Betrayals and Setbacks

SOE had been searching for leadership of a new network in the south of France, preferably someone unlike de Gaulle. André Girard convincingly appointed himself the leader of this CARTE network and successfully recruited many under his command. However, his recruits were poorly trained and lacked discipline: many errors were bound to happen. been consistently drilled to ensure that any demolitions set must not fail— failure could jeopardize futures operations and lead to Allied deaths. As Andrée biked leisurely to her destination along with another member of the SOE, day slowly turned to night; a new moon darkened the skies—it was perfect for their mission. Once they arrived, she removed the explosives from her rucksack and set them at the bases of the three towers they had been assigned. Her training ensured that the steps she took to start each bomb’s timer were done perfectly, they then biked back to safety with the same nonchalance they displayed before. Andrée and her partner were two miles away when the bombs went off, but one of the three towers did not explode as planned.

To go back would mean to be caught, so they continued on their way to go into hiding. Three Nazi officers went to investigate the wreckage, and that was when the final set of bombs exploded. One officer was killed, the other two were injured. Andrée’s mission was repeated and embellished throughout the country as one of the stories of French rebellion used to rouse support and morale. The spring of 1943 was a hotbed of rebellion which saw the destruction of trains, bridges, trucks, food stores, and fuel as well as hundreds of Germans wounded or killed in attacks. The leader of the elite spy hunters on Avenue Foch, Karl Bömelburg, could no longer use his current strategy of Allied agent monitoring: he had to take more decisive action.

André Marsac, a courier agent of the poorly run CARTE network, had been captured by Nazi officers in a cafe when he was betrayed trying to set up lines of communication between Marseilles and Paris. Months earlier he had also fallen asleep on a train due to fatigue; when he woke up, he found that the briefcase he was carrying containing an address book of trusted associates, their home addresses, passwords, safe houses and postboxes, contacts for the whole of France was stolen. It was a breach of security on an enormous scale, and now his arresting officer, Sergeant Hugo Bliecher, would be able to pry even more information out of him. Bleicher was a skilled interrogator, often using a friendly demeanor to set his detainees at ease and strike deals where the Nazis would benefit. Marsac fell for Bleicher’s act; in exchange for his freedom, Marsac (bluffing as he had no authority at this point) would provide Bleicher safe passage to England (to negotiate on the war and possibly become a war hero), a radio (which was scarce), a set of Allied codes, a list of arms caches, landing grounds, and British officers, and one million francs. Bleicher also promised that the agents soon to be captured would be treated as prisoners of war and not spies; Marsac agreed to the terms, relieved that it would set him free even at the expense of his colleagues.

Located at Lake Annecy in the Alps was one of the many safehouses of the Allies—a resort-type lodging that catered to the bourgeois. The agents who had taken up residence there were Captain Peter Churchill, a skilled polyglot who coordinated with London and the CARTE network, and later Odette

Sansom near the end of 1942. She had arrived in France by sea and then train along with Mary Herbert, both of whom where in the same class at the Beaulieu school as Lise but needed additional training. However, Odette had landed in the wrong side of France through no fault of her own; her job was similar to Lise’s in that she had to set up safehouses to receive agents, but her assignment was located across the demarcation line in the north. Peter tried to help her by finding her guides around the military checkpoints and arranging for her travel through the CARTE network, but they were of no help due to petty squabbles for power they started between them and the SOE. Odette stayed to work with Peter as his courier, and Mary left to start her assignment as Claude’s courier in Bordeaux.

(above) Odette, Mary, and fellow agents being escorted by Peter to a safehouse for rest. Necessary information must be passed on before they split off to carry out their respective missions.

(below) Permitting Odette and Peter to collect the belongings they will need for prison, the arresting Italian officers watch them at gunpoint. Odette’s quick thinking allows her to hide documents detailing the identities of rebel collaborators and their recently assigned missions. The Allies had been coordinating attacks at a much faster speed than before, however, mid-to-late spring of 1943 saw a rapid dismantling of the many networks and nationwide connections the SOE had worked so hard to build. The combined forces of Bömelburg’s Gestapo and Bleicher’s Abwehr began rounding up agents and rebels in coordinated operations throughout the country. Odette had been followed by Bleicher himself as she returned to her residence; he approached her with Marsac’s demands to which she refused and reported the interaction to her radio operator. London told her to leave as she was compromised, but she defied orders to stay to receive Peter who was scheduled to drop back into France after he had spent a month out of the country briefing his contacts. The day after she received him, both Odette and Peter were captured by Bleicher and Italian officers; they also found a diary containing information on other network members which tied together rebel cells across the entire country.

While being questioned, Odette lied about Peter’s identity, stating that he was the nephew of Prime Minister Winston Churchill when he was only a very distant relative. After arriving at their destination of Fresnes Prison in Paris, they were questioned, tortured, and starved (Peter to a lesser degree for

his relationship to the Prime Minister) in order to glean more information on D-Day. Odette never revealed anything no matter how haggard she became, and in time she became so weak she could no longer take in food—she had been beaten, burnt with a poker from a fire, her fingernails and toenails had been ripped off, her neck had been swelling painfully, and tuberculosis was spreading throughout her lungs. She vowed to herself to never say anything that would jeopardize her colleagues since her defiance of orders gotten Peter caught. Even when she was told by Bleicher that Peter was to be traded for Rudolph Hess (Hitler’s close friend who was in British custody) and that she would be left behind, Odette still kept her silence. Her lie about Peter’s identity had saved him, and she would continue to protect as many as she could.

Around the same time, Francis had been called to England for a debriefing and used the opportunity to demand better assistance for the agents on the field in person. Bömelburg had incentivized betrayal by offering one million francs in exchange for the capture of British officers, there had been many mistakes within rebel groups which had led to safehouses being blown or agents being put in danger, the Nazis were now using injectable drugs during interrogations to get victims to talk (truth serums), and the SOE had not been rewarding agents for their years of hard work and danger they had put themselves in for service to their country (especially women, who had been almost completely ignored). Francis was furious with how they were being treated—there was only so much he could do to keep morale up as well as salvage compromised networks—but through his conversations he was able to convince Buckmaster (the man who co-led the Beaulieu school) to send in more radio operators to help with organizing the networks. Francis dropped back into France to tell the networks to be ready for the invasion; once the attack came, the rebels would be tasked with stopping Hitler’s elite panzer tanks from reaching the invasion zone.

Still, things continued to go poorly. In June, at the same time that weapons and troops were being stockpiled on the British Isles, 300 drops had been scheduled containing weapons and supplies to arm the resistance. However, in a botched drop set to be received by Yvonne, one of the bombs within the cargo exploded in the air and alerted the Gestapo. Her team scattered so as not to be caught, but days later the Gestapo moved in and set up barricade checkpoints at crossroads and flew planes low around the area to look for landing strips and drop zones. Five of her team were caught, and in an attempt to move some agents to safety Yvonne was shot in the head driving to escape the Gestapo. She lived as the bullet did not pierce her skull, and she worked with the hospital staff to make sure she was not interrogated as she healed. Francis had been waiting for Yvonne and the agents she was helping, but when they did not arrive, he knew they had been caught. As soon as he returned home, he was arrested as well.

Andrée and Gilbert were also captured at their safehouse while they were forging new documents for their network to devastating effect. The docu-

Odette’s heartbreaking state after each session of torture had affected the other prisoners who saw her. As weeks passed, she was barely able to eat at all. Bleicher gave up on interrogating her himself with no clear results in sight.

Yvonne’s team panicked in the wake of the blast, but her confidence and clear instructions were able to calm and prepare them for their next steps to go into hiding.