Phyllis Latour, who has died aged 102, was the final remaining feminine member of F Part, the department of the Particular Operations Govt (SOE) within the second world struggle that organised resistance operations in France.
Codenamed Geneviève, she parachuted into Normandy on 2 Could 1944, a month earlier than D-day, to be a wi-fi operator for the Scientist 2 community run by Claude de Baissac (codenamed Scientist), who was coordinating operations by the communist Maquis resistance in assist of the allied invasion.
De Baissac put Latour to work within the north of the area between Caen and the Cotentin Peninsula in a group led by Jean Renaud-Dandicolle (codenamed Verger) and together with his sister Lise de Baissac (Odile) and a second wi-fi operator, Maurice Larcher (Vladimir).
Posing as Paulette Latour, a teenage woman whose household had moved to the countryside to flee the allied bombing, she cycled across the space, making an attempt to promote cleaning soap to German troopers whereas chatting to them to search out out the place what they have been doing and the place their models have been primarily based.
“The lads who had been despatched simply earlier than me have been caught and executed,” she later mentioned. “I used to be advised I used to be chosen for that space as a result of I might arouse much less suspicion.”
She and the opposite members of the Verger group have been concerned in organising the Maquis for operations towards the German troops, sending every day reviews to London that have been encrypted utilizing one-time ciphers to assist allied commanders plan their operations. Latour despatched a complete of 135 messages between Could and August 1944, when she was pulled out.
“I all the time carried knitting as a result of my codes have been on a chunk of silk,” Latour mentioned. “I had about 2,000 I may use. After I used a code, I might simply pinprick it to point it had gone. I wrapped the piece of silk round a knitting needle and put it in a flat shoelace which I used to tie my hair up.”
As a result of the Germans have been in a position to observe their communications utilizing direction-finding tools, they have been continuously on the transfer, generally staying in homes of individuals allied to the resistance however typically spending nights exterior in forests, foraging for meals.
When the allied forces landed on 6 June, the group have been working between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Les Loges space, chopping the railway line from Caen to Vire and ambushing German officers travelling between their varied headquarters.
Over the subsequent week they reduce the primary railway line operating east to west by Normandy between Paris and Granville on the coast and reported the placement of the headquarters of an SS Panzer division, enabling allied plane to assault it.
In addition they reduce underground telegraph cables, forcing the Germans to ship their high-grade teleprinter messages between Hitler and the German frontline commander Subject Marshal Erwin Rommel over the airwaves, permitting them to be deciphered at Bletchley Park. Over the subsequent few months, the Maquis working with the Scientist 2 community destroyed round 500 enemy automobiles.
With combating occurring throughout Normandy, it was a dangerous existence, with many shut encounters with German troops, and in early July Renaud-Dandicolle and Larcher have been killed in a shootout.
Latour was arrested twice however managed to idiot her captors into believing her cowl story. “I can bear in mind being taken to the station and a feminine soldier made us take our garments off to see if we have been hiding something,” she mentioned.
“She was wanting suspiciously at my hair, so I simply pulled my lace off and shook my head. That appeared to fulfill her. I tied my hair again up with the lace – it was a nerve-racking second.”
Phyllis, all the time referred to as Pippa, was born in Durban, South Africa. Her French father, Phillipe Latour, a physician in part of what was then Equatorial French Africa and is now the Republic of the Congo, was killed in tribal battle when Pippa was three months outdated.
Her mom, Louise, subsequently married a racing driver who inspired her to compete as properly, and never lengthy afterwards she died in a racing accident. After rising up within the care of a relative, Pippa went to the UK to finish her schooling.
She joined the Ladies’s Auxiliary Air Power in November 1941 as a mechanic, however her fluency in French led to her being recruited into the SOE two years later to serve with F Part. She was taught methods to encipher messages and ship them in Morse code in addition to methods to repair a damaged wi-fi set.
She was additionally given intensive coaching in parachute leaping, in methods to hearth a Sten gun and in escape and evasion. “A cat burglar was taken out of jail to coach us,” she mentioned. “We discovered methods to get in a excessive window and down drainpipes and methods to climb over roofs with out being caught.”
On the finish of the struggle, she was made an MBE, and awarded the Croix de Guerre. She subsequently married Patrick Doyle, an Australian engineer they usually lived in Kenya, Fiji and Australia. They’d 4 youngsters.
Following their divorce in 1975, Latour moved to Auckland in New Zealand. She by no means advised anyone about her exploits in wartime France, and didn’t acquire her medals till her youngsters examine her on the web and insisted she achieve this. “I didn’t have good reminiscences of the struggle, so I didn’t trouble telling anybody what I did,” she mentioned. The French authorities awarded her the Légion d’honneur in 2014.
