Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves

When World War II broke out in 1939, he was serving aboard the Jaguar, as under-chief of the headquarters of the 2nd flotilla of torpedo boats in Mediterranean Sea.

D'Estienne d'Orves then gathered a group of volunteer sailors and officers, took the nom de guerre "Châteauvieux" (name of one of his ancestors) and came into relations with the Free France authorities.

Promoted to Capitaine de corvette (lieutenant commander) on 1 October 1940, he joined the Second Office of the Free French Naval Forces and requested to be sent to occupied France.

After having convinced General de Gaulle, he received the mission to organise an intelligence network in western France, codenamed Nemrod, which had been created in September 1940 by Maurice Barlier and Jan Doornik, but lacked coordination and development.

On 21 December 1940, he set sail from Newlyn to Plogoff in Brittany on a fishing boat, the Marie-Louise, along with his 20-year-old radio operator Alfred Gaessler, a German-speaking Alsatian, codenamed "Georges Marty".

He set his quarters in Chantenay-sur-Loire, near Nantes, at the house of M. and Mme Clément, and made several trips to Paris and in Brittany, with the notable assistance of Maurice Barlier.

He set up the basic organisation of the spying web, and was able to transmit significant information about German forces (coastal defences, submarines, aerodromes and refueling point near Nantes).

D'Estienne d'Orves decided to lay down Gaessler at the next trip to London but, two days later, the Gestapo stormed the house and arrested him.

The small intelligence network created by Max André, however, was untouched, and continued its operations until the Liberation of Paris in August 1944.

D'Estienne d'Orves was treated especially harshly, yet managed to cheer up his fellow prisoners; the moral strength which he would find in his faith would later be testified to by German chaplain Franz Stock.