Phyllis "Pippa" Latour

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(born 8 April 1921) is a South African-born former agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(SOE) organisation during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in France.

Early life

Latour's father, Philippe, was a French doctor and married to Louise, a British citizen living in South Africa, where Phyllis was born in April 1921. Her father died three months later in

French Equatorial Africa French Equatorial Africa (french: link=no, Afrique-Équatoriale française), or the AEF, was the federation of French colonial possessions in Equatorial Africa, extending northwards from the Congo River into the Sahel, and comprising what are ...

(AEF) and her mother remarried three years later. Her stepfather was a racing driver, and would let his new wife race his automobiles as well. During one such race, her mother's car malfunctioned and she was killed when the car crashed into a barrier. Latour then went to live with her father's cousin in the AEF. She later returned to South Africa.

WAAF and Special Operations Executive

She moved from South Africa to England and joined the

Women's Auxiliary Air Force The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (), was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2 ...

(WAAF) in November 1941 (Service Number 718483) as a flight mechanic for airframes. Because of her fluent French, however, she was immediately asked by SOE to become an agent, and went through vigorous mental and physical training. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

, especially

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. She joined the SOE in revenge for her godmother's father having been shot by the Nazis and for her godmother's suicide after being imprisoned, officially joining on 1 November 1943 and was commissioned as an Honorary Section Officer. She parachuted into

Orne Orne (; nrf, Ôrne or ) is a département in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne. It had a population of 279,942 in 2019.Scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

circuit, using the codename ''Genevieve'' to work as a wireless operator with the organiser Claude de Baissac and his sister Lise, his courier and assistant. Small of stature, Latour, who was fluent in French, posed as a teenage girl whose family had moved to the region to escape the Allied bombing. She rode bicycles around the area, selling soap and chatting with German soldiers. When she obtained any

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

, she encoded it for transmitting by knitting using one-time codes hidden on a piece of silk that she used to tie up her hair; she would translate them using

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

equipment. At one point, she was brought in for questioning, but the German authorities did not think to examine her hair tie, and she was released. Latour's 135 coded messages helped guide bombing missions to enemy targets.

Post World War II

After World War II, Latour married an engineer with the surname Doyle, and went to live in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

, and Australia. She now lives in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand. One hundred years old in April 2021, she is the last living female SOE agent of the forty who worked in France during World War II. She did not discuss her wartime activities with her family until her children discovered them by reading about them on the Internet in 2000.

Honours and awards

In September 1945, Latour was appointed an additional

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, for services in France during the German occupation. She was appointed a

Chevalier of 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 B ...

(Knight of the Legion of Honour), by the French government on 29 November 2014, as part of the 70th anniversary of the battle of Normandy.

Notes

References

Squadron Leader Squadron leader (Sqn Ldr in the RAF ; SQNLDR in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly sometimes S/L in all services) is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is als ...

Beryl E. Escott, ''Mission Improbable: A salute to the RAF women of SOE in wartime France'', London, Patrick Stevens Limited, 1991. * Liane Jones, ''A Quiet Courage: Women Agents in the French Resistance'', London, Transworld Publishers Ltd, 1990.

External links

*
A South African Girl in the Special Operations Executive
' (article by Ross Dix-Peek) {{DEFAULTSORT:Latour, Phyllis 1921 births Living people South African centenarians British centenarians French centenarians New Zealand centenarians British Special Operations Executive personnel Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur French Special Operations Executive personnel Members of the Order of the British Empire People from Durban Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Special Operations Executive personnel Women's Auxiliary Air Force officers Women centenarians South African emigrants to the United Kingdom British expatriates in France British expatriates in Kenya British expatriates in Fiji British expatriates in Australia British emigrants to New Zealand