Odette Sansom Hallowes | |
|---|---|
 Odette Hallowes in 1946 | |
| Born | 28 April 1912 Amiens, France |
| Died | 13 March 1995 (aged 82) Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service | First Aid Nursing Yeomanry |
| Years of service | 1942–1945 |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Unit | Special Operations Executive Spindle network |
| Battles / wars | Second World War |
| Awards | George Cross Member of the Order of the British Empire Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (France) |
| Spouse(s) | Roy Sansom (1931–46) Peter Churchill (1947–55) Geoffrey Hallowes (1956–95) |
Odette Marie Léonie Céline Hallowes, GC, MBE (née Brailly; 28 April 1912 – 13 March 1995), also known as Odette Churchill and Odette Sansom, code named Lise, was an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France during the Second World War. She was the first woman to be awarded the George Cross by the United Kingdom and was awarded the Légion d'honneur by France. The following information relating to her war service uses 'Sansom' as this was her surname during this period.
The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
Sansom arrived in France on the night of 3/4 November 1942 to work as a courier with the Spindle network (or circuit) of SOE headed by Peter Churchill (whom she later married).[1] In January 1943, to evade arrest, Churchill and Sansom moved their operations to near Annecy in the French Alps. She and Churchill were arrested there on 16 April 1943 by spy-hunter Hugo Bleicher. She spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.
Her wartime experiences and endurance of a brutal interrogation and imprisonment, which were chronicled in books and a motion picture, made her one of the most celebrated members of the SOE, and one of the few to survive Nazi imprisonment.
- ^ Tentative of History of In/Exfiltrations into/from France during WWII from 1940 to 1945 (Border Crossings, Parachutes, Planes PU & Sea Landings), rev108-31122023 (http://www.plan-sussex-1944.net/anglais/pdf/infiltrations_into_france.pdf), Le Plan Sussex 1944, p. 65