Mission France by Kate Vigurs

Author:Kate Vigurs [Vigurs, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300258844
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2021-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

[She is] very much in love with d’Artois and her entire life revolves around this fact, all other considerations being subordinated to it. If she works with him it is doubtful whether the arrangement would be good for either of them. If on the other hand she is separated from him she would not prove at all efficient. In these circumstances it is doubtful whether she be employed’.48

But the couple worked so well as a team that they managed to convince Buckmaster to put them on a mission together. They were to go to the Saône-et-Loire department of eastern France where she would assume the role of explosives expert to DITCHER under the leadership of Guy. Everything was prepared for their mission and, on their last weekend’s leave, the couple got married. After a ‘lively’ wedding reception at the RAF Club in Piccadilly, the couple were informed that now they were husband and wife, they could not work together; were it to be discovered by the Gestapo they might use that against them, and perhaps torture one of them in front of the other. Sonia was furious, saying if she couldn’t go with Guy, she wouldn’t go at all. But after Guy had departed she asked Buckmaster to send her on her own mission as soon as possible.

On 28 May 1944, just days ahead of the Allied invasion, Sonia parachuted into France near La Cropte, west of Le Mans, with Pierre-Raimond Glaesner and Francis Eugène Bec, to work as courier to HEADMASTER under its leader Sydney Hudson. She landed badly and wrenched her shoulder. Her suitcase, which was full of designer French clothes to assist with her cover of being a Louis Vuitton employee, landed on a nearby road and was picked up by a German convoy. Sonia only had the clothes she stood up in, but, more seriously, the Germans would know that a female parachutist had just arrived. She spent her first night in a safe house and then walked 18 km to a château near Le Mans where she could rest. After three days she began her liaison work between Hudson and the various groups. Assuming the Germans would expect her to lie low, Sonia made the brave decision to be seen out and about, eating in black market restaurants frequented by Germans and often sitting next to them. She engaged them in polite conversation and even flirted with the head of the Gestapo himself.

Glaesner took over the work in Le Mans, while Bec worked south of the town dealing with Hudson’s contacts and moving explosives to the area ready for D-Day. While Sonia’s work was as liaison for the entire area, she spent most of her time working alongside Hudson. The journey to Le Mans from the château was about an hour by bicycle and there was always the risk of encountering roadblocks and having their papers searched. To cut down on journey time and to increase security, Hudson rented a small house in the town to act as a base for them.

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