Frank Thompson

Who was Frank Thompson?

Major William Frank Thompson was a British officer who acted as a liaison officer between the British Army and the Bulgarian communist and antifascist partisans during World War II.

Thompson was born in Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British India to a British missionary family. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford. His younger brother, E. P. Thompson, became the English historian, socialist and peace campaigner.

In 1939, while studying at the University of Oxford, he became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain under the influence of his close friend Iris Murdoch. Despite his affiliation, he did not support the party's policy of neutrality dictated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and joined the British Army as a volunteer, serving in England, North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Sicily, Serbia and Bulgaria. He was part of the Special Operations Executive.

On 25 January 1944, along with three other commandos, Major Thompson was sent on a parachute landing mission to establish a link between the British staff and the Bulgarian partisans led by Slavcho Transki; he landed near Dobro Pole, Macedonia.