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Nicholas Bodington
During the Second World War, Nicolas Redner Bodington OBE (6 June 1904 – 3 July 1974) served in the F section of the Special Operations Executive. He took part in four missions to France. Life Pre-war Nicolas Bodington was the son of Oliver Bodington international lawyer and Mary (née Redner). He was born in Paris. His elder brother was Lieutenant Colonel John Redner Bodington DSO MC, a soldier who served in World War I and World War II. Nicolas Bodington studied at Cheltenham College and (for a year) at Lincoln College, Oxford before becoming a journalist, working from 1930 onwards for the '' Daily Express''. He married Audrey Hoffmann in Cheltenham in September 1926. Before the war, he was Reuters's press correspondent in Paris. There he mixed with Karl Bömelburg, who was later head of the Gestapo in France, and Henri Déricourt, who was later a triple agent. He also worked for MI6 for a time. In 1938 his novel ''Solo'' was published in England by Gollancz. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1588, an English fleet based in Plymouth intercepted and defeated the Spanish Armada. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World and established Plymouth Colony, the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War, the town was held by the Roundhead, Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port, handling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre De Vomécourt
Pierre de Crevoisier de Vomécourt (1 January 1906, Chassey-lès-Montbozon, Haute-Saône – 1986), code name Lucas, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Vomécourt founded and headed SOE's first Resistance network (also called circuit) in occupied France. His AUTOGIRO network operated in and around Paris from May 1941 to April 1942. He was captured by the Germans in April 1942. After nearly a year of mostly solitary confinement in Fresnes Prison near Paris, he spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Nazi Germany in Colditz Castle, a POW camp for military officers. He was freed by the allied armies in April 1945. In the estimation of the official historian of SOE, M. R. D. Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major General
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a lieutenant general outranking a major general, whereas a major outranks a lieutenant. In the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth and in the United States, when appointed to a field command, a major general is typically in command of a Division (military), division consisting of around 6,000 to 25,000 troops (several regiments or brigades). It is a two-star general, two-star rank that is subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the rank of brigadier or brigadier general. In the Commonwealth, major general is equivalent to the navy rank of rear admiral. In air forces with a separate rank structure (Commonwealth), major general is equivalent to air vice-marshal. In some countries including much of Eastern Europe, major ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrée Borrel
Andrée Raymonde Borrel (18 November 1919 – 6 July 1944), code named Denise, was a French woman who served in the French Resistance and as an agent for Britain's clandestine Special Operations Executive in World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. In September 1942, Borrel was one of the first two female agents of SOE to arrive in France by parachute. Based in Paris, she became a member of the SOE's Prosper network in occupied France where she worked as a courier. Prosper was SOE's largest and most important network in France and Borrel was an important figure in its leadership. She was arrested by the Gestapo in June 1943. She was subsequently executed in July 1944 at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Early life Andrée Borrel w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Suttill
Francis Alfred Suttill DSO (born, France, 17 March 1910 – executed, c. 23 March 1945), code name Prosper, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in World War II. Suttill was the creator and organiser (leader) of the Physician or Prosper network (or circuit) in and around Paris, France, from October 1942 until June 1943. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and Asia against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Under Suttill's leadership the Prosper network was SOE's most important network in France, notable for its rapid growth, wide circle of contacts and collaborators, and the geographical reach of its operations "from the Ardennes to the Atlantic." The fall began in April 1943 and was as fast as its rise. The network was too la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Kessel
Joseph Kessel (10 February 1898 – 23 July 1979), also known as "Jef", was a French journalist and novelist. He was a member of the Académie française and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. Biography Kessel was born to a Argentine Jews, Jewish family in Villa Clara, Entre RÃos, Villa Clara, Entre RÃos Province, Entre RÃos, Argentina, because of the constant journeys of his father, a Lithuanian Jews, Litvak physician. From 1905 to 1908, Joseph Kessel lived the first years of his childhood in Orenburg, Russia, before the family moved to France in 1908. He studied in ''lycée Masséna'', Nice and lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris and took part in the First World War as an aviator. He was also an aviator during the Second World War, in the Free French (No. 342 Squadron RAF, 342 Squadron RAF) with RAF Bomber Command, with Romain Gary, who was also a talented French novelist. Kessel wrote several novels and books that were later represented in the cinema, notably ''Belle de jour ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germaine Sablon
Germaine Sablon (19 July 1899 at Le Perreux-sur-Marne – 17 April 1985 at Saint-Raphael) was a French singer, film actress and a WWII French Resistance fighter. She starred in some 15 films between 1920 and 1956. Biography Germaine Sablon was born into an artistic family: daughter of Charles Sablon (composer born in 1871), sister of André Sablon (composer), of Jean Sablon (popular singer) and of Marcel Sablon, (director of the Monte Carlo Ballet) and later, she became the aunt of actor Jacques Sablon. Germaine Sablon began a career as an operetta singer in 1915. From 1919, she played in silent films. Married twice, in 1918 to Maurice Bloch, then in 1921 to Charles Legrand, she was for many years the companion of the writer Joseph Kessel. She interrupted her career in the 1920s to give birth to two sons. As early as 1932, she started recording her songs. At the same time, her career as an actress underwent a considerable turning point with the advent of talking films. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Churchill
Peter Morland Churchill, (14 January 1909 – 1 May 1972) was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer in France during the Second World War. His wartime operations, which resulted in his capture and imprisonment in German concentration camps, and his subsequent marriage to fellow SOE officer, Odette Sansom, received considerable attention during the war and after, including a 1950 film. Early life and career Churchill's father was William Algernon Churchill (1865–1947), a British Consul who served in Mozambique, Amsterdam, Pará in Brazil, Stockholm, Milan, Palermo, and Algiers. His father was also an art connoisseur, and author of what is still the standard reference work on early European paper and papermaking, ''Watermarks in Paper'',. His mother was Violet (née Myers). He was a brother of Walter Churchill, a Royal Air Force pilot during the war, and Oliver Churchill, who was also an SOE officer. Churchill was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on 14 January ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud (; 15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of September 1938, when France and the United Kingdom gave way before Hitler's proposals for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of World War II Reynaud became the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic in March 1940. He was also vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right party. Reynaud was Prime Minister during the German defeat of France in May and June 1940; he persistently refused to support an armistice with Germany, as premier in June 1940, he unsuccessfully attempted to save France from German occupation in World War II, and resigned on 16 June. After unsuccessfully attempting to flee France, he was arrested by Philippe Petain's administration. Surrendering to German custody in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armée D'armistice
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its territory occupied under harsh terms of the armistice, it adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany, which occupied the northern and western portions before occupying the remainder of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Though Paris was ostensibly its capital, the collaborationist Vichy government established itself in the resort town of Vichy in the unoccupied "Free Zone" (), where it remained responsible for the civil administration of France as well as its colonies. The Third French Republic had begun the war in September 1939 on the side of the Allies. On 10 May 1940, it was invaded by Nazi Germany. The German Army rapidly broke through the Allied lines by bypassing the highly fortified Maginot Line and invading through Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Frager
Henri Jacques Paul Frager (3 March 1897 Р5 October 1944) was a member of the French Resistance during World War II . He was in succession, second in command of the CARTE network (under Andr̩ Girard), then head of the SOE (F section) network DONKEYMAN, rising to the rank of major within SOE. He was betrayed to the Germans, deported and executed. Early life Henri Jacques Paul Frager was born in France on 3 March 1897, the son of Alphonse Jean Frager and Eug̩nie Louis Adolpine Frager, n̩e Sauvier. He married the Russian-born Louba Frager and worked as an architect in Nice in civil life. On 25 November 1940 he dined with Andr̩ Girard in a restaurant in Antibes. Girard wanted to develop a local network, whereas Frager was then preparing to get to London via Algeria. He reached Algeria in December that year but, after several failed attempts to get from there to London, returned to Antibes in April 1941 and got back in contact with Girard, who recruited him into CARTE as hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golfe-Juan
Golfe-Juan (; oc, Lo Gorg Joan, Lo Golfe Joan) is a seaside resort on France's Côte d'Azur. The distinct local character of Golfe-Juan is indicated by the existence of a demonym, "Golfe-Juanais", which is applied to its inhabitants. Overview Golfe-Juan belongs to the commune of Vallauris in the Grasse arrondissement of the Alpes-Maritimes department, which belongs in turn to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. The area is served by the ''Golfe Juan-Vallauris'' railway station. On March 1, 1815, Napoléon Bonaparte landed at Golfe-Juan with 607 Grenadiers of the Old Guard, 118 Polish Lancers, some 300 Corsicans, 50 Elite Gendarmes, 80 civilians, and 2 light artillery pieces, having escaped exile on the island of Elba. His return to Paris, commemorated by the Route Napoléon, and the campaign that led to his ultimate defeat at the Battle of Waterloo are known as the "Hundred Days". "Golfe Juan" is also the name of a pointillist painting done by Paul Signac (1863†... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Networks_in_France_June_1943.jpg "Click for more on -> Francis Suttill")
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