maurice Buckmaster joined the British Expeditionary Force and fought in France until the retreat to Dunkirk, evacuating on one of the last boats out on 2 June 1940.
8.
On his return from France, Maurice Buckmaster transferred from the General List to the Intelligence Corps with effect from 15 July 1940 and was promoted to temporary captain.
9.
Maurice Buckmaster was involved in Operation Menace in September 1940, a failed attempt to seize the port of Dakar in former French territory.
10.
On 17 March 1941, Maurice Buckmaster was appointed to SOE's French section and following an attachment to T-Section, the Belgian Section, to assist Hardy Amies from July 1941, he was noted as a future head of F Section.
11.
In September 1941, succeeding the civilian Henry R Marriott, Major Buckmaster assumed command of F Section, supported by Nicholas Bodington, working from an apartment in Orchard Court near Oxford Street.
12.
Maurice Buckmaster's task was to build an organization which could carry out sabotage and collect information about the enemy and provide money and equipment for the French resistance.
13.
In Chelsea, London in November 1941, Maurice Buckmaster married Anna Cecilia Stevenson.
14.
Maurice Buckmaster was the daughter of a Bavarian German hairdresser brought up in East London, and the former wife of the barrister Melford Stevenson.
15.
At F Section, Maurice Buckmaster worked closely with his assistant Vera Atkins, who was the section's intelligence officer and a spy mistress.
16.
Maurice Buckmaster wrote two memoirs, Specially Employed and They Fought Alone.
17.
Maurice Buckmaster was interviewed for the 1969 documentary The Sorrow and the Pity.
18.
Maurice Buckmaster Lane, built on the former Joint Services School of Intelligence site in Ashford, Kent, is named after him.