Spy Princess

by Shrabani Basu

  By the night of 24 June the Gestapo had made a clean sweep. Suttill, Norman and Borrel – the three key players of the Prosper circuit – were in their custody. The Germans had been on the trail of Prosper for a while as it was one of the biggest, busiest and most hazardous of the SOE networks. The circuit, however, became a victim of its own success. It had grown too large, and it was inevitable that it would be infiltrated. Suttill, Borrel and Norman were careless of security and flouted the basic rule of not being seen together. Borrel and Norman were lovers and were often out together. All three regularly lunched together in a black-market restaurant near the Etoile and met in the evenings at a café in Montmartre. They were an inseparable trio and often met Suttill’s second radio operator Jack Agazarian, a handsome and dashing young airman. Agazarian had been ordered not to contact members of any circuit apart from his own, but he had transmitted for no fewer than twenty-three different agents, because of the shortage of trained operators. It had made him extremely vulnerable to discovery by the Germans who were circling and waiting to swoop. Suttill had been concerned about Agazarian’s security and sent him back to London with his wife. They left on the same Lysander that brought Noor in on 17 June.

  Another factor that severely compromised the security of the agents on the circuit was that they had sent long reports home with the double agent Déricourt, either inadequately coded or in clear. Once the Canadian agents had been arrested, the Germans unravelled the rest of the Prosper circuit with ease.

  Suttill himself was aware that his circuit had grown too large. His first contact in France, Germaine Tambour, and her sister Madeleine had been arrested in April. He then became engaged in a negotiation with the Germans to release the Tambour sisters from Fresnes prison in exchange for one million francs. Dangerously, several members of the Prosper circuit used the same postbox address of a friend of Germaine Tambour’s, Madame Monet, at 38 Ave Suffren, Paris XVe. It was used by Suttill, Norman, Borrel, Agazarian, his wife Francine, Dowlen, Biéler and his radio operator Staggs.6 They continued to use the same postbox after the Tambours’ arrest. After the arrest of Madame Monet, the Gestapo tried to trap Biéler through the address, but he was warned just in time. Despite all these misgivings, Suttill asked Antelme for one million francs for the Tambour sisters and collected it from him on Tuesday 22 June. He had instructed Worms (code name Robin) of the Juggler circuit to get in touch with a German colonel in Paris to negotiate the release. Suttill tore the notes in half and left instructions that the colonel would get the other half only after the sisters were released. But the women released were not the Tambour sisters and Worms took back the half-notes. The Germans then demanded another half a million francs before they would release the sisters. The saga of the release of the Tambour sisters angered and worried Suttill, and Antelme advised him to cut off the negotiations as he was risking too many agents’ lives in the process.7

  The fall of Prosper was in many ways due to negligence in London as well. Suttill was worried by the fact that the security of safe letter boxes was not working. He was shocked to find that Noor had been sent to France supplied with a dangerous address he himself had cancelled. On 19 June, his last report to London, he wrote angrily: ‘Madeleine was apparently given the Monet letter box in spite of the fact that it is cancelled since February (cancellation confirmed personally by me in May visit). Please take disciplinary action. Had Madeleine gone there yesterday afternoon she would have coincided with one of the Gestapo’s periodic visits at that flat!’8

  Suttill was also appalled that Lejeune (the Giraudist who returned to London on the Lysander that brought in Noor) had given out the same address to one of his friends, despite being instructed specifically by Borrel not to use the address and to use the one for Madame Rose instead. He was furious about this lapse by the SOE and cancelled all his current letter boxes and passwords. In the letter, a clearly exasperated Suttill told his chiefs at Baker Street: ‘I hope I have made myself clear. It is now 0100 hours 19th June and I have slept 7 hours since 0500 hours 15th June.’9 Five days later he was arrested and could not circulate new letter boxes.

  It is unclear why Suttill’s earlier instructions had been ignored and Noor supplied with a letter-box address that was not safe. Her mission could also be seen to have been doomed from the start, as she and her companions were received by Henri Déricourt, the very man accused of being a double agent. In the fog of war these lapses were to have fatal consequences.

  On the morning of 24 June 1943, Antelme had left for Poitiers. The same day he had sent Octave Simon to the Le Mans area to arrange for the pick-up of Noor’s wireless sets. Simon had to give instructions to Dutilleul, postmaster at Le Mans and part of the reception committee, to proceed with his car on 29 June to the road intersection near Grignon, which he was to reach at 2.30 p.m. There he would see a young French boy to whom he would give the password, which consisted of asking for a certain road. He would be given a parcel which he had to bring back to Le Mans.

  Meanwhile on 24 June, Noor had a meeting with Norman at Grignon. They had planned to stay there till 26 June so Noor could practise her transmissions and send Norman’s messages.10 She went to Norman’s friend’s apartment where they usually met and waited, but he did not arrive. She remained in Grignon till the next day but there was no sign of him.

  On Friday afternoon (25 June), while Noor was still waiting for Norman, Professor Balachowsky came to inform her that his wife had just received a phone call from Paris ‘from the doctor’s wife in whose house Germaine and her sister were to be removed in safety after being taken away from Fresnes’.11 The message said that en route to the rendezvous at which Germaine and her sister were to be handed over to them, Suttill, Worms, Borrel and fifteen others had been arrested and Norman had escaped. The woman said this had happened on Wednesday night. In fact, Suttill had been arrested separately and Norman had not escaped, but this was the initial warning that Noor got.

  Moving quickly, Noor immediately got rid of Norman’s radio set and with Professor Balachowsky’s assistance buried it under a bed of lettuce in the vegetable garden. She returned to Paris, where she contacted Garry.

  Both Garry and Noor then went to Antelme’s apartment to wait for him and it was here that Antelme found them when he returned on the 9.15 p.m. train from Poitiers. They informed him of the arrests. Antelme immediately ordered Garry to lie low and organised a safe house for Noor with his friend Raymond Andres at 1 Square Malherbe, Paris.12 He was an engineer in the employment of La Société d’Electricité Chime d’Ugine. Antelme left his own flat as well and moved into another apartment with a friend, Germaine Aigrain, owner of a shop on the Champs Elysées, who lived at the same address at 1 Square Malherbe. Germaine Aigrain was a friend of Raymond Andres and they lived together in Aigrain’s flat, but they had a separate bachelor flat in the same building in which Noor was accommodated.13 The flat was fairly close to Garry’s at 40 rue Erlanger. Antelme also contacted Robert Gieules to tell him about the arrests and told him to be careful and to alert William Savy, another member of this sub-circuit. Antelme, who kept moving his hiding place, stayed a night or two with Gieules.14 He contacted Simon, who confirmed that all was well in Le Mans and said that he had contacted Dutilleul about Noor’s wireless sets.

  The secondary ring of the Prosper circuit were safe for the moment since they had all managed to move house and heed security warnings. With the head of such an important circuit arrested, they would have to lie low for a while and see what they could do.

  On Sunday 27 June, Antelme sent Noor to Grignon to contact Professor Balachowsky and Norman’s friends. He wanted her to find out more about the phone message referring to the arrests. Antelme wanted to know who had phoned Madame Balachowsky.15 Professor Balachowsky told Noor that in view of what had happened, she should not come to Grignon again and suggested she ignore them in future.

  Unable to get any information from Grignon, Antelme called the same day on the owners of Chez Touret, the café
where Suttill and Borrel dined regularly and used as a postbox, and contacted Armel Guerne through them. Guerne had been warned of the arrests and had moved with his wife to a safe flat belonging to the parents of Suttill’s friend, Alain Bussoz, a local recruit. They told Antelme that the mysterious lady caller was Madame Helmer, an elderly woman doctor resident at Auteuil, and he dismissed her as just another person involved with the messy release of the Tambour sisters. Madame Helmer was actually the letter box for Borrel. Guerne informed Antelme that he was in contact with Worms, Weil, Biéler and Trotobas, other F-section agents. He told Antelme that on Wednesday 23 June, Norman and Borrel had dined with him and then left at 11 p.m.

  Antelme then contacted the concierge at Borrel’s flat, who told him that she had not returned on Wednesday and that on Friday afternoon two men had walked straight up to her flat and left with a radio set and two suitcases. He then asked Alain Bussoz to check out Norman’s flat, which he shared with Nicholas Laurent and his wife, Maud, at 75 Boulevard Lanne, Paris. They found Norman’s room to be extremely tidy, with the sheets folded and a tie hanging in the wardrobe. A bicycle given to him on Wednesday was leaning against the wall. His clothes and other effects had been removed. The Laurents’ rooms were very untidy. The drawers were half open, clothes had been removed in a hurry and there was half-cooked food on the stove. It looked as if they had left in a great rush.16

  On 29 June, Dutilleul duly proceeded on his mission to collect Noor’s wireless sets as arranged. Yves was there and handed over the parcel to him, which he brought back safely to Le Mans. The same day, despite the chaos all around, Garry and his fiancée Marguerite got married as they had planned. Noor attended the wedding but Antelme stayed away.

  The summer of arrests continued. Though they had moved out of their apartment, Madame Guerne had the habit of going back to her old flat every day to check with the caretaker for any news that he might have. On 1 July, when she went to the flat with Bussoz, they were intercepted by the Gestapo. Bussoz was arrested but Madame Guerne managed a miraculous escape from the fourth-floor flat. She called Worms and told him that the Gestapo had been searching her place and he should warn her husband and Antelme. She gave him Antelme’s address. Worms called on Antelme at Madame Aigrain’s flat just after lunch. It was the first time Antelme met the head of the Juggler circuit. He told Antelme that Madame Guerne had said that the Gestapo had got hold of Antelme’s food card and she had torn off the first page and eaten it to get rid of his name. But his previous address was marked at the back of the card. Worms told Antelme that he would like to see him later and left him a number where he was to call and ask for ‘Yvonne’.

  At 6.30 p.m. when Antelme rang the number Yvonne answered and passed the phone to Weil, who informed him that Worms was ‘ill’ (code for being arrested). Weil was anxious to meet him but when Antelme called back again at 8 p.m., Yvonne told him that he would not be able to see Weil. Antoine gathered that he too had been arrested. He was just left with a number for the circuit. Later Antelme discovered that Yvonne was Countess Yvonne de La Rochefoucauld, who lived at 4 rue de la Neva.17

  The same day, the concierge at Antelme’s building told him that the Gestapo had been to his old flat and had come looking for him. They did not have his correct name and asked for him by his code name ‘Antoine’. They gave a fairly accurate description of him and said he was tall and often wore a Basque beret. The caretaker said there were many tall men in the building and she did not know whom they meant. They tried to bully her, producing a Gestapo badge, and said they would be back. Antelme kept his head down and advised Noor to do the same.

  Later they heard that the Gestapo had been to the Gisors arms depot near Trie-Château, and the reception committee had fallen to the Germans. George Darling, the man Suttill had gone to meet before his arrest, had been killed and the others were arrested.

  The network had fallen into complete disarray within ten days of Noor arriving in Paris. She was clearly shaken but took Antelme’s advice and lay low at his friend’s apartment. The Garrys left for Le Mans. Germaine Aigrain looked after both Noor and Antelme, who were hiding in the same building. The situation was even more dangerous as it was clear that the Gestapo had a full description of Antelme and were actively looking for him. It has been suggested by Noor’s friend and biographer Jean Overton Fuller that a romantic attachment developed between Antelme and Noor. They were thrown together in hiding for long periods as the circuit collapsed around them and an attachment was almost inevitable. Mutual friends of the couple told Fuller that they had even planned to get married once they reached London. Antelme was full of admiration for Noor and had remarked to a fellow agent that there was no one like her. But Madame Aigrain has suggested that Antelme was ‘paternalistic’ towards Noor.18 Antelme was divorced with two sons living in Durban. He had also had a romantic liaison in London with Penelope Torr, F-section’s records officer. Noor, too, was engaged and planned to get married when she returned, so it was unlikely that any relationship between them would develop further.

  Meanwhile, a meeting was organised by Gieules at his flat at 66 rue de Pontieu between Antelme, his friend William Savy, Paul Arrighi, Arthur de Montalambert and Noor. William Savy was a lawyer who helped Antelme raise money for F-section activities in Paris. He had a withered arm and it was therefore extra brave of him to go into the Resistance. Savy was hiding at Gieules’ flat because the Gestapo had raided his apartment. Antelme informed the meeting that it was dangerous for him to stay on in Paris and that he would return to London and take Savy with him.19 Once during this turbulent period Savy and Antelme spent the entire night sitting in armchairs at Savy’s office in order to evade detection by the Gestapo.20

  On 1 July, while the Gestapo was making further searches, Noor returned to Grignon. She wanted desperately to transmit to London and thought she could do so from there. But the moment she reached the school she realised the building had been occupied. She withdrew quietly, abandoned her bicycle and took a bus back to Paris. There are some reports that there was a clash with the Gestapo at Grignon, and Noor’s French citation for the Croix de Guerre says that she shot and either wounded or killed some of the Germans who pursued her. But this is not corroborated. Noor filed a report about the incident to London but did not mention anything about firing on Germans. She sent the details of the arrests to London by the Lysander that left on the night of 19 September.21 This was probably the detailed report that was submitted later, as her message about the arrests had been transmitted much earlier.

  Noor reported that about sixty German plain-clothes policemen had arrived at Grignon and reproached the director for his anti-German sentiments. They asked him a lot of questions which he refuted. His son-in-law Robert Douillet was also interrogated. The Gestapo then arrested the director and six older students and the gardener Maillard.

  After this the Germans staged a show of shooting in a forest close to the college. They rounded up the students and demanded to know everything, threatening to shoot them if they did not cooperate. They marched them in groups of ten and fired shots in the air and then came back for more students, telling them they would be shot like the rest. But this yielded no results. The shooting exercise was a sham and the next morning the director was brought back to his office. The Germans told him that they knew he was not a Germanophile but he was not to spread his ideas if he did not want any problems. The Germans had claimed that the English officers arrested in Paris had talked.

  On 2 July, the day after the incident at Grignon, Professor Balachowsky was arrested at his flat in Viroflay. After breakfast, there was a knock on the door and the maid answered it. Madame Balachowsky saw a tall broad-shouldered man entering and asking for the professor. The professor was led away by the Gestapo but Madame Balachowsky, to her surprise, was not arrested. She and the maid were left behind in the flat. Madame Balachowsky immediately set out to warn other members of the circuit not to come to their house. Noor was told about the arrest by the maid
when she telephoned the flat at 11 a.m.

  On 10 July, at 5 p.m. the Germans returned to Grignon and arrested Vanderwynckt again. As he was leaving he told his wife, ‘Don’t worry about my fate. I want to serve my country.’22 Meanwhile Professor Balachowsky must have told the Germans where Noor had buried the wireless set because they went straight to the lettuce patch and dug it out.23 He was the only one who knew where she had buried it as they had done it together.

  During the following week, hundreds of French agents were rounded up and arrested as the Germans infiltrated the circuits. Arthur de Montalambert, a friend of Antelme’s who worked with Octave Simon and the Satirist circuit, was arrested along with other members of the circuit. He died in Germany.

  While the few left in the Prosper sub-circuit – Antelme, Noor and Garry – tried to warn others and relocate, the Germans tried their best to extract as much information from their prisoners. Suttill was subjected to the harshest of Gestapo interrogations, being questioned for three days continuously without being allowed to eat, drink, sleep or even sit down.24 Despite this, he infuriated the Germans by refusing to reveal anything. Suttill had apparently ‘been very “English” and haughty under interrogation, and had just sat in a chair and smoked cigarettes’.25 But there is evidence that Norman cracked and gave a full deposition. Later, Norman told a fellow agent, Marcel Rousset, at 3 bis Place États Unis prison, that the Gestapo knew everything and that Suttill and he had admitted everything to save their lives.26 Through Norman and the documentary material available the Germans gained a clear insight into the French section.27 It was also after Norman’s arrest that they learnt of the existence of ‘Madeleine’.28 They now had a personal description of her and knew she was a radio operator in the Prosper circuit. Immediately they set up a wireless detection station to observe traffic for the French section.