Gilbert Norman
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Gilbert Maurice Norman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 April 1915 Saint-Cloud, Paris, France |
| Died | 6 September 1944 (aged 29) KZ Mauthausen, Austria |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service |  British ArmySOE |
| Years of service | 1940–1944 |
| Rank | Major |
| Service number | 156759 |
| Unit | Physician/Prosper circuit |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
| Awards | Mention in Despatches[1] Médaille de la Résistance |
Gilbert Maurice Norman (7 April 1915 – 6 September 1944[2], code name Archambaud, was a British Army officer who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France during World War II. SOE was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements during World War II. Norman was the wireless operator and second in command of Prosper, SOE's most important network in France. He was captured in Paris by the Germans in June 1943 and executed in September 1944.
Early life
[edit]Norman was born in 1915, in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, to an English father and a French mother and was educated in France and England. He joined the army, receiving a commission in the Durham Light Infantry in November 1940 and was subsequently recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE).[3] Norman was considered an "ideal recruit" for SOE with "great qualities of leadership and physical endurance." He was "handsome, gray-eyed and swarthy, mustacioed and capable." [4]
Prosper
[edit]The Prosper or Physician network was SOE's most important network in France. Based in Paris, Prosper's three core members were Francis Suttill, the organizer or leader, Norman, the radio operator and second in command, and Andrée Borrel, the courier whose French was better than either Suttills or Normans. Borrel and Suttill preceded Norman to France.[5][6]
On the night of 31 October/1 November 1942, Norman parachuted into France near Saint-Laurent-Nouan, about 150 km (93 miles) southeast of Paris. Norman carried with him a poison pill to kill French resister Pierre Culioli. SOE agent Raymond Flower had accused Culioli of being a double agent. Neither Norman nor other SOE agents was willing to administer the pill. Culioli subsequently created the small Adolph Network which became a sub-network of Prosper.[7]
Based in Paris, the Prosper network enjoyed success in attracting French resisters to Nazi occupation over a large area of northern France. Within a few months almost 30 SOE agents and hundreds of French resisters were working under the Prosper umbrella. Hundreds of containers of weapons and military equipment were dropped by the Royal Air Force to arm the resistance and to prepare for the invasion of France by American and British armies. (The invasion did not occur until June 1944.) However, the network grew too large to be secure; the leaders had too much contact with each other and other members of Prosper; security was poor. It was a case, said author Vance, of professional policemen [the German Sicherheitsdienst (SD)] chasing amateur agents. The Germans apparently had been aware of Prosper for several months before they finally decided to suppress the organization.[8][9]
Capture and captivity
[edit]The capture and captivity of SOE leaders (Suttill, Norman, and Borrel) has been the subject of many historians with different interpretations, including conspiracy theories, of the events. The British government was close-mouthed for many years about the fate of SOE agents, although the facts were slowly teased out during the 1950s by author Jean Overton Fuller and politician Irene Ward. The official history, SOE in France authored by M.R.D. Foot, was first published in 1966 and later revised.
Borrel and Norman reputably became lovers.[10] Norman changed his addresses in Paris frequently, living for a time with Borrel's sister and later with a childhood friend named Laurent. On the night of 23 June 1943, Borrel and Norman were captured by the Germans while coding messages in the Laurent's apartment near the Rue de la Pompe metro station. They had been followed there by the SD. The Germans also captured Norman's radio and his codes which would enable them to communicate with SOE headquarters in London. Suttill was captured the next morning.[11]
As high value prisoners, the Germans took Norman, Borrel, and Suttill to 84 Avenue Foch, the headquarters of Josef Kieffer, SD leader in Paris. They were subjected to several days of intense interrogation. Kieffer's interrogation tactics were to break down a prisoner's resistance to providing information by demonstrating how much he knew about SOE; greeting prisoners by both their real and code names, which were supposedly known only to SOE headquarters; showing them a wall chart of SOE's organization; suggesting that the Germans and British had a common interest in fighting communism; and planting in prisoner's minds the notion that they had been betrayed by infiltrators in high places in SOE.[12]
Foot alleged that one of the agents "cracked" and the evidence pointed to Gilbert Norman.[13] Feigning cooperation, Norman attempted to notify SOE headquarters that he had been captured. On 29 June he sent a message (supervised by the Germans) to London. To show the authenticity of their messages, a wireless operator had two "checks" he or she inserted into the message. Norman omitted the secret "true check". If the true check was missing, it meant that the agent was either not the transmitter of the message or was transmitting the message under duress. Instead of believing what the missing check signified, SOE instead responded by chastising Norman for forgetting to insert the true check and telling him to do better next time.[14] The egregious error by SOE headquarters, according to Josef Goetz, SD's wireless expert, was what pushed Norman "over the margin of doubt and into practical co-operation" with the Germans.[15]
The Germans were thus able to set a trap which resulted in the capture of Jack Agazarian who had been sent with Nicholas Bodington to investigate the fate of the Prosper network. Norman was shipped to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was executed on 6 September 1944.
Major Gilbert Norman is honoured on the Brookwood Memorial in Surrey, England, and is also on the "Roll of Honour" on the Valençay SOE Memorial in the town of Valençay, in the Indre departément of France.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "No. 37450". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 January 1946. p. 750.
- ^ Suttill, Francis J. (2014). Shadows in the Fog. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 142. ISBN 9780750957625. Kindle edition.
- ^ Vance, Jonathan F. (2008). Unlikely Soldiers. Toronto: Harper Collins. p. 170. ISBN 9780002007351.
- ^ Rose, Sarah (2019). D-Day Girls. New York: Broadway Books. p. 82. ISBN 9780451495099.
- ^ Vigurs, Kate (2021). Mission France. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 78. ISBN 9780300208573.
- ^ Vance 2008, p. 144.
- ^ Suttill 2014, p. 38.
- ^ Foot, M. R. D. (2004). SOE in France. London: Frank Cass. pp. 134, 231, 252. ISBN 0714655287. Revised edition.
- ^ Vance 2008, pp. 182–189.
- ^ Vance 2008, p. 181.
- ^ Foot 2004, p. 280, 290.
- ^ Helm, Sarah (2005). A Life in Secrets. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 115–118. ISBN 9781400031405.
- ^ Foot 2004, p. 281.
- ^ Vance 2008, pp. 202–210.
- ^ Foot 2004, p. 291.
Bibliography
[edit]- Sarah Helm (May 2005). A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-72497-1.
- 1915 births
- 1944 deaths
- Military personnel from Paris
- People from Saint-Cloud
- Durham Light Infantry officers
- British Special Operations Executive personnel
- Executed spies
- People who died in Mauthausen concentration camp
- British Army personnel killed in World War II
- British people executed in Nazi concentration camps
- French people executed in Nazi concentration camps