Fernand Pauriol

When the war started, his skills in building radio transmitters enabled him to become the director of communications for PCF on 2 March 1942 when he replaced Charly Villard and used the alias "Duval".

[1] As a young man, Pauriol enrolled in the hydrography school in Marseille as a merchant marine cadet to train as a student sailing officer, with the aim of becoming a long distance captain.

[1] Pauriol began his career in radio telegraphy working for several months in the water and forestry service (Eaux et Forêts).

[2] On the 18 January 1936, Pauriol published an article in the "Rouge-Midi" that called on French communists to invest in the SRI to support the victims of capitalism and fascism.

[1] He described the operational requirements of the SRI organisation for the next year, stating that it needed at least 100000 members and commenting: In 1937, Pauriol talents as a journalist led François Billoux to appoint him as editor-in-chief of "Rouge-Midi".

In 1938, Pauriol was evaluated twice by the executive committee of the PCF to prove his electrical engineering and radio telegraphist skills were up to par.

[1] He, along with this wife Hélène, led a permanent team of around twenty French and Spanish people, providing radio communications for the group.

[7] In April 1942, Pauriol constructed a radio transmitter that was used by Hersch and Miriam Sokol to provide a link to London for Trepper to transmit intelligence from an apartment in Maisons-Laffitte.

[1] In May 1943, Pauriol was contacted via the PCF liaison agent Juliette Moussier[9] who informed him that she had first been visited by Abraham Rajchmann[10] and then later Hillel Katz.

[11] The meeting with Moussier had been arranged by Gestapo officer Karl Giering of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle and was part of a German Funkspiel operation.

During the summer Pauriol visited Moussier and her husband Milo in Beugne l'Abbe, west of Luçon and arranged for the couple to disappear.

[b] When Moussier disappeared, he ordered the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle to search for Pauriol all over France, but months past and there was no sign of him.

[2] On 19 January 1944, Pauriol was sentenced to death at a Luftwaffe court martial held in Paris by Judge Advocate Manfred Roeder.