Harry Peulevé
Encyclopedia
Henri Leonard Thomas Peulevé DSO, MC (29 January 1916 – 18 March 1963) was an agent of the Special Operations Executive
(SOE), who undertook two missions in occupied France and escaped from Buchenwald concentration camp
.
and Rye Grammar School. In 1929 the family moved to Dinard
on the Brittany coast, where Leonard found work as a travel agent. At the invitation of a family friend, Henri also spent time on the Côte d’Azur, during which time he became a fluent French speaker. Following his return to England in 1932, he qualified as an electrical engineer, working for Pye Radio and the Baird Television Company before joining the BBC
in 1936. He became one of their first camera operators at the Alexandra Palace
studios, where he worked until the outbreak of war.
and the Royal Military College of Science, where he was trained on gun laying
radar. Promoted to Armament Staff Sergeant, he was sent to join an AA battery with the British Expeditionary Force
at Arras
in early 1940, but was evacuated in May as German forces approached. He eventually reached Nantes from where he and his men were evacuated, but the traumatic scenes he witnessed during the rout left Peulevé with a profound sense of humiliation, which spurred him to offer his services to the War Office. In March 1942 he was interviewed by Major Lewis Gielgud
and accepted for training with the French Section of the Special Operations Executive
, a secret organisation formed in 1940 to encourage resistance and sabotage in occupied countries.
, Claude de Baissac
and Roger Landes
. Preliminary training took place at Wanborough Manor, one of SOE's Special Training Schools known as STS 5, followed by a paramilitary course at Meoble Lodge (STS 23) in the Western Highlands and a few days at Ringway parachute school (STS 51) near Manchester. Peulevé then went on to train as a wireless operator at Thame Park (STS 52) in Oxfordshire in June, before attending the 'finishing school' for agents at the Beaulieu estate in Hampshire.
at the end of July 1942, but were dropped too low: de Baissac sprained an ankle, and Peulevé suffered a compound fracture of the right leg. Peulevé was taken to a clinic in Nîmes run by Franciscan nuns, and in mid-September he was transferred to a villa owned by the Audouard family in Cannes
. Georges Audouard was a member of a circuit of croupiers with links to CARTE, the major resistance network on the Riviera, run by a painter named André Girard based in Antibes
.
Peulevé was introduced to Peter Churchill
, an F Section agent acting as a CARTE liaison officer and responsible for the SPINDLE circuit. In desperate need of wireless operators, Peulevé was soon put to work transmitting for Girard, along with Isidore Newman, who had been brought ashore at Antibes in April 1942. Moving continually between safe houses in Cannes and Antibes, Peulevé was able to stay for a time with the family of a young French assistant living at Beaulieu-sur-Mer
, Jacques Poirier. Unimpressed with Girard's lack of security and Churchill's lack of direction, Peulevé decided to leave for Spain in late November, taking Poirier with him.
Despite problems with finding reliable guides, Peulevé and Poirier left the border town of Céret
to cross the Pyrenees on the night 21/22 December, a remarkable feat considering that Peulevé was still unable to walk without the aid of sticks. Unable to produce relevant papers, they were arrested the next morning by Spanish police and were sent to Figueras prison, where they remained until being removed to a camp at Jaraba
in February 1943. On 11 April Peulevé escaped during a hospital visit to Zaragoza
, and made his way to the British embassy in Madrid. He arrived in the UK three weeks later.
, a young widow from south London. They formed a close relationship through the summer, but Peulevé was expected to return to France on a second mission to organise a new circuit, AUTHOR, supplying and training maquis
guerrillas in the rural Corrèze
region of west central France. Through her contact with Peulevé, Szabó would also become an SOE agent, being sent to Rouen
in April 1944 to assess the state of the SALESMAN circuit.
Peulevé left for France on the night of 17/18 September with three other agents: Yolande Beekman
, Harry Despaigne and Henri Derringer. Flying from RAF Tangmere
in two Westland Lysander
aircraft, they were received by Henri Déricourt
at a field near Angers
, who arranged for their onward journey to Paris. On 19 September, Peulevé's contact André Grandclément was arrested by the Gestapo
, which left Peulevé with the choice to return to London or find his own way into the Corrèze. He chose the latter, and was passed via Grandclément's associate Marc O’Neill down to the SCIENTIST circuit in Bordeaux, now led by Roger Landes. Peulevé arrived in the Corrèze in early October.
Peulevé set up his network in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde
, helped by Maurice Arnouil, an engineer and local businessman who owned premises at 26, Avenue de la Gare. Arnouil was able to put him in contact with others who would form the staff of his circuit: former policeman Louis Delsanti, wireless operator Louis Bertheau, and mill owners Paul and Georgette Lachaud. Writer André Malraux
also offered help, and suggested Raymond Maréchal, who had fought with Malraux during the Spanish Civil War
. Maréchal would personally lead Peulevé's own guerrilla force.
In January 1944 Peulevé began receiving supply drops from RAF aircraft, enabling him to arm numerous maquis of the Armée Secrète
and communists across the Corrèze and Dordogne
. On 7/8 January he also received organiser George Hiller and wireless operator Cyril Watney, agents of a new circuit, FOOTMAN, in the Lot. Having trained as an SOE agent, Jacques Poirier was parachuted into France on 28/29 January as Peulevé's assistant, and began work on expanding AUTHOR into the eastern Dordogne.
, then Limoges
and Paris, where Peulevé was separated and interrogated by the Sicherheitsdienst
at their headquarters on Avenue Foch
. Refusing to cooperate, Peulevé was tortured for several days before being transferred to solitary confinement at Fresnes prison
. He later made an escape attempt but was wounded in the thigh, and forced to remove the bullet himself using a spoon. Poirier, having evaded capture, became leader of a replacement circuit in the Corrèze named DIGGER, assisted by agents Peter Lake and Ralph Beauclerk. As a result of their efforts, Brive-la-Gaillarde would become the first town in France to be liberated by resistance forces, on 15 August 1944.
On 8 August, Peulevé and thirty-six other agents were transported to Gare de L’Est and put aboard a train travelling east. On the following day it was attacked by Allied aircraft, during which time three women agents were able to pass water to the confined men, one of them being Violette (she had been captured on her second mission whilst attempting to make contact with Poirier in the Corrèze). The prisoners were driven to Verdun
, then on to a transit camp at Saarbrücken
on the German border.
Four days later all thirty-seven agents were transported to Buchenwald concentration camp
near Weimar, where they met four F Section men, Christopher Burney
, Maurice Pertschuk and brothers Henry and Alfred Newton. On 9 September sixteen of the group were called to the main gate, and were hanged in the crematorium basement shortly afterwards. It became clear that the remainder would probably also be executed, and a desperate escape plan was hatched in collaboration with Eugen Kogon
, secretary to one of the SS camp doctors, Dr Erwin Ding-Schuler. In return for signed testimony stating that Allied prisoners had received his help, Ding-Schuler agreed for three men to be hidden in Block 46, where human guinea pigs were used to conduct experiments on new typhus vaccines. Peulevé, Squadron Leader Edward Yeo-Thomas
, and Stéphane Hessel
, a French BCRA
agent, were selected as those to be saved because they could all speak fluent French and therefore, the plan had a greater chance of success.
On 5 October, another eleven agents were called and executed by firing squad. On 9 October, Peulevé swapped identities with a dead French typhus victim named Marcel Seigneur; Yeo-Thomas and Hessel adopted the French names of Maurice Choquet and Michel Boitel later that month. Peulevé and Hessel were quickly transferred to a satellite camp at Schönebeck
, and Yeo-Thomas to Gleina
a week afterwards.
Hessel was transferred again to a camp at Rottleberode near Nordhausen
, but Peulevé remained working in the Junkers factory at Schönebeck. In early 1945 he was moved to a punishment detail, sent to work digging anti-tank traps near Barby on the River Elbe
. As American forces reached the nearby city of Magdeburg
on 11 April, Peulevé was able to escape from his working party, but as he neared the Allied lines he was stopped by two SS officers. Enquiring who he was, he replied that he was a French collaborator trying to avoid capture, and suggested that they should change out of their uniforms. As they began to undress, Peulevé grabbed one of their pistols and later handed them over to troops of the 83rd US Infantry Division. After debriefing, Peulevé returned to England, landing at Croydon Airport
on 18 April.
officer), Peulevé was demobilised in March 1946. Following several years working for Shell in South America, he was transferred to Tunis
in 1952, where he married a Danish woman, Marie-Louise Jahn. They had two children, Madeleine and Jean-Pierre, before separating in 1956, following Peulevé's deportation from Egypt by President Nasser's government. He continued to work abroad, in Spain, the West Indies and later as a sales manager for the Handy Angle company in the early 1960s. He died of a heart attack in Seville
on 18 March 1963. He is buried in the British cemetery in the village of San Jéronimo, on the edge of the city.
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
(SOE), who undertook two missions in occupied France and escaped from Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
.
Early life
Henri Leonard Thomas Peulevé, son of Leonard and Eva Peulevé, was born in the East Preston district of Hastings on 29 January 1916. His early childhood was spent in Algiers and later at Stratford-upon-Avon, Winchelsea and Fairlight, attending King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-AvonKing Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon
King Edward VI School is a voluntary aided boys grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England...
and Rye Grammar School. In 1929 the family moved to Dinard
Dinard
Dinard is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany in north-western France.Dinard is on the Côte d'Émeraude of Brittany. Its beaches and mild climate make it a popular holiday destination, and this has resulted in the town having a variety of famous visitors and residents...
on the Brittany coast, where Leonard found work as a travel agent. At the invitation of a family friend, Henri also spent time on the Côte d’Azur, during which time he became a fluent French speaker. Following his return to England in 1932, he qualified as an electrical engineer, working for Pye Radio and the Baird Television Company before joining the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1936. He became one of their first camera operators at the Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
studios, where he worked until the outbreak of war.
Military service
Peulevé enlisted with the 82nd Essex Anti-Aircraft Regiment in September 1939, but was soon transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance CorpsRoyal Army Ordnance Corps
The Royal Army Ordnance Corps was a corps of the British Army. It dealt only with the supply and maintenance of weaponry, munitions and other military equipment until 1965, when it took over most other supply functions, as well as the provision of staff clerks, from the Royal Army Service...
and the Royal Military College of Science, where he was trained on gun laying
Gun laying
Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece, such as a gun, howitzer or mortar on land or at sea against surface or air targets. It may be laying for direct fire, where the gun is aimed similarly to a rifle, or indirect fire, where firing data is calculated and applied to the sights...
radar. Promoted to Armament Staff Sergeant, he was sent to join an AA battery with the British Expeditionary Force
British Expeditionary Force (World War II)
The British Expeditionary Force was the British force in Europe from 1939–1940 during the Second World War. Commanded by General Lord Gort, the BEF constituted one-tenth of the defending Allied force....
at Arras
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...
in early 1940, but was evacuated in May as German forces approached. He eventually reached Nantes from where he and his men were evacuated, but the traumatic scenes he witnessed during the rout left Peulevé with a profound sense of humiliation, which spurred him to offer his services to the War Office. In March 1942 he was interviewed by Major Lewis Gielgud
Lewis Gielgud
Lewis Evelyn Gielgud, MBE was a British scholar, writer, intelligence officer and humanitarian worker.-Life:...
and accepted for training with the French Section of the Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
, a secret organisation formed in 1940 to encourage resistance and sabotage in occupied countries.
Training
Peulevé's training group contained some of F Section's most celebrated names, including Francis SuttillFrancis Suttill
Major Francis Alfred Suttill DSO was a British special agent who worked for the Special Operations Executive inside France. He organized and coordinated the Physician network, better known by his own code name Prosper...
, Claude de Baissac
Claude de Baissac
Claude Denis Boucherville de Baissac, known as Claude de Baissac or by his codename David was a Mauritius-born agent in the Special Operations Executive...
and Roger Landes
Roger Landes
Roger Landes, MC & Bar was an agent and radio operator in the Special Operations Executive , F section...
. Preliminary training took place at Wanborough Manor, one of SOE's Special Training Schools known as STS 5, followed by a paramilitary course at Meoble Lodge (STS 23) in the Western Highlands and a few days at Ringway parachute school (STS 51) near Manchester. Peulevé then went on to train as a wireless operator at Thame Park (STS 52) in Oxfordshire in June, before attending the 'finishing school' for agents at the Beaulieu estate in Hampshire.
First mission
Peulevé and Claude de Baissac were selected to begin the SCIENTIST circuit, in the Bordeaux area. Both men parachuted ‘blind’ (without a reception committee) to a landing ground west of NîmesNîmes
Nîmes is the capital of the Gard department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire, and is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
at the end of July 1942, but were dropped too low: de Baissac sprained an ankle, and Peulevé suffered a compound fracture of the right leg. Peulevé was taken to a clinic in Nîmes run by Franciscan nuns, and in mid-September he was transferred to a villa owned by the Audouard family in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
. Georges Audouard was a member of a circuit of croupiers with links to CARTE, the major resistance network on the Riviera, run by a painter named André Girard based in Antibes
Antibes
Antibes is a resort town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.It lies on the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur, located between Cannes and Nice. The town of Juan-les-Pins is within the commune of Antibes...
.
Peulevé was introduced to Peter Churchill
Peter Churchill
Peter Morland Churchill DSO Croix de Guerre was an SOE Officer in France during World War II.He was a brother of Group Captain Walter Churchill DSO DFC and Major Oliver Churchill DSO MC who was also an SOE Officer during World War II.-Biography:...
, an F Section agent acting as a CARTE liaison officer and responsible for the SPINDLE circuit. In desperate need of wireless operators, Peulevé was soon put to work transmitting for Girard, along with Isidore Newman, who had been brought ashore at Antibes in April 1942. Moving continually between safe houses in Cannes and Antibes, Peulevé was able to stay for a time with the family of a young French assistant living at Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Beaulieu-sur-Mer , Italian: Belluogo, is a seaside village on the French Riviera between Nice and Monaco. It is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department and borders the communes of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Èze, and Villefranche-sur-Mer.-History:...
, Jacques Poirier. Unimpressed with Girard's lack of security and Churchill's lack of direction, Peulevé decided to leave for Spain in late November, taking Poirier with him.
Despite problems with finding reliable guides, Peulevé and Poirier left the border town of Céret
Céret
Céret is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. It is the capital of Vallespir historical Catalan comarca.-Geography:...
to cross the Pyrenees on the night 21/22 December, a remarkable feat considering that Peulevé was still unable to walk without the aid of sticks. Unable to produce relevant papers, they were arrested the next morning by Spanish police and were sent to Figueras prison, where they remained until being removed to a camp at Jaraba
Jaraba
Jaraba is a municipality located in the province of Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 316 inhabitants....
in February 1943. On 11 April Peulevé escaped during a hospital visit to Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
, and made his way to the British embassy in Madrid. He arrived in the UK three weeks later.
Second mission
Through a mutual friend, Peulevé met Violette SzaboViolette Szabo
Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell Szabo, GC, was a Second World War French-British secret agent.-Early life and marriage:...
, a young widow from south London. They formed a close relationship through the summer, but Peulevé was expected to return to France on a second mission to organise a new circuit, AUTHOR, supplying and training maquis
Maquis (World War II)
The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...
guerrillas in the rural Corrèze
Corrèze
Corrèze is a department in south central France, named after the Corrèze River.The inhabitants of the department are called Corréziens or Corréziennes according to gender.-History:...
region of west central France. Through her contact with Peulevé, Szabó would also become an SOE agent, being sent to Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
in April 1944 to assess the state of the SALESMAN circuit.
Peulevé left for France on the night of 17/18 September with three other agents: Yolande Beekman
Yolande Beekman
Yolande Beekman was a World War II spy.-Early life:...
, Harry Despaigne and Henri Derringer. Flying from RAF Tangmere
RAF Tangmere
RAF Tangmere was a Royal Air Force station famous for its role in the Battle of Britain, located at Tangmere village about 3 miles east of Chichester in West Sussex, England. American RAF pilot Billy Fiske died at Tangmere and was the first American aviator to die during World War II...
in two Westland Lysander
Westland Lysander
The Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and liaison aircraft produced by Westland Aircraft used immediately before and during the Second World War...
aircraft, they were received by Henri Déricourt
Henri Dericourt
Henri Dericourt was a French agent for Special Operations Executive. There is ambiguity as to whether he became a double agent for the Sicherheitsdienst , or was working under British instructions.-Life and work:...
at a field near Angers
Angers
Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....
, who arranged for their onward journey to Paris. On 19 September, Peulevé's contact André Grandclément was arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, which left Peulevé with the choice to return to London or find his own way into the Corrèze. He chose the latter, and was passed via Grandclément's associate Marc O’Neill down to the SCIENTIST circuit in Bordeaux, now led by Roger Landes. Peulevé arrived in the Corrèze in early October.
Peulevé set up his network in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde
Brive-la-Gaillarde
Brive-la-Gaillarde is a commune of France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Corrèze department. The population of the urban area was 89,260 as of 1999. Although it is by far the biggest commune in Corrèze, the capital is Tulle.-History:...
, helped by Maurice Arnouil, an engineer and local businessman who owned premises at 26, Avenue de la Gare. Arnouil was able to put him in contact with others who would form the staff of his circuit: former policeman Louis Delsanti, wireless operator Louis Bertheau, and mill owners Paul and Georgette Lachaud. Writer André Malraux
André Malraux
André Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
also offered help, and suggested Raymond Maréchal, who had fought with Malraux during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. Maréchal would personally lead Peulevé's own guerrilla force.
In January 1944 Peulevé began receiving supply drops from RAF aircraft, enabling him to arm numerous maquis of the Armée Secrète
Armée secrète
The Armée secrète, created in 1943, was an organisation of French resistance fighters during World War II set up by Jean Moulin. It resulted from an amalgamation of three smaller resistance groups:*Combat*Libération-Sud*Franc-Tireur...
and communists across the Corrèze and Dordogne
Dordogne
Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...
. On 7/8 January he also received organiser George Hiller and wireless operator Cyril Watney, agents of a new circuit, FOOTMAN, in the Lot. Having trained as an SOE agent, Jacques Poirier was parachuted into France on 28/29 January as Peulevé's assistant, and began work on expanding AUTHOR into the eastern Dordogne.
Captivity and escape
AUTHOR successfully trained and armed more than 4000 resistance fighters before Peulevé was arrested at Bertheau's safe house on 21 March 1944, along with Bertheau, Delsanti and Roland Malraux, André's half-brother who had previously assisted the SALESMAN circuit in Rouen. All were taken first to TulleTulle
Tulle is a commune and capital of the Corrèze department in the Limousin region in central France. It is also the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulle...
, then Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
and Paris, where Peulevé was separated and interrogated by the Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
at their headquarters on Avenue Foch
Avenue Foch
Avenue Foch is a street in Paris, France, named after Ferdinand Foch in 1929. It was previously named Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. It is one of the most prestigious streets in Paris, and one of the most expensive addresses in the world, home to many grand palaces, including ones belonging to the...
. Refusing to cooperate, Peulevé was tortured for several days before being transferred to solitary confinement at Fresnes prison
Fresnes Prison
Fresnes Prison is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne South of Paris...
. He later made an escape attempt but was wounded in the thigh, and forced to remove the bullet himself using a spoon. Poirier, having evaded capture, became leader of a replacement circuit in the Corrèze named DIGGER, assisted by agents Peter Lake and Ralph Beauclerk. As a result of their efforts, Brive-la-Gaillarde would become the first town in France to be liberated by resistance forces, on 15 August 1944.
On 8 August, Peulevé and thirty-six other agents were transported to Gare de L’Est and put aboard a train travelling east. On the following day it was attacked by Allied aircraft, during which time three women agents were able to pass water to the confined men, one of them being Violette (she had been captured on her second mission whilst attempting to make contact with Poirier in the Corrèze). The prisoners were driven to Verdun
Verdun
Verdun is a city in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is the slightly smaller city of Bar-le-Duc.- History :...
, then on to a transit camp at Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital of the state of Saarland in Germany. The city is situated at the heart of a metropolitan area that borders on the west on Dillingen and to the north-east on Neunkirchen, where most of the people of the Saarland live....
on the German border.
Four days later all thirty-seven agents were transported to Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
near Weimar, where they met four F Section men, Christopher Burney
Christopher Burney
Christopher Arthur Geoffrey Burney MBE was an upper-class Englishman who served in the Special Operations Executive during World War II.-Biography:...
, Maurice Pertschuk and brothers Henry and Alfred Newton. On 9 September sixteen of the group were called to the main gate, and were hanged in the crematorium basement shortly afterwards. It became clear that the remainder would probably also be executed, and a desperate escape plan was hatched in collaboration with Eugen Kogon
Eugen Kogon
Eugen Kogon was a historian and a survivor of the Holocaust. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, he was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration camp. Kogon was known in Germany as a journalist, sociologist, political scientist, author and politician...
, secretary to one of the SS camp doctors, Dr Erwin Ding-Schuler. In return for signed testimony stating that Allied prisoners had received his help, Ding-Schuler agreed for three men to be hidden in Block 46, where human guinea pigs were used to conduct experiments on new typhus vaccines. Peulevé, Squadron Leader Edward Yeo-Thomas
F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas
Wing Commander Forest Frederick Edward "Tommy" Yeo-Thomas, GC, MC & Bar, Croix de guerre , Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur, was the British Special Operations Executive agent codenamed "The White Rabbit" during World War II...
, and Stéphane Hessel
Stéphane Hessel
Stéphane Frédéric Hessel is a diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, former French Resistance fighter and BCRA agent. Born German, he became a naturalised French citizen in 1939...
, a French BCRA
Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action
The Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action , commonly referred as the BCRA was the World War II-era forerunner of the SDECE, the French intelligence service...
agent, were selected as those to be saved because they could all speak fluent French and therefore, the plan had a greater chance of success.
On 5 October, another eleven agents were called and executed by firing squad. On 9 October, Peulevé swapped identities with a dead French typhus victim named Marcel Seigneur; Yeo-Thomas and Hessel adopted the French names of Maurice Choquet and Michel Boitel later that month. Peulevé and Hessel were quickly transferred to a satellite camp at Schönebeck
Schönebeck
Schönebeck is a town in the district of Salzlandkreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the left bank of the Elbe, approx. 14 km southeast of Magdeburg.-International relations:Schönebeck is twinned with:...
, and Yeo-Thomas to Gleina
Gleina
Gleina is a municipality in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany....
a week afterwards.
Hessel was transferred again to a camp at Rottleberode near Nordhausen
Nordhausen
Nordhausen is a town at the southern edge of the Harz Mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Nordhausen...
, but Peulevé remained working in the Junkers factory at Schönebeck. In early 1945 he was moved to a punishment detail, sent to work digging anti-tank traps near Barby on the River Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
. As American forces reached the nearby city of Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
on 11 April, Peulevé was able to escape from his working party, but as he neared the Allied lines he was stopped by two SS officers. Enquiring who he was, he replied that he was a French collaborator trying to avoid capture, and suggested that they should change out of their uniforms. As they began to undress, Peulevé grabbed one of their pistols and later handed them over to troops of the 83rd US Infantry Division. After debriefing, Peulevé returned to England, landing at Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport was an airport in South London which straddled the boundary between what are now the London boroughs of Croydon and Sutton. It was the main airport for London before it was replaced by Northolt Aerodrome, London Heathrow Airport and London Gatwick Airport...
on 18 April.
Post-War life
Having been promoted to the rank of major on his return (now serving as a REMEReme
Reme may refer to:*Rəmə, Azerbaijan*Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers...
officer), Peulevé was demobilised in March 1946. Following several years working for Shell in South America, he was transferred to Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
in 1952, where he married a Danish woman, Marie-Louise Jahn. They had two children, Madeleine and Jean-Pierre, before separating in 1956, following Peulevé's deportation from Egypt by President Nasser's government. He continued to work abroad, in Spain, the West Indies and later as a sales manager for the Handy Angle company in the early 1960s. He died of a heart attack in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
on 18 March 1963. He is buried in the British cemetery in the village of San Jéronimo, on the edge of the city.
Decorations
Peulevé received the following awards for his wartime services:- Distinguished Service OrderDistinguished Service OrderThe Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
- Military CrossMilitary CrossThe Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
- Croix de guerreCroix de guerreThe Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
with palm - Médaille de la RésistanceMédaille de la RésistanceThe French Médaille de la Résistance was awarded by General Charles de Gaulle "to recognise the remarkable acts of faith and of courage that, in France, in the empire and abroad, have contributed to the resistance of the French people against the enemy and against its accomplices since June 18,...
- Chevalier of the Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneurThe Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
Sources
- Foot, M.R.D, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-44 (Rev. Ed.), WHP/Frank Cass, 2004
- Foot, M.R.D, Six Faces of Courage, Pen & Sword, 2003
- Penaud, Guy André Malraux et la Résistance, Fanlac, 1986
- Perrin, Nigel, Spirit of Resistance: The Life of SOE Agent Harry Peulevé, Pen & Sword, 2008
- Poirier, Jacques, The Giraffe Has a Long Neck, Leo Cooper, 1995