WINDOWS TO WORLD HISTORY
  • Home
  • World History Windows
  • The White Roses Defy the Nazis
  • Elias Lonnrot Compiles the Kalevala
  • Because You Were Here We Are Enriched
  • Provocative People
    • Stephane Hessel Wrote Indignez Vous
    • Writer Lafcadio Hearn Merged Greek and Japanese Cultures
    • Are Paul Redfern and the Port of New Brunswick Buried in the Amazon Jungle?
    • Hans Brinker, the Dutch Hero Who Isn't Really Dutch!
    • Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler Fled Auschwitz and Wrote a Report
    • Roman Emperor Caligula and His Legendary Lake Nemi Ships
    • Rabbi Robert Serebrenik Defies Adolf Eichmann to Save Luxembourg Jews
    • The Confederados Become Brazilian, but Honor Their Southern Roots
    • Pliny the Younger Wrote Letters about His Life in Ancient Rome
    • Hannes Hafstein, Iceland's Poet-Prime Minister, Works for a Cable
    • Mermen Are Important Players in Scandinavian Culture and History
    • William Tell, Mythical Hero, Mythical Historical Figure, or Both?
    • Fritz Thyssen Helped Finance the Nazi Party, but Later Changed His Mind
    • Leif Ericson and L'Anse Meadows
    • Sigrid and Eirikr Magnusson Contributed Much to Iceland's Culture
    • Clara and Henry Leffingwell - An English, Australian, and American Story
    • Per Jacobsen, Norwegian Ice Skater and Resistance Fighter
    • Poul La Cour Pioneered Wind Power in Denmark
    • Michel Linovich- an Italian in Napoleon's Grand Army
    • Solomon Linda, the Lion Sleeps Tonight
    • Sergei Rachmaninoff Composed Rhapsody at Senar, His Swiss Villa
  • Raoul Wallenberg, the Hero Who Never Returned to Sweden
  • Jean Baptiste Sipido Tries to Assassinate the Prince of Wales
  • The Legend of the Hermit of Cape Maleus in Greece Transcends Time
  • Happy Hands-On Historical New Year!
  • Christmas Around the World
    • A Christmas Tribute to Captain Henry Waskow
    • European Christmases in Centuries Past
    • Chasing and Capturing the Fugitive Spirit of Father Christmas
  • Women in World History
  • Madam Elisabeth Thible is the First Woman to Ride in a Free Floating Balloon
  • Nurse Edith Cavell Had The Courage to Die for Her Country
  • Gertrud Scholtz-Klink Followed Hitler Her Entire Life
  • Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo - Artists of Montmartre
  • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
  • Queen Alexandra of Great Britain - Queen Victoria's Daughter-in-Law, Bertie's Patient Wife, and Her Own Person
  • Maria Gulovich Liu Joined the Czech Resistance, Won the Bronze Star and became an American Citizen
  • Francoise Marie Jacquelin, Lioness of Latour, Lioness of Acadia, Woman in her Own Right
  • Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide of Luxembourg is a Symbol of Effective Rule
  • Clara Zetin Speaks Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
  • Madam Sophie Blanchard - Official Aeronaut of the Restoration
  • Queen Amelia Maria, the Last Queen of Portugal, Stood Her Ground
  • Places for Posterity
  • Haunted Church Bells Ring in Boscastle and Tintagel in Cornwall
  • Vienna Plague Defenses Included Plague Hospitals
  • The Plundering Plague and the Downfall of the Republic of Venice
  • Ostend Belgium
  • Centuries of History and Ghosts Haunt Denmark's Dragsholm Castle
  • Does Jacques LeRay Chaumont Still Haunt Chaumont Castle?
  • Soldier's Stories
  • Napoleon Bonaparte Ignores His Little Red Man of Destiny
    • The French Revolution Has More Phases than the Moon!
    • Napoleon Bonaparte Still Owes Innkeeper Hippolyte Baretta Sixty Francs!
    • Australian War Correspondent Alan Moorehead Returns to His Roots
    • General Christian Christensen is a Dual Citizen of Denmark and the United States
    • In 1919, Villagers and Soldiers Helped Rebuild Chateau-Thierry
    • The Dudman Family Lived the Meaning of Patriotism and Sacrifice During World War II
    • Five French Boys Canoe the English Channel
    • Stalin's Spin Doctors
    • Maurice Maeterlinck Encounters American Customs
    • Carl von Ossietzky Wins the Nobel Prize While in a Nazi Prison Camp
    • Flying Kites Through All Seasons, Countries, and Histories
  • World History 101
    • Pieces of World- History Puzzle
    • World History Puzzles - the Old World Meets the New World

SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years

Picture
By Kathy Warnes

On a September night in 1942, two female SOE agents parachuted into occupied France near the Loire River. Andree Borrel’s mission led her to Paris and finally to prison.

Andree Borrel turned twenty-one in November of a disastrous year in French history. On June 22, 1940, following the decisive German victory in the Battle of France, France signed an Armistice with Nazi Germany. The Armistice established a German occupation zone in northern France and left the southern part of the country to the government of Marshal Henri Petain and the Vichy regime.

Andree Borrel Faces Difficult Choices

A month after France signed the Armistice with Germany, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare, started the Special Operations Executive (SOE) agency with the goal of aiding partisans and resistance fighters in France and other occupied countries. Major Maurice Buckmaster led the F section of the SOE which operated in France, and the majority of women agents served in the French section.

These two events transformed the ordinary lives of Andree Raymonde Borrel and millions of other people into dramas of good and evil,life and death.

Born on November 18, 1919, on the outskirts of Paris, Andree left school at age fourteen to become a dressmaker. In 1933, Andree moved to Paris where she worked in several different shops. Although she worked in traditional female occupations, Andree’s sister described her as a tomboy because she enjoyed cycling, hiking, and climbing. When World War II broke out in 1939, Andree and her mother moved to Toulon on the Mediterranean Coast, where she trained with the Red Cross and worked in Beaucaire Hospital, treating wounded French Army soldiers.

Andree and Maurice Operate the PAT Underground

Andree met Maurice Dufour, a resistance fighter, and in July 1941, she helped him organize and operate the first escape network from France. This underground railroad network called the Pat O’Leary or PAT escape line, ran from the Belgian border to the Spanish frontier. From August 1941 to December 1941, Andree Borrel and Maurice Dufour, now lovers, hid allied escapees in a villa at one of the last safe houses before the difficult Pyrenees Mountains crossing. In December 1941, English courier Harold ‘Paul’ Cole apparently betrayed many of the conductors on the northern PAT lines after he was arrested in Lille.

Ponzan Vidal, a Spanish anarchist, led an escape party over the Pyrenees and Andree and Maurice Dufor made their way to England. Andree arrived in London in April 1942, and on May 15 she joined the British SOE and the French sector recruited Lise de Baissac. M15 whisked Maurice Dufor away to a safe house and he and Andree never saw each other again.

Parachuting Into France

Just before 9 o’clock on the night of September 24, 1942, Pilot Officer R. P. Wilkin flew Whitley bomber Z9428 based near Cambridge on a mission called Operation ARTIST. His mission was to drop Andree Borrel, 23, and Lise de Baissac, 37, near the River Loire in Nazi occupied France. Since Andree jumped out of the bomber ahead of Lise, she was the first female agent of the SEO to be parachuted into Occupied France during World War II.

Andree and Lise safely landed in a meadow surrounded on three sides by oak trees, near the village of Boisrenard, close to the town of Mer. Lise de Baissac, code name Odile, was assigned to the Poitiers area where she accomplished her mission and returned safely to England in August 1943.

Andree, code name Denise, was assigned to be a courier for Francis Suttill’s new PROSPER circuit in Paris.

Andree showed Francis Suttill around the city she knew and loved so well, and he soon realized that Andree was tough, self reliant, and absolutely reliable. He told his Special Operations Executive in London that she “has a perfect understanding of security and an imperturbable calmness. Thank you very much for having sent her to me. She is the best of all of us.”

Betrayal, Night and Fog, and Natzweiler-Struthof

Despite her youth, Andree became second in command of the network in 1943. On June 24, 1943, Andree Borrel and PROSPER radio operator Gilbert Norman were arrested in Paris and Francis Suttill in Normandy. Henri Dericourt, code name Gilbert, their French air movements officer, allegedly was a double agent and betrayed them.

In May 1944, the Nazis transferred Andree from the notorious Fresnes prison near Paris where she had spent a year to the civilian women’s prison at Karlsruhle, Germany.On July 6, 1944, the Nazis transported SOE agents Vera Leigh, Sonya Olschanezky, Diana Rowden, and Andree Borrel to the concentration camp at Natzweiler-Struthof, the only extermination camp in France. Like so many other captured agents, the four women were classified under the “Nacht and Nable”, night and fog, directive which meant that they were to disappear without a trace.

Pat O’Leary and SOE agent Brian Stonehouse who were inmates of Natzweiler-Struthof witnessed the arrival of the four women who were paraded through the camp. That night Dr. Heinrich Plaza and Dr. Werner Rohde administered supposedly lethal injections of phenol to the four SOE agents and their bodies were cremated in the camp oven.

Fighting Bravely to the Last

Witnesses later testified that Andrée was still conscious as she was dragged to the ovens to be cremated. Fighting to the last, she scratched her executioner’s face. Andree Borrel was 24 years old.

The French government awarded Andree Borrel the Croix de Guerre to recognize her heroic sacrifice for her country. In 1975, a plaque was placed in the Natzweiler-Struthof crematorium to honor the memory of the four British SOE agents. In 1985, Brian Stonehouse painted a poignant picture of the four executed agents which hangs in the Special Forces Club in London, England.

References

France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944, Julian Jackson, Oxford University Press, 2001.

The French Resistance, 1940-1944, Raymond Aubrac, Hazan, November 1997.

We Landed by Moonlight: Secret RAF Landings in France, 1940-1944. Hugh Verity, Crecy Publishing, 1998.

A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents, Sarah Helm, Abacus, 2006.


Copyright Notice


All of the material on this website is copyrighted.  You are free to link to any of the articles and to download any of the PDF books to read and use as long as you credit me as the author. I fully hope and expect the classroom activities to be freely used.      kathywarnes@gmail.com
Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • World History Windows
  • The White Roses Defy the Nazis
  • Elias Lonnrot Compiles the Kalevala
  • Because You Were Here We Are Enriched
  • Provocative People
    • Stephane Hessel Wrote Indignez Vous
    • Writer Lafcadio Hearn Merged Greek and Japanese Cultures
    • Are Paul Redfern and the Port of New Brunswick Buried in the Amazon Jungle?
    • Hans Brinker, the Dutch Hero Who Isn't Really Dutch!
    • Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler Fled Auschwitz and Wrote a Report
    • Roman Emperor Caligula and His Legendary Lake Nemi Ships
    • Rabbi Robert Serebrenik Defies Adolf Eichmann to Save Luxembourg Jews
    • The Confederados Become Brazilian, but Honor Their Southern Roots
    • Pliny the Younger Wrote Letters about His Life in Ancient Rome
    • Hannes Hafstein, Iceland's Poet-Prime Minister, Works for a Cable
    • Mermen Are Important Players in Scandinavian Culture and History
    • William Tell, Mythical Hero, Mythical Historical Figure, or Both?
    • Fritz Thyssen Helped Finance the Nazi Party, but Later Changed His Mind
    • Leif Ericson and L'Anse Meadows
    • Sigrid and Eirikr Magnusson Contributed Much to Iceland's Culture
    • Clara and Henry Leffingwell - An English, Australian, and American Story
    • Per Jacobsen, Norwegian Ice Skater and Resistance Fighter
    • Poul La Cour Pioneered Wind Power in Denmark
    • Michel Linovich- an Italian in Napoleon's Grand Army
    • Solomon Linda, the Lion Sleeps Tonight
    • Sergei Rachmaninoff Composed Rhapsody at Senar, His Swiss Villa
  • Raoul Wallenberg, the Hero Who Never Returned to Sweden
  • Jean Baptiste Sipido Tries to Assassinate the Prince of Wales
  • The Legend of the Hermit of Cape Maleus in Greece Transcends Time
  • Happy Hands-On Historical New Year!
  • Christmas Around the World
    • A Christmas Tribute to Captain Henry Waskow
    • European Christmases in Centuries Past
    • Chasing and Capturing the Fugitive Spirit of Father Christmas
  • Women in World History
  • Madam Elisabeth Thible is the First Woman to Ride in a Free Floating Balloon
  • Nurse Edith Cavell Had The Courage to Die for Her Country
  • Gertrud Scholtz-Klink Followed Hitler Her Entire Life
  • Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo - Artists of Montmartre
  • SOE Agent Andree Borrel Lived Several Lifetimes in Her 24 Years
  • Queen Alexandra of Great Britain - Queen Victoria's Daughter-in-Law, Bertie's Patient Wife, and Her Own Person
  • Maria Gulovich Liu Joined the Czech Resistance, Won the Bronze Star and became an American Citizen
  • Francoise Marie Jacquelin, Lioness of Latour, Lioness of Acadia, Woman in her Own Right
  • Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide of Luxembourg is a Symbol of Effective Rule
  • Clara Zetin Speaks Against Hitler in the German Reichstag
  • Madam Sophie Blanchard - Official Aeronaut of the Restoration
  • Queen Amelia Maria, the Last Queen of Portugal, Stood Her Ground
  • Places for Posterity
  • Haunted Church Bells Ring in Boscastle and Tintagel in Cornwall
  • Vienna Plague Defenses Included Plague Hospitals
  • The Plundering Plague and the Downfall of the Republic of Venice
  • Ostend Belgium
  • Centuries of History and Ghosts Haunt Denmark's Dragsholm Castle
  • Does Jacques LeRay Chaumont Still Haunt Chaumont Castle?
  • Soldier's Stories
  • Napoleon Bonaparte Ignores His Little Red Man of Destiny
    • The French Revolution Has More Phases than the Moon!
    • Napoleon Bonaparte Still Owes Innkeeper Hippolyte Baretta Sixty Francs!
    • Australian War Correspondent Alan Moorehead Returns to His Roots
    • General Christian Christensen is a Dual Citizen of Denmark and the United States
    • In 1919, Villagers and Soldiers Helped Rebuild Chateau-Thierry
    • The Dudman Family Lived the Meaning of Patriotism and Sacrifice During World War II
    • Five French Boys Canoe the English Channel
    • Stalin's Spin Doctors
    • Maurice Maeterlinck Encounters American Customs
    • Carl von Ossietzky Wins the Nobel Prize While in a Nazi Prison Camp
    • Flying Kites Through All Seasons, Countries, and Histories
  • World History 101
    • Pieces of World- History Puzzle
    • World History Puzzles - the Old World Meets the New World