An obituary for a very brave and special lady. You may never have heard of her - but, if you read of her exploits and devotion to Great Britain during WW2, you will wonder why... Sonya d’Artois Published at 6:54PM, January 1 2015 The Times Agent of the Special Operations Executive in France who embarked on courageous missions before D-Day Two weeks after her 20th birthday and only six after her marriage, “Tony” d’Artois parachuted into German-occupied France to join the Special Operations Executive (SOE). It was May 1944 and she was to spend the next few weeks covering hundreds of miles on a bicycle as a courier, coordinating local resistance groups in anticipation of the Allied landings in Normandy in June. Her story was that she worked for a design house in Paris but was recuperating in the country after an illness. On “entry”, as the parachute descent into France was laconically termed, she was dismayed when her container of clothes was picked up by Germans, thus revealing that there was a woman agent in the area. She was to meet Major Sydney Hudson on a mission to revive the SOE circuit of contacts with the resistance around Le Mans. Hudson had set up a similar circuit near Clermont-Ferrand in 1942 only to be arrested by the Vichy police, but had escaped from prison and reached England. However, the 1944 operation was the first for d’Artois. Fluent in French and trained in parachuting, sabotage and as a weapon instructor, she was known for her remarkable self-assurance despite her youth and had shown herself to be calm and resourceful. Blond and strikingly attractive, she was allocated the SOE field name of Blanche. She spent her first few days buying new clothes and a bicycle with the occupation ration books she had learnt to use in England. The Sarthe region, around Le Mans, had been without direct SOE support since October 1943 when the previous circuit leader had been killed but the local resistance groups were well organised and motivated. However, they desperately needed arms and explosives. Once these were provided, it was important that their acts of sabotage actually helped rather than hindered the Allied invasion when it came. Neither Hudson nor d’Artois had been told of the planned date of D-Day, but they knew that they must act quickly. Discarding plans for disrupting railway traffic, they chose the Le Mans telephone exchange as their target. With that out of action, German forces would be denied landline communications, forcing them to resort to radio traffic, which was monitored by Allied intelligence. Hudson and d’Artois arranged for the necessary explosives to be delivered by air-drop and then delivered them to the local “maquis”, camped in rural spots. D’Artois would go out scouting for dropping zones and safe houses for radio transmissions, as well as instructing the maquis on using explosives. She worked closely with Hudson: “It is normal to see a couple. And a woman on her own at a roadblock can always flutter her eyelashes and give a smile,” she said of her role. She also admitted to feeling some attraction to him. Despite the region being infested with Gestapo, she ate out in restaurants and was on nodding acquaintance with the Gestapo chief — on one occasion having lunch with him. After the liberation of France he was surprised when she visited his prison wearing her Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (Waaf) uniform. She was once captured by French troops, who suspected she was a collaborater. They threatened to shave her head but she was freed by other resistance members. On the evening of D-Day, June 6, the German High Command began moving its reserve units towards Normandy. As the 2nd (Das Reich) SS Panzer Division began its 450-mile journey from Toulouse by rail, a combination of Allied bombing and partisan sabotage of the lines soon forced it to take to the roads. Hudson resolved that the Le Mans circuit — which used the codename “Headmaster” — would delay the Das Reich division when it tried to pass through Sarthe. When his radio transmitter failed preventing calls for air-supply of explosives, he sent d’Artois south to Tours by her bicycle to borrow a transmitter from the SOE circuit there. Working with the SOE to the north, she and Hudson then organised a series of ambushes of the Das Reich division as it tediously ground its way to the Normandy battlefield. Accounts vary, but it certainly took 14 days for the infantry elements of the division to get through to Normandy and the crucial armoured element even longer. The couple next turned their attention to gathering intelligence on enemy deployments around Le Mans and reporting it via London to the United States 3rd Army under General George Patton. Their work completed, the two were recalled to England. Hudson went to the Far East, while d’Artois was sent back to liberated France to pay off IOUs for money borrowed to finance their operations. After paying off one debt, the creditor asked whether she would recommend him for a British decoration. Recalling that his contribution had been solely financial she declined, which was possibly the reason why — unusually in view of the risks she had taken — she did not receive the Croix de Guerre. However, the operations orchestrated by the “Headmaster” circuit had been among the most successful in the year of the invasion and she was appointed MBE for her services (she was still only 21), while Hudson was awarded the DSO. Born Sonia Esmée Florence Butt — but always known to her friends as Tony — she was the daughter of an RAF officer, Group Captain LAK Butt. Although she had been born in Kent, she was brought up by her mother in the south of France after her parents separated. It was during her school term that war broke out but she managed to get to England by borrowing money from her headmistress. She finished her schooling and joined the Waaf, initially doing clerical work and peeling potatoes. Bored, she volunteered for “work of a hazardous nature” and, after an interview, was sent off for SOE training at Wanborough Manor. Conversations at meals were conducted in French and she said that one morning after a night of drinking she woke up to find an instructor sitting on her bed to see what language she spoke in her sleep. She found herself learning to climb trees and read maps with a young Canadian officer Guy d’Artois. The pair fell in love and he proposed to her after a parachute jump. They married but, posted on separate missions, did not see one another again until they were both in Paris at the war’s end. Of their experiences, she once said, that while her husband was up all night “talking to married women on the telephone” organising communications, she was “sleeping in a ditch with 15 Frenchmen”. D’Artois returned with him to Quebec where she had three sons, Robert, Michel and Guy, and three daughters, Nadya, Christina and Lorraine. She taught her daughters French — but also karate. She later changed the spelling of her name to Sonya. She worked for many years in the Veterans’ Hospital in Quebec and lived quietly — although once when she witnessed one of her sons being mugged she hit the culprit in the face. Guy remained in the service as a special forces specialist and was later awarded the George Medal for his part in a dramatic Arctic rescue mission. He died in 1999. D’Artois kept in contact with her wartime colleagues through the London-based Special Forces Club and, in 2002, attended a film premiere of Charlotte Gray, inspired by the stories of women SOE agents. Sonya d’Artois, MBE, SOE agent, was born on May 14, 1924. She died on December 21, 2014, aged 90
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 14:42:24 +0000
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