Anne-Marie Walters
Anne-Marie Walters | |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | Colette |
Born | Geneva, Switzerland | 16 March 1923
Died | La Baume-de-Transit, France | 2 October 1998 (aged 75)
Allegiance | ![]() ![]() |
Service/ | Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Special Operations Executive, French Resistance |
Years of service | 1941-1944 |
Rank | Section Officer, Field agent (courier) |
Unit | SOE F Section, Wheelwright network |
Awards | MBE, Croix de Guerre, Médaille de la Reconnaissance Français |
Other work | Author, Editor and Translator |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Gers-Position.svg/250px-Gers-Position.svg.png)
Anne-Marie Walters
Walters was a courier for the
One day I am sent to Auch to collect blank and stamped travel permits, then next I go to Tarbes to take some money to a man who works there. The third I cycle to take a message to the wireless operator or someone else. Then I'm off for three days to Tarbes and Montréjeau where I have to wait for a reply.[1]
Walters, on the life of a courier in occupied France
My family might not have recognized me had they seen me sitting in a third-class carriage with a beret tipped low over my forehead, wearing an old raincoat and generally looking half-witted while eating a chunk of bread and sausages.[2]
Walters, on the life of a courier in occupied France
Early life
Walters was born on 16 March 1923 in
World War II
In France with SOE
SOE's appraisal of Walters after the completion of her training was cautionary. "She is well-educated, intelligent, quick, practical, and cunning...[but] She will not hesitate always to make use of her physical attractiveness in gaining influence over men. In this respect she is likely to have a disturbing effect in any group in which she is a member." Nevertheless, she was approved to be sent to France as an agent of SOE.[5]
The first attempt to parachute her into France in December 1943 failed because of bad weather over the drop zone and ended with a return to England and a crash-landing at a diversionary airfield because of widespread fog. She suffered a minor head injury in the landing.[6][7]
In the company of a fellow agent,
As a courier, Walters traveled widely by bus, train, bicycle, and charcoal-powered vehicle around southwestern France. One of her first jobs was to organize the flight to Spain across the Pyrenees of a group of 15 members of the French Resistance who had escaped from a French prison. She also helped convey several suitcases full of explosives to Toulouse to blow up a powder factory.[13][14]
Walters, in the words of local historian Raymond Escholier, was well liked by the resistance fighters, the marquisards. She was regarded as "the true sister of the marquisards."[15]
Battle of Castelnau
With the
Starr wars
Walter's appraisal of Starr was unflattering. She later said, "[Starr] is strictly an agent and neither a politician nor a military strategist...the guerrilla action he commanded was most unsuccessful." Starr was even more critical of his youthful courier. Among his complaints about Walters, was that she wore "high Paris fashion," thus violating his principle that couriers should be inconspicuous.[18] He ordered her to leave France. On 31 July 1944, Starr sent a message to SOE headquarters in London explaining his action. "Have had to send Colette [Walters] back because she is undisciplined in spite of my efforts to train her...Most indiscreet. Very man-mad, also disobedient...totally unsuitable." However, he acknowledged her courage and willingness to undertake any mission. She left France approximately 1 August 1944 and traveled through Spain en route to Algiers.[19]
In Algiers, Walters met with British military authorities who proposed that she return to France to assist the military personnel involved in Operation Jedburgh. She was agreeable, but SOE vetoed that proposal and ordered her to return to London.[20]
When Walters returned to London, she wrote a report (which has not survived) to Maurice Buckmaster, head of the French section of SOE. Later, in another report, she said that while she was in France Starr had ordered her to be thrown into prison, accused her of having an affair with another agent and of spreading stories that he was having an affair with a female SOE agent. Walters praised Starr's courage and abilities, but criticized him severely on other counts. Starr, she said, had a Russian bodyguard named Buresie who "carried out absolutely horrible tortures" on captured French collaborators. She said Starr was under the influence of his bodyguard and cited several examples of tortures. She added, however, that "Had [Starr] not been influenced in all this....I am sure that he would never have started it [the tortures]."[21]
On 1 November 1944, Starr, who had returned to London, was interviewed by SOE. He recounted "with relish" an incident of torture, causing consternation in the SOE although the interviewers said that he could not be blamed for the tortures committed by the French Resistance. In February 1945, a court of enquiry with testimony from Starr, Walters, and others took place. The part of the transcript of the enquiry containing Walter's testimony has disappeared from the record. On 28 February, the conclusion of the "rather perfunctory court of enquiry" (in the words of
Honours and awards
On 17 July 1945, in recognition of her "personal courage and willingness to undergo any danger," Walters was awarded the
Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) | |||
1939–1945 Star | France and Germany Star | Defence Medal | War Medal |
Croix de Guerre (France)
|
Médaille de la Résistance |
Later life
In 1946, Walters published an account of her experiences in Moondrop to Gascony (Macmillan, 1946; Moho Books Archived 14 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, 2009). The book provides a portrait of Starr (Le Patron in the book), although not referring directly to the problems between the two of them, and also of Arnault (Jean-Claude in the book) with whom Walters may have been romantically involved.[26] Moondrop to Gascony won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1947.
After the war, she lived in the United States, Spain, and France and was a translator of Spanish, an editor, and owned a literary agency under her married name Anne-Marie Comert. In her later years, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease. She died in France on 2 October 1998, at the age of 75.[24]
References
- ^ Escott, Beryl E. (2010), The Heroines of SOE, Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, p. 137
- ^ Gildrea, Robert (2015), Fighters in the Shadows, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 174
- ISBN 1-85260-289-9
- ^ National Archives, Kew, HS 9/339/2 (filed under her married name of Anne-Marie Comert)
- ^ Gildea, pp. 149-150
- ^ a b National Archives, Kew, HS 9/339/2
- ^ Walters, Anne-Marie (2009), Moondrop to Gascony Wiltshire: Mojo Books, pp. 32-38
- ^ Vigurs, Kate (2021), Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE, New York: Yale University Press, p. 115
- ^ Tentative of History of In/Exfiltrations into/from France during WWII from 1940 to 1945 (Border Crossings, Parachutes, Planes PU & Sea Landings), rev107-31072023 (http://www.plan-sussex-1944.net/anglais/pdf/infiltrations_into_france.pdf), Le Plan Sussex 1944, p. 117
- ^ Foot M.R.D., SOE in France, (Routledge 2004), 332.
- ^ Walters, pp. 46-56, 246; Google Earth
- ^ Walters, pp. 46-56, 72, 246
- ^ Escott, pp. 137-138
- ^ Walters, p. 72
- ^ Glass, Charles (2018), They Fought Alone, New York: Penquin Press, p. 153
- ^ Gildea, pp. 363-364
- ^ Escott, pp. 138-139
- ^ Hastings, Max (2013), Das Reich, Minneapolis: Zenith Press, p. 66
- ^ Hewson, David in Walters, Anne-Marie, Moondrop to Gascony, pp. 230-231
- ^ Hewson, p. 230
- ^ Hewson, pp. 231–233
- ^ Foot, p. 436
- ^ Hewson, p. 235
- ^ a b Hewson, p. 236
- ^ Le Batallion de Guerilla de l'Armagnac (Amicale du Bataillon de l'Armagnac et A.I.T.I. sarl, 2002), 77
- ^ Walters, passim