Summary

Major Joseph Antoine France Antelme OBE (1900-1944) was one of 14 Franco-Mauritians who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a World War II British secret service that sent spies, saboteurs and guerrilla fighters into enemy-occupied territory. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are... 1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... The Special Operations Executive (SOE), sometimes referred to as the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organization initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II...

The Franco-Mauritians were valuable recruits to the SOE for service in occupied France because they were French-speaking British citizens.

After spying in Vichy-held Madagascar ahead of the allied landings there in May 1942, Antelme joined the SOE F (France) section in England. He undertook two missions in occupied France. On this third mission, on February 29, 1944, he parachuted into a Gestapo reception committee and was captured. He was killed, along with 18 other captured SOE officers, at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia in July or August 1944. The Opera in Vichy. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... KL Gross-Rosen was a German concentration camp, located in Gross-Rosen. ... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ... Coat of arms of Lower Silesia. ...

Todd mission

France Antelme was recruited by the SOE in November 1941 in Durban, South Africa where he was serving with the South African artillery. Central area of Durban Durban is a city in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. ...

He formed part of the Todd mission, led by Lt. Col. J.E.S. Todd, whose task it was to gather intelligence on Madagascar and to try to win political leaders to the allied cause ahead of the British landing at Diego Suarez, Operation Ironclad, on May 5, 1942. Antsiranana, named Diégo-Suarez prior to 1975, is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar, in Antsiranana province. ... The Battle of Madagascar is another name for Operation Ironclad, the Allied invasion of Madagascar launched on May 5, 1942, when it was feared that bases on the Vichy French_controlled island might be used by Japan. ...

Antelme was landed by boat near Majunga (Mahajanga), Madagascar on February 8, 1942 and brought back political and military intelligence from the island, where he had many contacts. Mahajanga is a city and seaport on the north-west coast of Madagascar. ...

After serving at the Todd mission's operational headquarters in Dar es Salaam, Antelme was sent to England where he joined the SOE F section on July 1 1942. He underwent training at Beaulieu and at Arsaig, Scotland. Dar es Salaam (دار السلام), formerly Mzizima, is the largest city (pop. ...

Missions to France

On his first mission to France, from November 1942 to March 1943, Antelme established contacts with political circles and leading French civil servants with a view to supplying the allied expeditionary forces with food and currency.

He was back in France in May that year, carrying messages from the British prime minister, Winston Churchill to former French prime ministers Edouard Herriot and Paul Reynaud, inviting them to come to England. The mission started well with the demolition of the locomotive turntables at Le Mans. But when his fellow SOE officer and associate, Francis Suttill, was arrested on June 23 and his PROSPER circuit destroyed, Antelme was on the run. He managed to evade the Gestapo for a month, getting out by Lysander aircraft on July 20. He had failed to meet Herriot and Reynaud, but he learned that they were willing, though unable, to act. They were too well guarded for their extraction to be feasible. He nevertheless took back with him a valuable recruit — the well connected international lawyer, Maître W. J. Savy. (Savy later returned to France and provided the intelligence that led to the destruction by the allies of 2,000 V1 rockets.) Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician and author, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. ... Categories: Politics stubs | Liberal related stubs | 1872 births | 1957 deaths | Members of the Académie française | Prime ministers of France | Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure ... Paul Reynaud (October 15, 1878 - September 21, 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Lysander (d. ...

While Antelme was in France, Noor Inayat Khan landed on June 17, 1943 as wireless operator to the PHONO circuit that he had set up. Antelme put Emile Garry in charge as sub-organiser for Francis Suttill’s PROSPER circuit. Shortly after she arrived, PROSPER was betrayed and the Germans seized Suttill and his friends. Inayat Khan evaded capture,sending more than 20 messages on the run until she was betrayed by her concierge four months later and arrested in her apartment while transmitting. Garry was captured shortly afterwards. Noor Inayat Khan (January 1, 1914 - September 11, 1944) was born in Moscow, of an Indian father (Inayat Khan) and an American mother (Ora Meena Ray Baker, who was a relative of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science). ...

Betrayal, capture and death

The seizure of Inayat Khan's wireless set and code-books enabled the Germans to play back false messages to London. Despite the growing certainty that the PHONO circuit was in German hands, Antelme volunteered to be dropped to a PHONO reception committee.

Major Antelme, his radio-operator, Captain Lionel Lee, and courier Madeleine Damerment — three of the SOE’s best agents — took off from Tempsford airfield in Bedfordshire late on February 28, 1943. Early the following morning, they parachuted into a field near the village of Saintville, some 50km east of Chartres. The Gestapo was waiting for them. Madeleine Zoe Damerment (November 11, 1917 - September 11, 1944) is a heroine of World War II. Madeleine Damerment was born in the city Lille in the Nord département of France. ...

Reportedly in a towering rage, Antelme was taken to Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. He declined to talk under torture. Number 84 Avenue Foch was a building in Paris used by the German Gestapo during their occupation of Paris in World War II. The location is found on Avenue Foch, a wide residential boulevard in the 16e arrondissement which connects the Arc de Triomphe and the Porte Dauphine. ...

Antelme was one of 18 SOE agents who were parachuted directly into enemy hands. Eleven of them, including Antelme, were dropped in February and March 1944 — despite strong evidence that the Germans had gained control of the SOE circuits with whom the drops were arranged.

Three weeks earlier another SOE team, consisting of Capt. J.P.H. Ledoux, Capt. F.A. Deniset, Lt. R.E.J. Alexandre, a Canadian arms instructor for Garry’s circuit, and the Canadian radio operator, Lt. R. B. Byerly, had also been dropped to a German controlled PHONO reception. Shortly afterwards transmissions were received from Bylery’s set, but they failed to contain the special messages that confirmed their authenticity.

The men of both teams died at Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Madeleine Damerment was shot at Dachau on September 13, 1944 with fellow SOE agents Inayat Khan, Yolande Beekman and Eliane Plewman. poo ...

Early life

France Antelme was born on March 12, 1900, in Port Louis, Mauritius, to an influential family of planters and politicians. After attending the Royal College, Curepipe, he embarked on a career as broker and trader, travelling extensively between Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar and South Africa. The arms of Port Louis Port Louis banking district, and the main avenue leading to the Government House (seen in the background) Port Louis (pronounced locally as paw-louee) is the capital of Mauritius. ... A Royal College is technically a college which has received a Royal Charter to add the prefix Royal to its name. ... Curepipe is a large town centrally situated in Mauritius, an island country in the southwest Indian Ocean. ...

In 1932, he settled in Durban as Madagascar's trade representative in South Africa. The following year he married Doris O'Toole. He is survived by his two sons.

Memorials and decorations

France Antelme is commemorated on the roll of honour of the Valençay SOE Memorial in France, on the Brookwood Memorial in Surrey, England, on the Cenotaph in Durban, South Africa and on a memorial at Gross-Rosen to the SOE officers who died there.

His decorations include military OBE, the Croix de Guerre avec Palme and the chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of both Belgium and France which was first created in 1915. ...

Sources

France Antelme's SOE personal files

SOE in France, M.R.D. Foot

Agents secrets mauriciens en France, J. Maurice Paturau

British Subversion in French East Africa, 1941-1942: SOE's Todd Mission, E.D.R Harrison