Wondering if anyone can help. I read a while back the book 'Burn After Reading' by Ladisla Farago. In it he talks about a woman she was living around the village of Lyons La Forêt, Normandy who went to the UK to join the SOE, she was eventually caught by the Gestapo and I believe died whilst in captivity. As I live in the area I have been asking around if anyone knows the real name of this woman but no one seems to know. Can anyone help me find the name of this person and any other information on her? The only other thing I know is that she lived on a farm. She used the alias 'La Souris' (The mouse) but also called Marie by the resistance. She apparantly gathered information concernign the V1s. IIf anyone can find info on her please let me know. No one in the village knows who this lady was. Any help would be much appreciated.
They called Nancy Wake "la Souris Blanche" (the White Mouse.) Is this the one? (She is famous and is a highly decorated heroine.) You can find many results about her if you Google search for WW2 SOE Nancy Wake
Not Nancy Wake she operated in another area, I will look into the Northern France Circuits that were involved in the CROSSBOW - Anti V Weapon Ops
No, definitely not Nancy Wake, because she survived the war and lived to a good old age. Can't remember when she died , but not that long ago - I had the book about her but have given it away. ps she died in London in 2011 aged 99!
Perhaps La Souris was recruited into the SOE RF (Republic Francaise) section while in England,the clandestine section reporting to CDG's Free French.
Here is some text from an online copy of the book. There is the name of Diana Hope Rowden which is menttioned shortly afterwards but from the way the book is writen in that section I do not think this is the same woman. I have looked her up and yes she was an SOE agent but lived in the South of France. The book does not really mention what happened to 'La Souris' after being caught. "Among the shadowy figures of S.O.E. was a little, raven- haired French woman remembered only by her wartime nick- name, La SouriSj The Mouse. There was nothing really mousy about her except the recognition signal she used on her missions. It was a delicate scratching on a window pane, like the sound of a mouse. She furnished Britain with the first information about the absolute weapon with which the Germans hoped to win the war, the famous guided missile called V-1. In order to describe the manner in which these agents worked, I will tell a composite story woven around La Souris. The Mouse was a school teacher in Paris and a native of Normandy. When the Germans reached the capital in June, 1940, she returned to her relatives in Lyons-la-Foret, to sit out the occupation. She could not endure the idleness, however, and she inquired for someone who would take her to England. One night a delivery truck drove up to the farmhouse where she was staying and a man came in, asking for her. She asked no ques- tions, but took her old-fashioned, school-marmish hat and her coat, and followed the man to the truck. He instructed her to climb in and lie down behind some sacks of potatoes. He drove her to a hut near an open field where three men squatted, talking in low tones. She sat down and kept quiet. Half an hour later she heard a buzzing sound in the air. The three men ran out to the field, lighted torches and attached them to sticks which formed the shape of an L. A small aircraft landed and taxied to the shorter branch of the L. It was a black-painted plane without any insignia on it, one of the little Lysanders of the S.O.E.'s air ferry service. She climbed in. One of the men followed her into the plane. It taxied and took off, circled the field once, and, when she looked down, she saw only darkness beneath. The torches were gone. Next morning she was in London, sitting before the desk of Colonel Kenwick who headed the Western Europe Directorate of the S.O.E. in Norgeby House on Baker Street. The colonel had her file; she had been screened while she was still in France. THE MISERY AND GRANDEUR OF THE SECRET WAR 233 A short while later, she was interviewed further by a captain named Piquet- Wicks and then driven to 10 Duke Street to meet Colonel Passy, the head of General de Gaulle's secret service. After her training, she returned to Duke Street and was told what she was supposed to do, and she was asked to memorize the symbols by which members of her small team were known. Then she was given her papers; a carte d^id entity, a per mis de conduire and current ration cards, all forged by the S.O.E. That same evening she was taken to a camouflaged airfield somewhere in the Midlands, and given a cup of hot tea, a little box of benzedrine to keep her awake if necessary and a cyanide tablet to put her to sleep quickly and lethally should the necessity arise. There was a special garment waiting for her, a suit, rubber helmet and spine pad, all somewhat oversized, but useful in cushioning her landing by parachute. She was given a revolver, a knife and a compass, and then escorted to the field and put aboard a Lancaster bomber. At 3 a.m., she dropped into France. When she hit the ground, a man came over to help her up. "Is that you, Marie?" he asked. She said, "Yes," although nobody had bothered to tell her that she would be called Marie. The man drove her to Lyons-la-Foret and next morning she took the morning train to Paris and went to an address where others were waiting for her. The Mouse had arrived. The man she had come to see was an engineer who worked in an aircraft factory in Paris, but who lived in a suburb called Vaucresson. He had just returned from Germany, where he worked in a place called Peenemuende and where he had seen some strange experiments with flying bombs that were guided to their targets from the ground. He needed someone to whom he could relay the information. The Mouse went to Vaucresson that same night, found the man's apartment and stepped up to a window on the ground floor behind which a light was burning. She scratched out her signal on the pane and then walked into a dark kitchen through the unlocked back door. She groped her way to a table and picked up an envelope. A man's voice whis- 234 V BURN AFTER READING pered an invitation to come into another room. She followed the sound of the voice into the dark room and heard the man say, "I'm not ready for you yet. That is only part of your information. We will have to meet again next Wednesday." "Where?'' the Mouse asked. "In a bistro called the Floridore. It's on Quai Voltaire. At six o'clock?'* "The plans," the man continued, talking about the con- tents of the envelope she held in her hand, "they are dangerous. If they catch you with them, we will all be in trouble." "They won't," she said, but she wasn't certain. "Are they making spot checks on the train to Paris?" "Not as a rule," the man said, "but you can never tell. The Boche is inscrutable." Adieu, then," she said. "Till next Wednesday." "The Mouse, are you the Mouse?" the man asked, but she left through the dark kitchen without answering the question. She heard steps on the cobblestoned street and waited until two soldiers strolled by, a CJerman patrol. They passed and she walked out, turned a comer, walked down the hill to the rail- road station and caught the last train back to Paris. The Mouse was worried. Her assignment was to pick up the papers, return them to Lyons-la-Foret, and take them back to England on a Lysander. Now she would have to stay on for five more perilous days, with some of the plans in her hands. What to do with the plans in the meantime? Where to go? She was supposed to spend but a single day at the first address. She decided to return to Lyons-la-Foret. She went to Pont de I'Arche, then on to Fleury-sur-Andelle and asked a courier of the underground to take her home. That night a Lysander came and she gave her envelope to the pilot. Next morning she went back to Paris. She had a second address and even the key to a flat, but when she called at the house, the concierge rudely refused to let her enter. Later she learned that the concierge^s rudeness was calculated to warn her that the flat was "hot," and was under Gestapo surveillance. THE MISERY AND GRANDEUR OF THE SECRET WAR 235 She had to make one of her emergency contacts, a woman named Maud, who had a glove shop on rue de la Boetie, She walked into the shop and asked for a pair of green suede gloves, size 6]145 and was conducted to the back of the shop, to a desk behind which sat a plump woman of about sixty. "The lady is looking for green suede gloves, size 6J4/^ the salesgirl said, and the plump woman stretched out her hand: "I'm glad to see you," she said. The Mouse stayed in her flat until Wednesday afternoon, then walked to the Floridore on Quai Voltaire and entered the bistro at six o'clock sharp. She was looking for a man who would be reading a copy of the Journal Officiel, but the bistro was empty. Her instructions were never to wait for an appointment, so she left at once, but returned fifteen minutes later, sat down on the terrace and ordered a St. Raphael with soda water. When the waiter put the siphon on her table, she absent-mindedly scratched the bottle and the waiter gave her an evening paper in a thin bamboo holder. On the third page, where the last- minute news was printed, the word Tronchet was underscored in an ad. Also underlined were the numbers 8 and 5, and in another column 2 and 7. She paid and took a cab to rue Tronchet, got out at the corner and walked to No. eighty-five. She went to the second floor and rang the bell of Apartment seven. A man opened the door and the Mouse stood there absent-mindedly scratching the glass pane of the tall door. The man opened the door wide and allowed her to enter. "The engineer had to go back to Germany," he said. "We will put you up until he returns." That same evening he drove the Mouse to a house in Neuilly where she was given the job of tutoring a litde girl of nine. "We don't know how long it might take the man to return from Germany," he explained. "You will be safer here." She waited two months, then a man came to drive her to Vaucresson. He deposited her in front of the post office, then drove away, and she walked to the engineer's house on the hill. 236 BURN AFTER READING She scratched the lighted window, walked to the back door, went into the kitchen and picked up an envelope. At that moment a car drove up in front of the house. A man stepped out of it, while another stayed at the wheel. The man walked up to the main entrance and rang the bell. The Mouse made her way quietly to the end of the garden in the back of the house, scaled the low fence into another garden, then into a third, then a fourth. She walked out into the street and saw the car driving away from the engineer's house. She never found out what its mission was. She never saw the engineer again. The Mouse was ready to return to England. From Vau- cresson she took a train south and then came north again to Fleury-sur-Andelle. Two nights later she was in the famihar field near Lyons-la-Foret, waiting for the Lysander to pick her up. There was the buzzing sound in the air and two men came to light the torches. An hour later the Mouse was in Tangmere and the British had the blueprints of the V-1. On her next mission she scratched the window pane of a window in a house in Chartres. It was a Gestapo man who opened the door. Her contact had been picked up an hour before and he talked when they were drowning him in his own bathtub filled with ice cold water. That was the last time the Mouse could scratch her signal on any pane anywhere."
Col Passy alais (Col Andre Dewavrin. Head of the BCRA ) and Duke Street was the clue to the clandestine organisation that "La Souris" served in.Dewavrin later after the invasion of Europe became General Koenig's Chief of Staff. Looking at air operations.It looks as if there may have been activity at Lyons La Foret,Perriers sur Andelle ( a short distance west of Lyons) and Fleury sur Andelle (a short distance west of Lyons)Initially I cannot see a reference to the activies of the SD squadrons here but it is included in the map indicating the sphere of activity.Someone having local knowlege of the area might remember if fields were used for clandestine aircraft. If I remember correctly,in Lyons La Foret there is a large wall with numerous memorial plaques on it.I wonder if there is any information on a plaque which is relevant to this query
Harry, I have a copy of the book 'We Landed by Moonlight' by Hugh Verity - re Lyons La Foret the index gives see Morgny which in turn gives airfield code 'Pamplemousse' location east of Rouen 2km North West of Morgny. As can be seen from the map, not very far apart. Regards Peter.
Peter, Yes, it looks as if Morgny could be a place that was used..... very close the Lyons La Foret about 10 kms ESE. What air operations are shown from Pamplemousse and personalities handled?....that might reveal a name or two. On some of these clandestine airfields,I have found memorials to the events that have taken place during the war.
From : Tentative of History of In/Exfiltrations into/from France during WWII from 1940 to 1945 (Parachutes, Plane & Sea Landings) 28 November 1942 2 km NW Morgny, 8 km E Lyons-la-Foret, LZ Pamplemousse, 49° 24’ 00’’ N – 01° 35’ 00’’ E, Eure, Fr AIR 40/2659 -App A1 Rapport Max Petit H Verity - Ed 2000 - App B RAF 161 Sqn log Perry SIS n°20 RAF 161 Sqn 2 Lysanders planned only one arrived (F/L James McCairns) – Max Petit’s family with 2 children embarked. Jacques Henri Simon aka Sermoy & luggages did not embark 15 April 1943 2 km NW Morgny, 8 km E Lyons-la-Foret, LZ Pamplemousse, 49° 24’ 00’’ N – 01° 35’ 00’’ E, Eure, Fr HS7/248 SOE RF - App 1-6 & Index HS7/251 - SOE RF – App7-14 & Index CL Bibliography SHD Dictionnaire Historique C Faure du BCRA à DGSE http://www.pierrebrossolette.com/biographie-2/pierre-brossoletteen- quelques-dates/ H Verity - Ed 2000 - App B RAF 161 Sqn log SOE RF/BCRA Jean Cavailles (CL) aka Hervé aka Marty (RK1), X aka Bernard & Robert Tainturier aka Gulliver aka Parsifal (Marathon) Liberty / Juliette SIS n°31 RAF 161 Sqn - 2 Lysanders (P/O Mc Cairns & F/L Vaughan-Fowler). SOE F (FFE.Yeo-Thomas aka Shelley), BCRA (A.Dewavrin, Louis Jourdren aka Jacques Jordan aka Jargon & Pierre Brossolette aka Pedro) & USAAF (Cpt Ryan) back to GB Robert Tainturier aka Parsifal arrested 05/10/1943 & died in Dora 19/03/1944 There seems to be only those 2 in the document I have. It should also be noted that there was another DZ called Pamplemousse which was situated in the Ariege, but was so called later in the war. TD
Hrry, I have been asking people around here and the problem is is that most of those who were around are dropping fast due to old age or they were too young to know anything about what was going on.