by Larry Loftis
fortyish, six feet . . . brown eyes . . . strong . . . elephant-like steps: KV 2/2127.1 (unpaginated, but appearing at the beginning of P.F. 600, 861) and KV 2/2127.2 (15a), UK National Archives. In all descriptions of Bleicher from SOE and Resistance agents, there was one common trait: “strong.”
something about him: HS 9/648.4.060 and HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives.
Les Tilleuls: Jerrard Tickell, Odette, 186; HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives.
“Lise, there is”: Tickell, Odette, 186–87; HS 9/648.4.060 and HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives. The accounts of the first meeting between Odette and Hugo Bleicher differ. By Bleicher’s recollection, he doesn’t confront Odette during lunch at the Hôtel de la Poste; instead of going directly to find Odette, he claims he went to visit Mrs. Marsac, who suggested the hotel as a good lunch spot. While there, Bleicher writes, he overheard a woman chiding someone about security and the chef said, “Oh, that is Lise, the Englishwoman, who came over from London with our new wireless operator. She is in charge here now and interferes all the time.” Colonel Henri’s Story, 88–89. Bleicher states that he doesn’t see Odette again until he arrests her on April 16. The cable from Odette to London, however, suggests that Hugo did in fact meet her at the luncheon. Churchill, Duel of Wits, 344. Hugo’s interest in capturing a British aircraft—or defecting—occurs again when he suggests a similar plan (requesting a Lysander) to Peter after returning from visiting the Fols. Peter Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 95.
wintry smile, glanced hard at Odette: HS 9/648.4.060 and HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives.
“Mademoiselle Lise?”: Tickell, Odette, 187.
slight Belgian accent: KV 2/2127.1, UK National Archives.
CHAPTER 9: LIFELESS
from Marsac: HS 9/648.4.081, National Archives. Bleicher, in his account, does not mention showing the letter to Odette (Colonel Henri’s Story, 86–88), but that he did is confirmed by Arnaud’s debriefing on 1 October 1943 at KV 2/2127.2 (1y), and Odette’s debriefing on 12 May 1945 at HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives. Note that Roger Bardet’s code name was CHAILLAN, although Tickell refers to him as “Jules.” Note also that Bleicher states that he, Hugo, had suggested to Marsac that the escape plot required Bardet’s participation, thus prompting Marsac’s letter to Roger. Tickell, however, appears to have erroneously assumed that Odette had suggested Bardet’s meeting with Marsac in Fresnes (a meeting which she opposed adamantly).
recognized the handwriting: HS 9/648.4.060 and HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives.
“Je benerais le jour”: Ibid.
“It was I who arrested”: Tickell, Odette, 188.
for Henri and Marsac to escape: HS 9/648.4.060, 9/648.4.061, and 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives.
“What do you want”: Tickell, Odette, 189.
“Mozart’s Magic Flute”: Ibid., 190. Odette does not know that Bleicher’s first dream was to be a concert pianist, or that his lifelong passion was classical music.
April 10: The sequence of events between April 10 and 15, 1943, differs slightly in almost every account. See Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 86–92; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 344–46; Tickell, Odette, 187–95; KV 2/164, Arnaud’s account at 2/2127.2 (1y), and Odette’s account at HS 9/648.4.081–.082, UK National Archives.
Odette met with Bardet . . . Arnaud: HS 9/648.4.060, 9/648.4.081, and 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
shoot the bloody traitor: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 347. In Arnaud’s account at KV 2/2127.2 (1y), he met with Bardet and Riquet and tried to persuade them not to return to Paris. When they insisted on doing so, Arnaud “lost his temper and threatened to shoot them.” Apparently, after they left and Odette told him that Bardet had given up their hideout address to Bleicher, Arnaud decided to make good on his threat.
“Jean, my dear”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 90. The meeting of Bleicher, Marsac, and Roger Bardet is also confirmed in Odette’s testimony at HS 9/648.4.081–.082, UK National Archives.
a plane: Bleicher remembered asking for two aircraft (Colonel Henri’s Story, 90), while in all other accounts, it is a single plane. See, for example, KV 2/164 (18a), UK National Archives.
Marsac . . . rather die in a concentration: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 176.
“Do you really believe”: Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 91.
Bardet returned . . . told Odette: HS 9/648.4.081–.082, UK National Archives.
go back to Paris: Tickell, Odette, 192.
dead for seven months . . . automaton . . . locust: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 343.
FROM LISE STOP . . . “I think it”: Ibid., 344.
“I want to go”: Ibid.
HENRI HIGHLY DANGEROUS: Ibid., 345.
Talloires . . . Glaieulles: HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
Mont Semnoz: Odette recalled that London had suggested Semnoz and asked if it would provide a suitable landing site. HS 9/648.4.061 and HS 9/648.4.081, UK National Archives. However, the cable from Baker Street and Peter’s specific mention of looking at the Michelin map with Major Buckmaster to find the location of the site selected by Odette and Arnaud seem to refute the notion. Churchill, Duel of Wits, 345.
“Well, will it do?” . . . “But it’s a hell”: Tickell, Odette, 193.
one hundred yards: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 347.
“Oh. One more thing”: Tickell, Odette, 193.
morning of April 15: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 346. The sequence of events differs by a day or so with various accounts, although all place the arrest on April 16. HS 9/648.4.005 and .007, UK National Archives. Arnaud stated at his SOE debriefing on 1 October 1943 that he reconnoitered the Semnoz field on April 11 (KV 2/2127.2 (1y), UK National Archives), yet, on this date, Roger Bardet was in Paris meeting with Marsac and Bleicher, and Odette had not yet sent her message to London. In addition, he places Peter arriving on the fourteenth, but Peter states that he left London at ten thirty on the night of April 15. Churchill, Duel of Wits, 346. Odette, in her debriefing on May 12, 1945, stated that she heard the BBC broadcast on April 14 and that they arrived to the drop zone at 12:10 A.M. on April 15. HS 9/648.4.061 and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“Struth!”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 345.
submarine insertion: Peter was inserted into France on 1 January 1941 by the British submarine HMS P36. Eight hundred yards from the coast of Cannes, he left the sub and paddled ashore in a canoe. Churchill, Of Their Own Choice, 70–72.
“This mountaintop”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 346.
aou . . . eou . . . aou: Ibid., 349.
“Le scarabée d’or”: Tickell, Odette, 194; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 348, 350. See also HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“Why aren’t you ready?”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 350.
Jean and Simone: The Cottets joined Odette and Arnaud for Peter’s reception on Semnoz. HS 9/648.4.027–.028, UK National Archives.
“Look! I remember”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 351.
“Look, Arnaud!”: Ibid., 352.
“Oh, God” . . . “When you have” . . . “Here it comes!”: Ibid., 353.
“Oh, God!” . . . “I can’t”: Ibid., 354.
“Bonfire ahead”: Ibid. See also HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“Hallo, Lise” . . . “Pierre” . . . everything a man could: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 356–57.
abandoned inn: HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
dynamite: HS 9/648.4.061, UK National Archives.
Sten gun . . . Colt automatics: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 358.
“Lise, Lise”: Ibid., 360.
CHAPTER 10: THE BEAM
“What are we”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 360.
shattered vertebra: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 232.
eight o’clock . . . changed . . . bus to Annecy: HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“You should have” . . . “I still think”: Tickell, Odette, 195–96.
Faverges to meet with Arnaud . . . over dinner: HS 9/648
.4.082, UK National Archives.
Tom Morel: Ibid. Odette specifically mentions going to contact “Simone,” who apparently was to pass word to Morel.
eleven o’clock: HS 9/648.4.062 and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives. The arrest at the hotel on 16 April 1943 is confirmed by all parties, although the details and dialogue differ slightly. See Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 97–99; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 361–62; Tickell, Odette, 197; KV 2/164 (18a), KV 2/2127.2 (2A, 1y), HS 9/648.4.005, and HS 9/648.4.007, UK National Archives. Some SOE files indicate that the arrest date was April 17 because Bleicher and his team arrived at the Hôtel de la Poste after eleven o’clock on the night of the sixteenth but would not have left with Peter and Odette until after midnight, now April 17. See HS 9/648.4.008 and HS 9/648.4.012. KV 2/2127.2 (1y and 2A) for Arnaud’s account of events given to SOE in October and November 1943. Note that MI5 uses Arnaud’s operational name—CATALPHA—for its extract from the SOE debriefing. See also Buckmaster, They Fought Alone, 296.
small . . . large hat . . . pale: KV 2/2127.2 (1y), UK National Archives.
le Belge was downstairs asking for her: HS 9/648.4.062, 9/648.4.064, 9/648.4.082, and KV 2/2127.2 (2A, 1y), UK National Archives; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 361.
tall blue-eyed . . . Gestapo . . . jumpy: HS 9/648.4.062, 9/648.4.064, and 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
scarf with his hat: Ibid.
She wondered if: Ibid.
offered his hand: HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“I think a lot of you” . . . “I don’t care”: HS 9/648.4.062 and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives. Odette’s quote was rendered from the prose of her report.
“You have done a very”: HS 9/648.4.064 and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
“Don’t try to”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 361; HS 9/648.4.062, UK National Archives.
felt the thing jabbing her spine: HS 9/648.4.062, HS 9/648.4.064, and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives. The “thing,” of course, is a gun.
Peter’s door: The accounts of sleeping arrangements is slightly inconsistent. While Odette has she and Peter staying in the same room (HS 9/648.4.062 and 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives), Peter and Hugo Bleicher both recorded that they had separate rooms. Churchill, Duel of Wits, 361–62; Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 98. The discrepancy may be resolved by Bleicher’s description (“I ceased to watch Odette and looked into the room next door”): two separate rooms but with an adjoining-party wall door, left open.
“There is the Gestapo”: HS 9/648.4.062 and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
Henri, the tall blond, and an Italian: HS 9/648.4.065, UK National Archives; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 362.
“What’s your name?” . . . “Chambrun”: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 362.
in and out of his pocket: HS 9/648.4.062, HS 9/648.4.065, and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives.
smiled . . . conveying a hundred: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 363.
“Do you want to go”: HS 9/648.4.065, HS 9/648.4.005, HS 9/648.4.062, and HS 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives; Bleicher, Colonel Henri’s Story, 99; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 363.
surrounded by soldiers . . . gun in hand: HS 9/648.4.065, UK National Archives.
Peter’s wallet . . . under the seat: HS 9/648.4.062, 9/648.4.065, and 9/648.4.082, UK National Archives; Churchill, Duel of Wits, 363–64. Bleicher’s account of the arrest is revealing in that not only was he unaware of the complicity of Jean and Simone, but also that he missed Odette’s retrieval and hiding of Peter’s wallet. Colonel Henri’s Story, 97–99.
Alpini barrack . . . Annecy: HS 9/648.4.012, HS 9/648.4.062, and HS 9/648.4.065, UK National Archives; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 10.
“Take good care”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 11. In Bleicher’s account, he does not travel with the Italians to the barracks. Colonel Henri’s Story, 99.
Odette . . . squeezed: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 11.
office with a camp bed: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 364; HS 9/648.4.065, UK National Archives.
Sten gun, pistols, ammunition, crystals: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 10.
whatever the cost: Churchill, Duel of Wits, 364 (“She vowed she would shelter me and save my life by every available means.”).
Arnaud swung by the Hôtel de la Poste: KV 2/2127.2 (1y), UK National Archives.
Roger had telephoned Bleicher: Cookridge, Inside S.O.E., 178–79. Contrary to Cookridge’s suggestion, however, Bardet had no contact with London and could not have known that Buckmaster had rejected Bleicher’s plane pickup idea.
“Your plan to penetrate”: Ibid., 179–80.
suitcase to hide: HS 9/648.4.027, UK National Archives.
Hans Josef Kieffer: Ibid. See “Staff of the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst in Paris” in the photograph section between pages 304 and 305.
Operation North Pole: See, generally, Hermann J. Giskes, London Calling North Pole: The True Revelations of a German Spy. Giskes was the Abwehr major in charge of the operation.
“Jacques”: Philippe de Vomécourt, Army of Amateurs, 129.
“no longer recognizable”: Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, 20.
April 18 . . . lengthy—and therefore dangerous—message . . . Cammaerts: Ibid., 283.
wallet . . . 70,000 francs: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 11. Peter’s recollection of the amount in his wallet was 30,000 francs in Duel of Wits (363), and the information lost varies slightly in his two accounts.
silent kill: For background on Fairbairn and the silent kill, see Loftis, Into the Lion’s Mouth, 161–65. See also Langelaan, Knights of the Floating Silk, 66–67; Dourlein, Inside North Pole, 81; Millar, Maquis, 22; Foot, S.O.E., 84; Rigden, How to Be a Spy, 5, 15–16, 361, 367.
CHAPTER 11: THEY WILL SEND FOR YOU
Peter parried the charge: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 13–14. Peter’s life was undoubtedly saved due to SOE’s specific training in bayonet defense. See the SOE training manual on “Defences against a rifle and bayonet.” Rigden, intro., How to Be a Spy, 370.
“Assistenza! Assistenza!”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 14.
“Double the guard”: Ibid., 15.
“Let me have”: Ibid., 15–16.
“Your husband is” . . . “Why?”: HS 9/648.4.066, UK National Archives. Odette’s quoted response is rendered from the prose of her report.
“You are very strong”: Ibid.
“Now do you feel”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 17.
168 containers: Ibid., 18.
He wept: Ibid., 18.
Carabinieri wielding Schmeissers: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 21.
passionate love notes: “Raoul sent messages as a man would to a woman he loved, and this appealed to the Italians.” HS 9/648.4.066, UK National Archives.
handcuffed . . . Peter’s condition . . . face: HS 9/648.4.066, UK National Archives.
one finger . . . wondered if he had been tortured: Ibid.
oasis of happiness: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 21. See also HS 9/648.4.067, UK National Archives (“Source did everything she could during the journey to raise his spirits and succeeded”).
“I know that you”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 22.
Arnaud and Roger . . . save them: HS 9/648.4.067, UK National Archives.
each would lay down: Ibid.
the extent of his admiration: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 23.
“We know all about”: Ibid.
“It was I”: Ibid., 25–26. Peter Churchill’s account of exactly when Odette told the Italian guards that Peter was related to Winston Churchill, and that they were married, differs from the accounts of Bleicher and Tickell. Churchill’s account—in general and on this matter—appears the more reliable. Ironically, Churchill records that the Gestapo knew his real name at the time of his arrest (Duel of Wits, 362), but Peter and Odette assumed—apparently correctly—that the Italians in Grenoble had not been informed of his real name. Spirit in the Cage, 23, 25. In addit
ion, while Peter remembered their stay in Grenoble as being ten days, Odette recalled it as a week. HS 9/648.4.067, UK National Archives.
“I was your wife”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 26. Exactly when Peter and Odette began holding themselves out as husband and wife is unsettled, as Odette recalls a different date. In her debriefing on May 12, 1945, she testified that they began operating as a married couple as early as November 1942, soon after she arrived: “All this time she was living with RAOUL at the Villa Augusta and they were working as husband and wife.” HS 9/648.4.057, UK National Archives.
“If I ever get the chance”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 26.
Turin . . . Nice . . . villa . . . Toulon: HS 9/648.4.067 and HS 9/648.4.068, UK National Archives; Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 28–29.
rue d’Antibes . . . Provence . . . garrigue: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 30–31.
May 8: HS 9/648.4.068, UK National Archives.
“Bonjour, mon Pierre”: Churchill, Spirit in the Cage, 31.
Colonel Henri greeted . . . apology: HS 9/648.4.068, UK National Archives.
underground passage . . . carried Odette’s luggage: Ibid.
smoked and talked . . . polite: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“I don’t like some”: Ibid. This quotation and some of this dialogue exchange between Odette and Henri has been rendered from the narrative of Odette’s debriefing officer, who alternated between quotations and narrative in recording her story in May 1945.
“I don’t like seeing” . . . “Of course you don’t love”: HS 9/648.4.068, UK National Archives. In Odette’s SOE report upon her return to London in May 1945, the British officer debriefing her refers to her as “Source,” and to Peter as “Raoul,” one of his cover names. To avoid confusion in the text, I have replaced “Raoul” with “Peter” in these quotations.
dangerous: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
“You are making” . . . “Peter is a very”: HS 9/648.4.068, UK National Archives.
He realized that she knew: HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.
anything he could do for her: Ibid.
Cell 108 . . . plaster walls: Tickell, Odette, 202, 207–8; HS 9/648.4.069, UK National Archives.