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Valençay SOE Memorial
The Valençay SOE Memorial is a monument in France to the members of the Special Operations Executive F Section who lost their lives working to liberate the country during World War II. The memorial was unveiled in the town of Valençay, in the department of Indre, on May 6, 1991, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the despatch of F Section's first agent to France. Former SOE agents Pearl Witherington Cornioley and her husband Henri, who lived nearby, promoted the establishment of the memorial. Witherington had worked in the area as a SOE agent during World war II. The monument was designed by Elizabeth Lucas Harrison, herself a former Resistance member, who originally gave it the name "Spirit of Partnership". Dedicated by the Minister of Veterans Affairs for France and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, the memorial's ''Roll of Honour'' lists the names of the 91 men and 13 women members of the SOE who gave their lives for France's freedom. Valençay Memorial Roll of Honour (fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valençay 2011
Valençay () is a commune in the Indre department in the administrative region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. Geography Valençay is situated in the Loire Valley. It sits at the end of a plateau. on a hillside overlooking the River Nahon. Valençay is part of Berry. History The commune was formed by the union of three settlements: the "Bourg-de-l'Eglise", the "Bas-Bourg" and what is called the "old quarter." The chateau is a part of the Loire Valley by virtue of the date of its construction and its dimensions, which give it a similar appearance to Chambord. A 12th century castle existed on this site, was demolished and construction of its replacement began in 1520, albeit slowly. The chateau was born in the 16th and 17th centuries by the Estampes family. Louis of Estampes, governor and baillif of Blois, undertook the building of the large round tower at the end of the entrance wing. He died in 1530, leaving the tower unfinished. The tower rises above the entry. Work on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Benoist
Robert Marcel Charles Benoist (20 March 1895 – 14 September 1944) was a French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero. Early life Born near Rambouillet, Île-de-France, France, Robert Benoist was the son of Baron Henri de Rothschild's gamekeeper. As a young man, Benoist served during World War I in the French infantry, then as a fighter pilot in the new ''Armée de l'Air'' and ultimately as a flying instructor. Grand Prix driver Looking for excitement in the post-war world, Benoist joined the ''de Marçay'' car company as a test driver. He then moved on to Salmson and was very successful in cyclecar races before being signed to drive for Delage in 1924. The next year, teamed with Albert Divo, he won the French Grand Prix in the race that claimed the life of Italian racing star Antonio Ascari. In 1927, driving a Delage 15-S-8, he won the French, Spanish, Italian and British Grand Prix races, earning the season championship title for the French manufacturer. When ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ted Coppin
Ted Coppin MBE CdG (20 May 1915 – 23 April 1943) was a British agent of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Biography Edward Cyril Coppin was born in Essex on 20 May 1915. He joined the Special Operations Executive, Section F, with the rank of Lieutenant. On 11/12 June 1942 he landed by boat in France''Secret Flotillas: the Clandestine Sea Lines to France and French North Africa'', Brooks Richards, HMSO, 1996. to join the DONKEYMAN network of Henri Frager in Marseille. He trained a sabotage group comprising a small but efficient team of railway workers, ensuring a satisfactory increase in the rate of accidents in marshalling yards and making good use of abrasive grease to cause damage.''SOE in France an account of the work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944'', MRD Foot, HMSO, London, 1966. Ten months after his arrival, he was arrested on 23 April 1943, with his courier "Gisele", and executed in captivity on 27 Sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bennett Byerly
Robert Bennett Byerly (March 20, 1916 – May 8, 1945) was an American-born Canadian soldier, who was an agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Background Byerly was a graduate of the University of Chicago, and before the outbreak of the Second World War worked as a journalist and schoolteacher. He was in Paris when Germany invaded France in 1940, but was permitted to leave to the United Kingdom as he was an American citizen. In April 1941, Byerly enlisted in the Canadian Army's Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. A skilled radio operator and linguist, Byerly received advanced wireless training in England in 1943, whereupon he was commissioned in the Canadian Army and recruited to the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive on July 3, 1943, and given a new identity as "Robert Antoine Breuil". On February 7, 1944, Byerly was one of four SOE agents parachuted into Chartres, France to carry out a mission. However, the Germans had managed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muriel Byck
Muriel Byck (4 June 1918 – 23 May 1944) was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in France during World War II. She died of meningitis. Early life Muriel Tamara Byck was the daughter of French Jews, Luba Basia (née Golinska) and Jacques Itzko Byck, who had both taken British nationality. She was born in London. Her SOE file revealed that from 1923 to 1924 she had lived with her family in Wiesbaden, Germany. The family must have moved to France in 1926 as she went to school at the Lycee de Jeunes Filles, St Germain, France, before moving to England in 1930 as Byck attended the Lycee Francais in Kensington, London, SW7, where she took the Baccalaureate in 1935 and then proceeded to the University of Lille. Byck worked as a secretary from 1936 to 1938 in London before becoming an Assistant Stage Manager at the Gate Theatre in 1937. At the outbreak of war, she joined the Red Cross as a voluntary worker and the WVS. She ... [...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] |
Marcus Bloom
Marcus Reginald Bloom (24 September 1907 – 6 November 1944) was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. Early life Bloom was born in 1907 in Brick Lane, Whitechapel (as per his birth certificate) but the family later moved to Tottenham, London, the son of Harry Pizer Bloom and Anna Sadie Davidoff Bloom, in an orthodox Jewish home. He helped out working at his father’s cinema in Wandsworth, their mail order textile firm, or in their restaurant business. In the 1930s his father sent him Paris to run the mail-order business, and he became fluent in French. The firm closed after five years and he returned to London and married in March 1938. World War II He served in the Royal Artillery in 1941 and joined the Special Operations Executive in February 1942. On the night of 3/4 November 1942 he was landed at Port Miou, near Cassis in southern France, with SOE agents George Starr, organiser of WHEELWRIGHT; Mary Herbert, courier for SCIENTIST; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denise Bloch
Denise Madeleine Bloch (; 21 January 1916 – 5 February 1945) was an agent working with the clandestine British Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in the Second World War. Captured by the Germans, she was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Early life Bloch was born to a Jewish family (Jacques Henri Bloch and Suzanne Levi-Strauss) in Paris, France in 1916. She had three brothers. Her father and two of her brothers were French soldiers taken prisoner by the German army in 1940. Her mother, her brother Jean-Claude, and Denise then lived a clandestine life avoiding persecution as Jews by using false papers and identities. In July 1942, the Bloch family was smuggled across the border from occupied France to unoccupied Vichy France. In Lyon Denise came into contact with Jean Aron, a Jewish engineer for Citroen who was working with the French Resistance and the SOE network led by Philippe de Vomécourt. Special Operations Executive Bloch was recruited in L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
