Although "Ranji" succeeded in delivering the radio equipment and operator through which contact was kept with Maniu and Georgescu, a second SOE mission to Romania was also in the works since the spring of 1943. Since direct British contact failed to be achieved in the previous attempt, the new mission, code-named "Autonomous", was put into motion. Led directly by
Lieutenant Colonel de Chastelain, together with
Ivor Porter, a former English lecturer at the
University of Bucharest, and Captain Silviu Mețianu, a Romanian sabotage expert recruited by the SOE in
London, preparations began in November 1943.
Operation aims and outcome The aim of the operation was primarily political: • To persuade Romanian politicians, especially
Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the
National Peasants' Party, to negotiate an armistice with the
Allied Powers and to oversee the operational details of an eventual coup to overthrow Antonescu's regime. • In case they were captured by authorities loyal to the
Antonescu government, to convince the Romanian authorities during their interrogation, that the allies were preparing to land in the
Balkans, hoping that this would induce a concentration of German troops to the east, reducing their firepower in
Normandy. On 22 November 1943, de Chastelain made his first attempt to jump into Romania alone. Flying in a
Liberator bomber of an
RAF squadron from
Tocra in
Libya, no signals were spotted in the drop zone so the aircraft had to turn back, managing to reach
Brindisi in
Italy due to fuel shortage. A second attempt with both de Chastelain and Porter happened on 5 December, resulting in a similar outcome. The third attempt happened in the night of 22 December 1943, and all three agents parachuted into thick fog and some distance away from the target. They hid in the woods near their landing location until daybreak when they set out to find the car that would take them to Bucharest. They were however captured by
Romanian gendarmerie near the locality of
Plosca,
Teleorman County as their aircraft was discovered by
radar on the night of the drop. Two German soldiers had previously tried to reach the party but were turned away by the local officials. They were held as well-treated
prisoners of war at the Gendarmerie headquarters in
Bucharest under the care of General
Constantin Tobescu, Major Constantin C. Roșescu and of Major
Eugen Dobrogeanu. Churchill promptly sent a message to
Marshal Ion Antonescu warning him that should the British prisoners fall into German hands he would be held personally responsible. The Romanian leader had been told that de Chastelain had information which in German hands could change the outcome of the war. After reaching Bucharest, de Chastelain and Porter informed Antonescu of the British attitude towards Romania and also advised him through generals Tobescu and Vasiliu that he should send authorized envoys to negotiate armistice terms with the three Allies. The
Conducător eventually sent Prince
Barbu Știrbey to
Cairo for this purpose. During their internment, the three SOE agents were interrogated several times by Romanian officials. The Germans also requested to interrogate the SOE mission, though they were only allowed to do so twice. While kept in custody in Bucharest, the Autonomous mission facilitated the contact between the British and both Antonescu and Maniu. On 19 March 1944, while Marshal Antonescu was called to
Berlin following the
German invasion of Hungary, Deputy
Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu sent a message to the British asking what help the Allies could offer Romania. He soon received a response on 25 March from
General Henry Maitland Wilson, the
Supreme Allied Commander in the
Mediterranean Theatre, that Romania must cease all resistance to the
Red Army, and Antonescu could rely on Allied air support. Likewise, Maniu sent a similar message on 20 March and received a similar reply from Maitland Wilson. Upon returning to Romania, Marshal Antonescu responded to Wilson's message that Romania could not surrender "without some serious guarantee of her future". Despite advising the Marshal to rephrase his message in a more practical tone, de Chastelain was requested to send the message as it was on the Autonomous radio set. The radio transmission was however delayed to a later date by the arrival of a German interrogation mission and by the time the radio set could be used again, it was discovered that the required
crystals for the Cairo wavelength were missing from the Gendarmerie headquarters. On 13 April 1944, the armistice terms for Romania were received by de Chastelain via the "Reginald" radio set. These were forwarded to Antonescu but were strongly rejected. On the opposition side, Maniu instead sent
Constantin Vișoianu together with Alexandru Racotta, Radu Hurmuzescu, and
Max Auschnitt to Cairo on a mission to continue the peace negotiations. On 22 August, de Chastelain was informed of the successful
Soviet offensive and that Mihai Antonescu had decided to act independently of the Marshal, requesting to urgently fly together with de Chastelain to Cairo to negotiate the terms with the Allies. De Chastelain agreed, but not before he drafted several conditions: that he must contact Maniu first, re-establish radio contact with Cairo, and that an officer who could provide details on the German battle orders needed to accompany them. Before the British officer could hand over the conditions to Minister Antonescu on 23 August, the coup against the Antonescu government had started. On 23 August 1944, the young
King Michael of Romania, at considerable personal risk, carried out his well-prepared
coup d'état which took
Hitler completely by surprise and so Romania entered the war against the
Axis. The British prisoners were released and that evening the King arranged for de Chastelain to fly to
Istanbul from where he could go to
Cairo and
London to report. Mețianu stayed on for a time and then returned to England. Porter remained to maintain a radio link with SOE Headquarters until the British mission arrived. He later worked at the Legation and in 1948 returned to London to the Foreign Office. ==Aftermath==