Francis Cammaerts
Francis Charles Albert Cammaerts, DSO (16 June 1916 – 3 July 2006), code named Roger, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II.
He recruited and supplied with arms and training a large number of resistance networks and cells over an extensive area east of the Rhone River extending to the border with Italy and north from the Mediterranean Sea to the city of Grenoble.
[3] After the death of his brother Pieter while serving in the Royal Air Force, Cammaerts believed he could no longer stand aside from participation in the war, and, as a French speaker, he succumbed to the urging of Harry Rée to join SOE.
Cammaerts' worries about security were confirmed one day after he arrived in Paris when Carte leader, André Marsac, was arrested by the Germans.
Rabinovitch declined to work with Cammaerts because his "appearance was too English" and he spoke French with an "atrocious" accent, but gave him the address of a safe house in Cannes.
[7][2]: 77–81, 92 [8] While seeking air-tight security, Cammaerts said that he always informed the families in the places he spent nights, usually rural farmhouses or in villages, that he was English and left them no doubt of the danger they were in by hosting him.
As in the case of others who operated in enemy-held territory for prolonged periods, he gave a great deal of credit to the ordinary French citizens who had provided him and his colleagues with safety and comfort.
In the BBC TV series Secret Agent, broadcast in 2000, Cammaerts said, "The most important element was the French housewife who fed us, clothed us and kept us cheerful.
On his return to France in February 1944, Cammaerts' aircraft crashed due to icing and an engine fire, although he was unhurt after bailing out along with the crew.
[11][2]: 114–116 He went on to check that his Jockey circuit was operational and later visited the 3,000+ group of Maquisards (young Frenchmen who had fled to the Vercors plateau to avoid being sent for forced labour in Germany).
In April 1944, he informed SOE's London headquarters that the Vercors had a finely organised army, but they needed long-distance and anti-tank weapons.
The situation in the area of the Vercors plateau did not fare so well, with London having refused Cammaerts' and others' requests to provide the Resistance with heavy weapons.
Cammaerts understood and was even sympathetic to this view, but he had no control over the belief by French Resistance leaders that, with Allied landings taking place in the north, the war was coming to an end and the Germans were fatally weakened.
Under questioning, Fielding denied knowing the other two, but a young German civilian examining their forged identity papers noticed that the serial numbers of the money each of them carried was in the same series, thus indicating a connection among them.
The Germans apparently did not know they had captured Cammaerts, the most important SOE agent in southeastern France, but decided to execute the three suspecting they were associated with the French resistance.
The collaborators agreed to the release of Cammaerts, Fielding and their French colleague, on condition of the payment of a two million franc ransom, which Skarbek obtained by an airdrop from London.
On August 20, Cammaerts and Granville met the American commander, Brigadier General Frederic B. Butler, at Sisteron who dismissed them as "bandits".
Granville addressed the Poles with a megaphone and secured their agreement to join the Allied forces, provided that they shed their German uniforms.
General Butler arrived and disapproved of the proceedings, threatening Cammaerts and Granville with arrest and court martial if they didn't leave.
Author Arthur Funk said, "The historian can only wonder at Butler's short-sightedness in ignoring a British officer who knew a great deal about the terrain and the people in it.
"[16] Later, Cammaerts and Granville received a better reception from Butler's superior officer, General Alexander Patch, who appointed them as the liaison for the Americans with the maquis.
He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Legion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre and the American Medal of Freedom for his work in south-eastern France.
[2]: 235 In 1948, Cammaerts became the first Director of the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges, which was a UNESCO agency and enabled him to undertake international trips including to the USA.
Following her murder in 1952, he became part of a group of men dedicated to ensuring that her name not be "sullied and succeeded in stopping several press reports and two books" to protect her from stories of her active and diverse sex life.
The trial, at the Old Bailey was front-page news and Cammaerts' statement under cross-examination that he had let members of his 6th Form read the book and they did not appear to have been corrupted or become depraved, was widely reported.
