The SOE in The Loire Valley
In Valençay, about an hour away from Amboise, is a monument commemorating ninety-one men and thirteen women agents of F Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who died, many in concentration camps, for working with the French Resistance.
The Churchill inspired SOE was a British secret service formed in July 1940 after the fall of France to bolster local resistance to the German occupation. F Section was a major SOE contributor in France.
More than four hundred F Section SOE agents were dropped by parachute to make contact with local members of the Resistance. The first was dropped in Valençay 6th May 1941.
Monsieur Thierry Blanche, President of the Val de Loire Region of the The Franco-Britanique Association and his wife Dominique kindly invited us to their home to meet French and British members of the Association who gathered there the day after attending the annual ceremony at the SOE French Section memorial at Valençay.
The French-British Association, one of the oldest patriotic associations in France, was created to honour the memory of all those who defended France. Its social purpose is to promote, maintain and strengthen the friendship between France and Britain, the friendship which was forged on the battlefields.
What a privilege it was to meet so many people determined not to let the superhuman achievements of SOE agents ever be forgotten. It was a memorable, magical day.
One of the names on the monument in Valençay is that of Violette Szabo, surely the most famous secret agent in the world. I wrote about her in depth in one of my books about Hertfordshire. I gave Thierry and Dominique a copy as a thank you for inviting us.
Violette provided invaluable intelligence during the war but shortly after D-Day, her mission ended in disaster when she was caught, interrogated and murdered at Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was just twenty-three. Her daughter Tania was two.
Violette was posthumously awarded the George Cross for heroism which George VI pinned on Tania at Buckingham Palace when she was four.
We were introduced to Paul McCue, an authority on the history of the SOE.
I told him about my book in which I write about a dear departed friend whose RAF husband, Flying Officer Albert (John) Devenish DFC, 161 Squadron dropped SOE agents into France from Tempsford.
I showed him a photograph taken at a reunion of the pilots and point out Tania Szabo, daughter of the famous Violette.
He said: ‘She is here, Tania, shall I introduce you?’
You could have knocked me down with a feather!
Tania, who is delightful and as pretty as her mother, remembered the occasion and the photograph.
She usually drives to Valençay with Mick, her beloved Collie but this time decided to treat herself and travel by train. It turned out to be anything but. Never again she said.
She lives in the tiny village of Cilmeri near Builth Wells. I was brought up in Wales so know the Builth well. She took the train to St. Pancras, London, on to Paris then Limoges where a friend met her by car and brought her to the Loire Valley.
We could have had no inkling as we set out that morning that we would have the honour of meeting Tania Szabo who has paid tribute to her mother by writing her story in Young, Brave And Beautiful.
I forgot to ask her what she thought about Virginia McKenna’s portrayal of her mother in the film Carve Her Name With Pride.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, an SOE agent, titled one of his books A Time of Gifts.
That is exactly how we feel about meeting all those interesting, wonderful, people who keep the flame burning, who keep the faith.
With thanks to all.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art).
Pamela-Shields.com
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