Churchill's Angels by O'Connor Bernard

Author:O'Connor, Bernard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2012-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

5

Operations to Support D-Day,

6 June 1944 to March 1945

Once the Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and the Americans and French landed on the Mediterranean coast in August, a two-pronged attack on the German forces began, in the planned liberation of France. Necessarily, there were also plans to liberate the Low Countries. Although more women were sent into France to replace lost wireless operators and couriers, there were rather different missions for the women trained to be sent into Belgium and Holland. There was a plan to rescue Prince Charles, King Leopold’s brother, and bring him back to England and propaganda missions to undermine German morale. One woman was sent into Yugoslavia to work with SOE agents already in place helping General Tito.

Ginette Jullian

Lieutenant Ginette Jullian, codenamed ‘Adèle’, was dropped from a Carpetbagger Liberator in the early hours of the morning on 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day. She and three other SOE agents landed in a field six kilometres north-east of Saint-Viatre-les-Tannieres in the Loir and Cher department. Her companions were Gérard Dedieu, her organiser, Yvan Galliard, and Henri Fucs.

Born in Montpellier on 3 December 1917 to French parents, nothing has come to light about her early life. Maybe she was the Ginette referred to as the courier helping on the Marie-Claire escape line. It is possible that she escorted escaped prisoners and other evaders over the Pyrénées and came to Britain with them. According to Escott, she was the last woman to be recruited by the SOE. Given a commission in the FANY, she underwent parachute training at Ringway and, one imagines, training in clandestine warfare at Beaulieu. As she was sent as a wireless operator, she probably spent time at Thame Park. She was perhaps the luckiest of the wireless operators as she was sent with the latest model – a Mark III transceiver which weighed less than nine pounds in its suitcase. Her mission was to assist Dedieu in setting up the PERMIT network in the area of the Somme with a base at Amiens. Unusually, they were the only French-speaking team sent into France. Dedieu had been a schoolmaster and a member of the Resistance who had been arrested and imprisoned at Eysses. When he and twenty other prisoners escaped in January 1944, he and other escapees were escorted over the Pyrénées, arriving in Britain in March 1944.

On their return, the situation was highly dangerous. Many SOE networks had been infiltrated by the Gestapo and new ones were needed. Much of northern France was in chaos with Allied and German troops in conflict and people fleeing the combat zones.

When they landed, Ginette’s transceiver was confiscated by the reception committee organised by Hutton, codenamed ‘Antoine’. He suggested that such a small suitcase would cause suspicion if she carried it around with her in Paris. However, she was allowed to keep her crystals but this meant she had to find another set if she was to be able to transmit.

Arriving in Paris, they found that all their contacts had moved, leaving no forwarding addresses.

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