She spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ravensbrck Concentration Camp. Her family did not announce the cause of death of Mrs. Hallowes, born Odette Brailly in France. January 16, 1995, pp. You are welcome to search for what you are looking for with the form below. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Britain and European Resistance, 194045: A survey of the Special Operations Executive with Documents, 1980. Odette was a courier for the SPINDLE circuit of Special Operations Executive (SOE), the secret sabotage outfit Winston Churchill had charged to set Europe ablaze. She was a wife and mother of three who didnt drink, smoke or swear, and to the casual observer she was quite ordinary, perhaps even boring. [8][9], Sansom made a landing on a beach near Cassis on the night of 2 November 1942, and made contact with Captain Peter Churchill, who headed Spindle, an SOE network based in Cannes. Odette Sansom returned to the UK and in 1945, she became the recipient of a MBE and the year after, she received the George Cross. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. EXCLUSIVE: Odette Sansom had fallen for her supervisor and lied to the Nazis that she was in charge leading to two years of torture. Special Operations Executive(SOE) had been set up in 1940 to coordinate and carry out subversive action against German forces in occupied countries, including France. 5 Non-Christmas Movies to Watch This Holiday, Best Online Games to Play with your Friends, 12 tips for creating visual content on social media. Occasionally, during their imprisonment, Sansom and Churchill managed to meet and talk secretly before he was moved to Germany in February 1944. When You Breathe In Your Diaphragm Does What. [17][18] The British had calculated that if the Germans thought she was related to the British Prime Minister they would want to keep her alive as a possible bargaining tool. Later, she married Geoffrey Hallowes. Are you going to answer my questions?" Odette Sansom GC, MBE (28 April 1912 - 13 March 1995), also known as Odette Churchill and Odette Hallowes, code named Lise, was an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France during the Second World War.The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe . What happened to Odette Hallowes? She was captured six months later and imprisoned in Fresne, the Gestapo prison in Paris. Odette Sansom Hallowes (1912 - 1995) was born in Amiens, France, to a bank manager who left his job when World War I broke out to join an infantry regiment on the Western Front. Military figures Famous military leaders and soldiers, including Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ataturk, Erwin Rommel, Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower. "And this is Fritz Shren," she said, "commandant of Ravensbrck concentration camp. "Now would you care to tell me Arnaud's address?," the interrogator asked. They claimed they were husband and wife and Weapons and ammunition Walther PPK After the British evacuation of Dunkirk, the War Office had made a radio appeal to the public for pictures of the French coast. Agents learned how to place explosive matchboxes or fountain pens where they would do the most damage. Both Churchill and Sansom were therefore retained in Fresne and frequently interrogated for another eight months. Sansom organized and brought about the largest resupply drops ever made to the Maquis who were hiding in the mountains above the Cote d'Azur in France. On May 12, 1944, 25 days before the Allies landed in Normandy, Sansom, along with six other women agents of the SOE, was taken in handcuffs by night train from Fresne to Karlsruhe Prison in Germany. They hoped that this story would help. Odette was a French woman married to an Englishman. Odette Sansom was born in France but later moved to England. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. On her second mission in France, Szab parachuted behind German lines the day after D-Day and established contact with resistance forces in the area. Klaus Barbie, known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was a leader in the Nazi group called the SS, and was head of anti-Resistance operations in France duri, Himmler, Heinrich She was brutally tortured by the Gestapo for information on her fellow agents. She is buried with Odette at Burvale cemetery where her name is given as Yvonne Marie Rose Brailly. Sex/Life is a drama series inspired by the book 44 Chapters About 4 Men by BB Easton. help establish a new circuit in Burgundy. Returning to Fresne, Sansom expected to be shot. Odette Hallowes: The WWII British Spy - Forces Network It's 1942 and German troops have occupied most of Europe. 3 Commercial Lots- Minooka, IL -For Sale Her first SOE mission was in April 1944 and in July 1944, Szabo was landed by Lysander to spy on the closed zone around the Atlantic Wall. Odette Hallowes/Place of burial. What happened to Odette Sansom daughters? World War Two's most highly decorated female spy has had a train named after her by Great Western Railway. These three men were amazing spies who helped to . Carve Her Name With Pride Film based on the life of Violette Szabo. Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. He spun a tale to her of them travelling together to London to "discuss means of ending the war." She was brutally interrogated in prison before being deported to Germany and eventually executed at Ravensbrck concentration camp in 1945. Home | About | Contact | Copyright | Privacy | Cookie Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap. August 21, 1946. For eight weeks, the women were apparently forgotten by the authorities and were housed, well apart from each other, in crowded cells in the civil prison. In 1946, Odette Sansom was awarded theGeorge Cross(GC) for refusing to betray her fellow secret agents under torture. Sansom was shocked by the lax attitude towards security by her French supporters. Its agents were mainly tasked with sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines. You can unsubscribe at any time. what happened to odette sansom daughters. from the east, she persuaded Fritz Suhren, the camp commandant, to Her code name was "Lise". Odette was a quiet child. French-bornOdette Sansomworked undercover in France during theSecond World War. She lived quietly, carrying on an extensive correspondence. Last updated 8 February 2018. agents,Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman, Madeleine Damerment, Vera (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images). While on a secret trip to England, he left her in charge. Spies were chosen carefully. Photo courtesy of FANY. In 1941 she responded to requests by the War Office for people to send photographs of France. She believed that only if England and France survived would freedom and civilization prevail. Her hair began falling out, her teeth became loose and she lapsed into a semi-coma. Please make him your prisoner." She endured months of solitary confinement and death threats, but revealed nothing. Shren, along with his top-ranking prison staff, was executed following the War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg. A French agent working for the British during World War II, Odette Sansom left three small daughters to join the Resistance in 1942. "[5], The Germans generally found persons of the prisoners' own nationality to carry out the torture, she later recalled, so that one "could not say they were tortured by the Germans." SOE was also monitoring those who brought them in, hoping to find some who were qualified to become agents in France. "Life wisdom learnt in the darkness of a torture cell; Odette Hallowes, GC.," in London Sunday Times. He is misreported as having been taken prisoner by the British in Belgium as a spy when wearing a British uniform. He then departed Saint-Jorioz with a plan to return and for them to leave France together clandestinely by aircraft on April 18. "That is a permanent link I would not let go of," she said. After the war, the organisation was officially dissolved on 15 January 1946. This would mean securing an apartment in a specified part of town in France to which the SOE might send other members, either as part of an escape team or to encourage sabotage and action by the French Resistance. Her wartime experiences and endurance of a brutal interrogation and imprisonment, which were chronicled in books and a motion picture, made her one of the most celebrated members of the SOE and one of the few to survive Nazi imprisonment. Odette is a 1950 British war film based on the true story of Special Operations Executive French agent, Odette Sansom, living in England, who was captured by the Germans in 1943, condemned to death and sent to Ravensbrck concentration camp to be executed. Your email address will not be published. All were terrific spies and each played a key role in deceiving the Germans about D-Day. Odette accompanied him. Educated at the Convent of Therese in Amiens 3707 N. Division St.- Morris, IL -Lease Listing Mr. Sansom joined the army at the beginning of the Second World War, and Odette Sansom and the children moved to Somerset for their safety. Sansom told the Germans that Churchill was in the country on her insistence. She was to land on the Mediterranean coast and work her way north, where SOE hoped to establish a new circuit. During her internment, she suffered brutal treatment, including long periods of solitary confinement in the dark. World War II buffseven military historianslose sight of the fact that female couriers operating in occupied France had the second highest Allied fatality rate (42%, behind only Bomber Commands 45%) of the war. Yolande Beekman ("Yvonne"), Madeleine Damerment ("Martine"), and Eliane Plewman ("Gaby"), along with Noor Inayat Khan , were executed without trial in Dachau on September 13, 1944. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Charles de Gaulle/Date of death. Captured by the Gestapo in France and consigned after being cruelly tortured in Pariss notorious Fresnes prison, to Ravensbrck concentration camp, she emerged emaciated, weak and gravely ill at the end of the war. The Germans wanted to know the true identity of Spindle's wireless operator, "Arnaud," as well as the whereabouts of a British officer, Captain Francis Cammaerts, who had landed in the plane which had taken Churchill to England. It reads: In love and homage to Mrs. Yolande E.M. Beekman, Croix de Guerre, Miss Danielle Bloch , Miss Andre M. Borrel, Miss Muriel Byck , Miss Madeleine Damerment, Miss Noor Inayat Khan, Mrs. Cecily M. Lefort , Miss Vera E. Leigh, Mrs. Eliane S. Plewman, Croix de Guerre, Miss Lilian V. Rolfe , Miss Diana H. Rowden, Mrs. Yvonne Rudellat , Mrs. Violette R.E. Her brave endurance saved the lives of many agents. . Hewson, David in Walters, Anne-Marie (2009), Foot, M. R. D. (1966), "SOE in France," London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, p. 252, Undercover: The Men and Women of the SOE, Patrick Howarth, 1980. She had already made three unsuccessful attempts to get to France. She began to understand that they were asking her to volunteer for more than part-time work as a translator. Odette Sansom (1912 1995) a French/British spy who worked as an SOE operative in occupied France. Four female SOE agents had been put to death in a concentration camp by lethal injection that month. In June 1943, she was brought before an improvised military court and condemned to death as a British spy. Since Sansom (code name "Lise") spoke French, she could plan and execute the night parachute resupply drops and arrange for secret transportation of the agents. What happened to Odette Sansom daughters? They Feared No Evil: The Women Agents of Britain's Secret Armies, 193945. Hearing the broadcast, Sansom wrote that she had photographs taken around Boulogne, but she mistakenly sent her letter to the War Office instead of the Admiralty. She was captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, but survived the war. Something about the future seemed to haunt her. The interrogator told Odette he was a servant of his fhrer, Adolf Hitler, and had no regrets for what he did; in fact, he would stop at nothing to get the information he needed. God bless you and your children. Sansom was the only one officially condemned to die and, ironically, the only one to live. [21], When the Allies were only a few miles from Ravensbrck, the camp commandant Fritz Suhren forced Sansom into his car and drove to the advancing Americans to surrender. drive her to the Allied lines in the west. However, since she had claimed to be the wife of Peter Churchill, and the Germans were not sure of his relationship with Winston Churchill (there was none), they were reluctant to kill her. Sansom, an elegant, vivacious young Frenchwoman who had been living in England, detested the Nazi system, the police state, and Hitler. [6], Originally Sansom was considered too temperamental and stubborn by SOE, with an evaluation stating "She is impulsive and hasty in her judgments and has not quite the clarity of mind which is desirable in subversive activity. As a result she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive Features female Prime Ministers, scientists, cultural figures, authors and royalty. In 1914 when World War I broke out, Odette's father joined the Infantry Regiment and received the Croix de Guerre and Mdaille Militaire for his bravery. Agents wore boots and shoes with secret compartments. On 31 October 1942, under her codename, 'Lise', she arrived in Cannes. The couple moved They would later have Lily in 1934 and Marianne in 1936. Erwin Rommel is know, Reinhard Heydrich The officer responsible for Sansom's torture in Paris was also executed in July 1944, for ordering the shooting of British parachutists captured in uniform. When German counter-intelligence became more of a threat, Churchill moved his circuit of saboteurs and information gatherers to Upper Savoy in February 1943. She refused to disclose the whereabouts of Rabinovitch and another British agent, stuck to her fabricated cover story that Churchill was the nephew of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that she was his wife, and that he knew nothing of her activities. Member of the Order of the British Empire, Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil), Archives communales et communautaires d'Amiens, "Odette Sansom Special Operations Executive (SOE) Agents in France", "Sansom, Odette Marie Cline (Imperial War Museums interview) Reel One", "War heroine Odette was deemed 'too temperamental' for spying", "Sansom, Odette Marie Cline (Imperial War Museums interview) Reel Two", "Peter Churchill, British Hero Of the French Resistance, Dies", "Sansom, Odette Marie Cline (Imperial War Museums interview) Reel Three", "GWR train named after decorated WWII spy Odette Hallowes", Newsreel footage of marriage to Peter Churchill, 1947, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Odette_Hallowes&oldid=1126782190, Female resistance members of World War II, Members of the Order of the British Empire, French Special Operations Executive personnel, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 11 December 2022, at 06:02. Odette Marie Cline was born on April 28, 1912 to Gaston and Yvonne Brailly who lived in Amiens, France.Her brother Louis was born a year later in 1913. Instead, Sansom told the Americans to take him prisoner. Larry Loftis is the author of CODE NAME: LISEThe True Story of the Woman Who Became WWIIs Most Highly Decorated Spy, available now from Gallery Books. She told her story and accepted her GC on behalf of all her comrades who did not survive. If England and France survived would freedom and civilization prevail in prison before being to. His circuit of saboteurs and information gatherers to Upper Savoy in February 1943 were her. By Great Western Railway the interrogator asked therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content would care... Britain and European Resistance, 194045: a survey of the War. Men. In charge land on the Mediterranean coast and work her way north, where SOE hoped to a! 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what happened to odette sansom daughters