{{short description|British Army officer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}} {{Infobox military person |name= Frank Thompson |image= Major William Frank Thompson of SOE.jpg |image_size= |alt= |caption= Major William Frank Thompson of SOE |birth_name= William Frank Thompson |birth_date= {{Birth date|1920|08|17|df=yes}} |death_date= {{Death date and age|1944|06|10|1920|08|17|df=yes}} |birth_place= Darjeeling, British India |death_place= Litakovo, Kingdom of Bulgaria |burial_place= Sofia War Cemetery |nickname= |allegiance= {{flag|United Kingdom}} |branch= British Army |service_years= 1939–1944 |rank= Major |service_number= |unit= Special Operations Executive |commands= |battles= Second World War{{KIA}} |awards= |relations= E. P. Thompson (brother) |other_work= }} Major '''William Frank Thompson''' (17 August 1920 – 10 June 1944) was a British officer who acted as a liaison between the British Army and the Bulgarian communist partisans during the Second World War.

==Early life, family and education== Thompson was born in Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British India to a British missionary family. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Simms|first1=Brendan|title=A major, a martyr, a train station|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/a-major-a-martyr-a-train-station/160002.article|publisher=Times Higher Education|access-date=11 January 2015|date=7 July 1997}}</ref> Freeman Dyson, a fellow pupil at Winchester, has described Thompson's extraordinary facility with diverse languages and that "Frank was the largest, the loudest, the most uninhibited and the most brilliant." Dyson "learned from him more than I learned from anybody else at the school".<ref name="Dyson1979">{{cite book |last1=Dyson |first1=Freeman J. |title=Disturbing the universe |date=1979 |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |isbn=0465016774 |pages=34–39 |edition=1st}}</ref>

His younger brother, E.P. Thompson, was an English historian, socialist and peace campaigner.<ref name="Rattenbury"/>

==Second World War== 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 with service number 124039 as a volunteer training with the No. 122 Officer Cadet Training Regiment before being commissioned Second Lieutenant into the Royal Artillery on 2 March 1940.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=34806|supp=y|page=1367|date=5 March 1940}}</ref> He served in England, North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Sicily, Serbia and Bulgaria. He was part of the Special Operations Executive.<ref>Kristen Ghodsee, ''The Left Side of History: World War II and the Unfulfilled Promise of Communism in Eastern Europe''. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015 {{ISBN|978-0-8223-5835-0}}</ref>

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 {{Interlanguage link multi|Slavcho Transki|bg|Славчо Трънски}}; he landed near Dobro Pole, Macedonia. The commandos carried a radio to keep in contact with the staff in Cairo, Egypt and Bari, Italy, but it broke down. On 23 May, Thompson took part in the clash at the village of Batulia between the Bulgarian Gendarmerie and the Second Sofia Brigade of National Liberation of the partisans. He was wounded by the gendarmerie forces, captured and, after a defiant speech in Bulgarian at his show trial, was executed by firing squad in the nearby village of Litakovo ({{langx|bg|:bg: Литаково}}).<ref>Frank Thompson's grave in Litakovo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEHtLqB_tM4</ref><ref name = "Dyson1979"/>

==Post War==

After the war and the establishment of a Communist government in Bulgaria, the nearby villages of Livage, Lipata, Tsarevi Stragi, Malak Babul, Babul and Zavoya were merged and renamed to Thompson (''Томпсън'') in the British officer's honour<!-- on the idea of Transki, who had been promoted to General -->. Similarly, the railway station at Prokopnik, the site of a fierce battle, became "Major Thompson Station".<ref name= "Dyson1979"/> Thompson Hill in Antarctica is also named after Frank Thompson.

==Biographies==

E.P. Thompson wrote two books about his brother, the first with his mother, ''There is a Spirit in Europe: A Memoir of Frank Thompson''. This 1947 out of print publication was re-released in 2024 by Brittunculi Records & Books. The second, ''Beyond the Frontier: the Politics of a Failed Mission, Bulgaria 1944'', appeared in 1996.<ref name="Rattenbury" >Rattenbury, A., 1997. Convenient Death of a Hero. Review of ''Beyond the Frontier: the Politics of a Failed Mission, Bulgaria 1944'' by Thompson, E. P. ''London Review of Books'' [Online] vol. 19 no. 9 pp. 12–13. Available from <u>http://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n09/arnold-rattenbury/convenient-death-of-a-hero</u> [Retrieved 2 March 2011].</ref><ref name="Frontier 1996">''Beyond the Frontier: the Politics of a Failed Mission, Bulgaria 1944'' by E. P. Thompson. Merlin/Stanford, 120 pp, £12.95, December 1996, {{ISBN|0-85036-457-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=The ups and downs of Major Thompson|journal=The Spectator| url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199703/ai_n8762101//|date=29 March 1997|author=Brisby, Liliana}}</ref>

==References== ;Footnotes {{reflist|30em}}

;Bibliography * {{cite news |url=http://www.segabg.com/online/article.asp?issueid=572&sectionid=5&id=00004 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130202093415/http://www.segabg.com/online/article.asp?issueid=572&sectionid=5&id=00004 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2 February 2013 |title=За Франк и тримата командоси |last=Иванов |first=Димитри |date=8 November 2005 |access-date=23 August 2008 |publisher=СЕГА |language=bg }} * {{cite web |url=http://www.svoge.bg/?news_id=155&&lang=1 |title=Майор Томпсън{{mdash}} мост за заздравяване сътрудничеството между община Своге и посолството на Великобритания |access-date=23 August 2008 |publisher=Община Своге |language=bg }} * [http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2224481 CWGC entry] * Stowers Johnson, ''Agents Extraordinary'' (Robert Hale, 1975), {{ISBN|9780709151623}}

==Further reading== * {{cite book|last=Conradi|first=Peter J. |author-link=Peter J. Conradi|title=A Very English Hero: The Making of Frank Thompson|year=2012|isbn=978-1-408802-43-4}} * {{cite book |title=There is a spirit in Europe: A memoir of Frank Thompson |publisher=Victor Gollancz |author1= William Frank Thompson |author2= Theodosia Jessup Thompson | author3= Edward Palmer Thompson|author-link3=E. P. Thompson |year=1947 }} * {{cite book |title=Beyond the frontier: the politics of a failed mission, Bulgaria 1944 |publisher=Merlin Press |location=Woodbridge, Suffolk |isbn=0-85036-457-4 |oclc=36580862 |last=Thompson |first=E. P |author-link=E. P. Thompson |year=1997 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/beyondfrontier0000unse }} * Kristen R. Ghodsee, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131102063721/http://www.vagabond.bg/features/2629-who-was-frank-thompson.html Who was Frank Thompson]?" ''Vagabond Magazine'', No. 85, November 2013. * {{cite book |title=There is a Spirit in Europe: A Memoir of Frank Thompson 80 Years On |publisher=Imprint Lulu: Brittunculi Records & Books |isbn= 9781304479525 |last=Taylor |first=Jonathan R. P. |year=2024}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Frank}} Category:1920 births Category:1944 deaths Category:British Army personnel killed in World War II Category:British people executed abroad Category:British Special Operations Executive personnel Category:British World War II prisoners of war Category:Royal Artillery officers Category:People educated at Winchester College Category:People executed by Bulgaria by firing squad Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford Category:Communist Party of Great Britain members Category:Military personnel from Darjeeling Category:Indian people executed abroad Category:Executed communists Category:20th-century executions by Bulgaria Category:20th-century British linguists Category:Military personnel of British India Category:Special Operations Executive personnel killed in World War II