[2][3] Early in 1945 SHAEF approached UK Director Military Operations (MO1 SP) and US OSS to assemble a force of 120 parachuteable contact and reconnaissance teams "to assist existing maesures of relief for PW and after the collapse of GERMANY" - termed "Eclipse".
The aim of these teams would be to: As a result of its mandate, SHAEF created, in March 1945, The Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force, or SAARF.
Although the female personnel had established enviable records of bravery and daring in their previous assignments, it was decided early-on they would not be used in an airborne role.
Conditions in the POW camps were believed to be poor and there was great uncertainty regarding Hitler's plan for a final stand.
If the Germans abandoned the camps before the arrival of the Allied armies, the POWs would be threatened by starvation and disease and, perhaps, by random violence at the hands of the populace or the military.
[7] SAARF teams were spread across northern Europe to assist local military governments in establishing radio links, in translation and interrogation, in monitoring the movement of German forces back to Germany, in screening the inmate populations of German prisons to determine who were political prisoners and who were criminals, and in searching for Nazis who had been identified as possible war criminals.
Some judgement has been made on the effectiveness of the SHAEF attempts to alleviate suffering of those interned by the Germans as the Nazi Reich collapsed.