Lt. Col Frederick Henry Cardozo MC (1 December 1916 – 7 October 2011) was a British soldier and SOE veteran. Cardozo was brought up in the Loire Valley between 1923 and 1933. In 1949 Cardozo married Simone Bigot – they had two children – one of whom, Col.

Geoffrey Cardozo Geoffrey Cardozo CBE (born 3 March 1950) is a former British Army Colonel, known for helping to identify the human remains of Argentine soldiers in the Argentine Military Cemetery, Falkland Islands. A number of the Argentine dead had graves ma ...

MBE CBE, is the secretary of the veterans charity, Veterans Aid. At the time of his birth, his father Charles was the commander of a local army garrison, having been wounded in 1915, at the

battle of Loos The Battle of Loos took place from 1915 in France on the Western Front, during the First World War. It was the biggest British attack of 1915, the first time that the British used poison gas and the first mass engagement of New Army units. Th ...

. In recognition of his work for the French resistance, Cardozo was awarded both the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

and the

Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...

Family background

Cardozo's Portuguese ancestors had become established in the London tobacco trade in the late 17th century. A century or so later his forebears, (including his father), were merchants for the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

. Cardozo's mother, Cynthia, was the daughter of Henry Daniell, who ran a china and antiques business in

Wigmore Street Wigmore Street is a street in the City of Westminster, in the West End of London. The street runs for about 600 yards parallel and to the north of Oxford Street between Portman Square to the west and Cavendish Square to the east. It is named afte ...

, London; through his trade interests he had helped to organise the

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along w ...

and the Pierpont Morgan Collection.

Second World War

Cardozo joined the British Army's Supplementary Reserve before the outbreak of war and upon receiving his call up was posted with his regiment, The

South Lancashire Regiment The South Lancashire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment, which recruited, as its title suggests, primarily from the South Lancashire area, was created as part of the Childers Ref ...

to France. He was evacuated from

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Henry Thackthwaite, a senior SOE officer, who recruited him for operations in France; as a fluent French speaker he was a natural choice for such a posting. In May 1944 his team was parachuted onto

Mont Mouchet Mont Mouchet is a mountain located on the border of the French départements of Cantal, Haute-Loire and Lozère. It is famous for the historical events which took place there, notably during the Second World War where it hosted a group of Frenc ...

in France to liaise with the

maquis Maquis may refer to: Resistance groups * Maquis (World War II), predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance * Spanish Maquis, guerrillas who fought against Francoist Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War * The network ...

in the

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label=Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Auverg ...

. Relations with the maquis were not always easy and they had to cope with a series of vicious German counterattacks on Mont Mouchet and the surrounds. Once Paris had fallen to the allies, Cardozo led a maquis operation to stop a German battalion leaving

Aurillac Aurillac (; oc, Orlhac ) is the prefecture of the Cantal department, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Aurillacois'' or ''Aurillacoises''. Geography Aurillac is at above sea leve ...

; his efforts in this operation lead him to be awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

After Second World War

Cardozo stayed in the army after the war, retiring in 1958, when he worked as a press attaché for American forces in France. Before this he had served in India and later in Palestine with the

6th Airborne Division The 6th Airborne Division was an airborne infantry division of the British Army during the Second World War. Despite its name, the 6th was actually the second of two airborne divisions raised by the British Army during the war, the other being t ...

, and later in Paris where he was an instructor at

École de guerre École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Sav ...

. He subsequently served as a college commander at Sandhurst. When France left the command structure of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

in 1966, he returned to England and became secretary to the president of the

Latin Mass Society The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales is a Catholic society dedicated to making the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, more widely available in England and Wales. The group organised a petition for th ...

Harman Grisewood Harman Joseph Gerard Grisewood, CBE (8 February 1906 – 8 January 1997) was an English radio actor, radio and television executive, novelist and non-fiction writer.

, his first cousin. He later moved to Morocco and began working for the

Save the Children Fund The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

. Later still, he worked for

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

. When he finally retired, he moved back to his childhood home of the Loire Valley.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardozo, Frederick Henry 1916 births 2011 deaths South Lancashire Regiment officers Recipients of the Military Cross Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Recipients of the Legion of Honour French Resistance members British people of Portuguese descent British Special Operations Executive personnel British Army personnel of World War II Military personnel from Sussex