Odette Sansom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Odette Sansom/Churchill/Hallowes | |
|---|---|
| April 28, 1912 – March 13, 1995 | |
| Nickname | Agent Spindle, Lise |
| Place of birth | Amiens, France |
| Place of death | Walton-on-Thames, Surrey |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom, France |
| Service/branch | Special Operations Executive, French Resistance |
| Years of service | 1942-1944 |
| Rank | Field agent and guerrilla commander |
| Commands held | Spindle |
| Awards | George Cross, Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur |
| Relations | Peter Churchill |
Odette Marie Celine Sansom, GC, MBE, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur, (April 28, 1912 - March 13, 1995) was an Allied heroine of World War II.
Odette Marie Celine Brailly was born in Amiens in the Somme département of France. Her father was the First World War hero Gaston Brailly who was killed at Verdun in 1918 when she was six years old.
She met the Englishman Roy Sansom in Bologne and married him in 1931, moving with him to England. Her husband enlisted in 1940. When the War Office requested all French-born residents of London to supply them with photographs of their home towns, Odette volunteered her family album, which contained many useful depictions of the Channel coast. She joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and was later asked to train under Colonel Maurice Buckmaster of the Special Operations Executive and return to Nazi-occupied France to work with the French underground. She left her three daughters in the care of her husband.
She made a landing near Cannes in 1942, where she made contact with her supervisor, Peter Churchill. Using the code name Lise, she brought him funds and acted as his radio operator.
Churchill's operation in France was betrayed by a double agent, and Odette and Churchill were arrested on April 16, 1942 and imprisoned. Under torture by the Gestapo at Fresnes prison in Paris, Odette stuck to her cover story that Churchill was the nephew of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and that she was Peter's wife. The hope was that in this way their treatment would be mitigated.
Odette was condemned to death in June 1943 and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. She survived the war and testified against the prison guards at a 1946 war crimes trial.
Odette's husband had died during her imprisonment and she married Peter Churchill in 1947. They were divorced in 1956.
Her third husband was Geoffrey Hallowes.
Odette was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and was the first of three World War II FANY members to be awarded the George Cross (gazetted 20 August 1946).[1] She remains the only woman to have received the George Cross whilst alive, all other female GC awards to date being posthumous. She was also appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for her work with the French resistance.[2]
[edit] Works Dealing With Her Story
- Odette, a movie made in 1950 starring Anna Neagle.
- Tickell, Jerrard (1949). Odette: The Story of a British Agent. London: Chapman & Hall..
