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Victor Gerson
Haim Victor Gerson DSO, LdH (b. 1898—d. ?), code name Rene, was a Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. He organised the Vic escape line in France. Escape lines helped allied soldiers and airmen, SOE agents, and other people in danger to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe, usually by crossing the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. Early years Haim Victor Gerson was born in August 1898 in Southport, Lancashire, the son of a fabric merchant. World War I He joined the British army at the declaration of war and was sent to the Western Front In France and took part in the Battle of the Somme. After the war, he went to Paris where he was a dealer in fine rugs and carpets. He married and had a son, however in the 1930s his wife died and his son was killed in a traffic accident. He then married Giliana Balmaceda, a Chilean-born actress. World War II On 18 June 1940 four days before the signing of the armistice between Germany and a defeated France, t ...
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Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat. Since 1993 it has been awarded specifically for 'highly successful command and leadership during active operations', with all ranks being eligible. History Instituted on 6 September 1886 by Queen Victoria in a royal warrant published in ''The London Gazette'' on 9 November, the first DSOs awarded were dated 25 November 1886. The order was established to reward individual instances of meritorious or distinguished service in war. It was a military order, until recently for officers only and typically awarded to officers ranked major (or equivalent) or higher, with awards to ranks below this usually for a high degree of gallantry, just short of deserving the Victoria Cross. Whilst normally given for service un ...
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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 ...
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Jacques Mitterrand
Jacques Mitterrand (10 June 1908 – 5 June 1991) was the Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France and a founder of the small left wing party Union progressiste. Mitterrand was born in Bourges. He was a member of the Council of the French Union The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was the formal end of the "indigenous" () status of French subje ... between 1947 and 1958. References 1908 births 1991 deaths Politicians from Bourges Radical Party (France) politicians Union progressiste politicians French Freemasons Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Recipients of the Resistance Medal {{France-politician-RPV-stub ...
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Lazare Rachline (Lucien Rachet)
Lazare is the French and Georgian form of the given name Lazarus, which is itself derived from the Hebrew name Eleazar. It is also a surname. Lazare may refer to: Given name * Lazare de Baïf (1496–1547), French diplomat and humanist * Lazare Bruandet (1755–1803), French landscape painter * Lazare Carnot (1753–1823), French mathematician, physicist and politician known as the "Organizer of Victory" in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars * Lazare Hippolyte Carnot (1801–1888), French politician, son of the above * Lazare Escarguel (1816–1893), French politician and newspaper editor * Lazare Gianessi (1925–2009), French footballer * Lazare Hoche (1768–1797), French general * Lazare Kupatadze (born 1996), Georgian football player * Lazare Lévy (1882–1964), French pianist, organist, composer and pedagogue * Lazare Ponticelli (1897–2008), last surviving French veteran of the First World War * Lazare Saminsky Lazare Saminsky, born Lazar Semyonovich Sa ...
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Virginia Hall
Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre, (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in France during World War II. The objective of SOE and OSS was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE and OSS agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. After World War II Hall worked for the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hall was a pioneering agent for the SOE, arriving in Vichy France on 23 August 1941, the first female agent to take up residence in France. She created the Heckler network in Lyon. Over the next 15 months, she "became an expert at support operations – organizing resistance movements; supp ...
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Fréjus
Fréjus (; ) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2019, it had a population of 54,458. It neighbours Saint-Raphaël, effectively forming one urban agglomeration. The north of the commune forms part of the Massif de l'Esterel. On 2 December 1959, the Malpasset Dam, on the Reyran River above the city of Fréjus, ruptured, killing over 400 people. History The origins of Frejus probably lie with the Celto- Ligurian people who settled around the natural harbour of Aegytna. The remains of a defensive wall are still visible on Mont Auriasque and Cap Capelin. The Phocaeans of Marseille later established an outpost on the site. Foundation Frejus was strategically situated at an important crossroads formed by the Via Julia Augusta (which ran between Italy and the Rhône) and the Via Domitia. Although there are only few traces of a settlement at that time, it is known that the poet Cornelius Gallus was born there in 6 ...
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Élie Lévy
Élie Lévy LdH, MM, CdG with palm, CdG, (1895-1945) was a French medical doctor who was a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War. Early life Élie Victor Amedee Lévy was born on 29 August 1895 at Compiegne, where his father was an engineer. First World War In 1914 Lévy joined the Zouaves aged 18 years old. At the front he was wounded three times by shrapnel and gassed. He was awarded a Croix de Guerre, with palm. Inter war period Lévy studied medicine and in 1922 moved to Paris specialising in paediatrics. He was also a graduate of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Paris. He married in 1923 and had two daughters. In 1934 he moved with his family to Antibes. Second World War In 1939 aged 44 Lévy was mobilized as a reserve lieutenant in Castres, where he trained the young classes. In 1940 he served in the 3rd Mechanical Light Division in the Belgian campaign, in which he was awarded a Croix de Guerre with cita ...
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Antibes
Antibes (, also , ; oc, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal, Antíbol) is a coastal city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department of southeastern France, on the French Riviera, Côte d'Azur between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is in the commune of Antibes and the Sophia Antipolis technology park is northwest of it. History Origins Traces of occupation dating back to the early Iron Age have been foundPatrice Arcelin, Antibes (A.-M.). Chapelle du Saint-Esprit. In : Guyon (J.), Heijmans (M.) éd. – ''D’un monde à l’autre. Naissance d’une Chrétienté en Provence (IVe-VIe siècle)''. Arles, 2001, (catalogue d’exposition du musée de l’Arles antique) in the areas of the Musée Picasso (Antibes), castle and Antibes Cathedral, cathedral. Remains beneath the Holy Spirit Chapel show there was an indigenous community with ties with Mediterranean populations, including the Etruscans, as evidenced by the presence of numerous underwater amphorae a ...
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Duel Of Wits
Duel of Wits is a book written by Peter Churchill, Distinguished_Service_Order, DSO, Croix de Guerre, published in 1953. It was the second of three books describing his wartime experience in the French section of the Special Operations Executive in which he was infiltrated four times into occupied France and spent 225 days behind enemy lines before he was captured. Synopsis ''Duel of Wits'' was the second of three books describing his wartime experience in the French section of the Special Operations Executive. He describes his second mission in April 1942 which was to deliver two SOE wireless operators in Antibes by submarine and then a further SOE wireless operator and another SOE agent on a special mission to organise the VIC Escape Line, who were dropped off nearby at the Pointe d’Agay. He then returned to the UK.''Duel of Wits'', Peter Churchill, Hodder and Stoughton, (1953) In his third mission he was parachuted near Montpellier in August 1942 to organise and coordinat ...
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Marcel Clech
Marcel Clech (1905 – 1944) was a French agent in the French section of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. He was sent to France on three missions and worked as a wireless operator in three different networks before his arrest, and was executed at Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Early life Marcel Rémy Clech was born in Brittany on 11 October 1905. He lived in London working as a taxi driver. World War II He joined the Special Operations Executive, section F, as a wireless operator. He was commissioned as Lieutenant in the British Army on the general list First mission On 1 August 1940 a motorboat attempted to land three French agents: Clech, Tilly, and Victor Bernard at Carentec in Brittany but had to abort the mission after coming under fire and returned to England. Second mission Clech became the radio operator of the 'Autogiro' network of Pierre de Vomécourt (codename "Lucas").''SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special ...
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Edward Zeff
Edward Zeff MBE Croix de Guerre (1904–1974) was a British agent of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Early life Edward Zeff was born to Jewish parents in Brighton on 22 April 1904. He was educated at York Place Elementary Schools in Brighton. In around 1922 he joined his older brother in Paris to develop the family tailoring business in Paris and, after the fall of France in 1940, returned to Britain with his French wife, Reine Sevilla. World War II Edward Zeff trained as a signaller and, as a fluent French speaker, volunteered for the French Section of the Special Operations Executive. In Operation DELAY II Peter Churchill's mission was to land four SOE agents on the French Riviera by submarine. On 26 February 1942 Churchill flew from Bristol to Gibraltar with two radio operators, Isidore Newman «Julien» for the URCHIN network and Edward Zeff «Matthieu» for the SPRUCE network, where they were joined by Marcel Clech «Bastien», radio oper ...
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SOE F Section Networks
This article lists the clandestine networks, also known as circuits, (réseaux in French) established in France by F Section of the British Special Operations Executive during World War II. The SOE agents assigned to each network are also listed. SOE agents, with a few exceptions, were trained in the United Kingdom before being infiltrated into France. Some agents served in more than one network and are listed more than once. The clandestine networks and agents were "dedicated to encourage and aid resistance" to the German occupation of the country. Activities included gathering intelligence, organizing and supplying indigenous resistance groups, and sabotaging transportation, communications, and industrial facilities. A typical SOE network had three agents: (1) Circuit organiser: leader, planner, and recruiter of new members. 2) Wireless Radio Operator: send and receive wireless messages to and from SOE headquarters in London, encode and decode messages, maintain wireless se ...
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