by Gill Paul
The couple married on August 21, 1940, at Aldershot Registry Office, Hampshire, and spent a week-long honeymoon in a small hotel nearby, then Étienne set sail for Africa with his brigade, the 13th, and Violette returned to her parents’ home. Hoping to help the war effort while Étienne was in Africa risking his life, she volunteered for the post office telephone service.
Étienne and Violette on their wedding day. The marriage took place by special license because she was underage.
The brigade made its way around the Cape of Good Hope and up the east coast of Africa before heading inland to fight the Italians in Eritrea, then up through Sinai and Syria. It was a difficult time as they were fighting their own countrymen (see box overleaf), but the Free French forces prevailed, eventually taking Damascus in May 1941.
…Tania was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington—a small, dark-haired girl who looked exactly like her father.
At the end of August, more than a year after his wedding, Étienne was able to return to England to see his stunning bride. She caught a train to Liverpool to join him for a week-long second honeymoon, but the time flew by and all too soon he had to return to Africa. Immediately after he left, Violette volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the army, and started her training—only to find that she was pregnant. It was difficult to get word to Étienne but when he finally heard the news he was moved almost to tears. On June 8, 1942, their daughter Tania was born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington—a small, dark-haired girl who looked exactly like her father.
Idyllically happy while on honeymoon, August 1940.
At the Battle of Bir Hakeim, Étienne’s unit was attacked on the ground and from the air.
By this time the 13th DBLE were deep into the Sahara Desert at Bir Hakeim, under constant bombardment from field marshal Rommel’s troops, on both ground and from the air. Though vastly outnumbered, the Free French forces managed to hold back the Germans for 16 days, during which a third of Étienne’s colleagues were killed. On June 10th, they were encircled but managed to escape just before a Panzer division moved in and found them gone. Their sacrifice wasn’t in vain, because those extra days gave the British time to get their army in place to resist Rommel’s onslaught.
When Étienne reached safety, he heard of Tania’s birth and immediately applied for leave to come home and meet his baby daughter. But on October 23rd, his brigade was deployed in the Battle of El Alamein. The Free French forces were tasked with climbing a sheer rock face to attack the German and Italian tanks at the top, an almost impossible challenge. According to dispatches, Étienne showed great courage in leading his men into action, but on the morning of the 24th he was badly injured and, when the ambulance taking him to the hospital was hit, he died. He would never know that his actions at Bir Hakeim had helped the Allies to win at El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the Desert War.
DIVIDED LOYALTIES
In June 1940, three days after Marshal Pétain signed an armistice with Nazi Germany, General Charles de Gaulle broadcast an appeal to the French people, asking them to continue their resistance. “Has the last word been said? Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No!” he thundered. Like the French population in general, the Foreign Legion was split down the middle between those who joined the Free French Army under de Gaulle and those who supported the Vichy government under Pétain. Of Étienne’s brigade, the 13th DBLE, 31 officers chose repatriation while 28, including Étienne, elected to form a Free French unit, which would later clash with Vichy legions during the Syria campaign of 1941.
General de Gaulle inspects French troops in Whitehall on July 14, 1940, the day Étienne and Violette first met.
Letters had always taken a long time getting back to England from the desert, so Violette didn’t worry unduly at the gap, but after a few weeks without news she began to make inquiries. Meanwhile, she continued to write every day, telling Étienne all about their daughter’s progress and assuring him of her undying love. When the tragic news arrived, she was devastated. They’d had so little time together and he had never met his only child. Her grief quickly turned to fury and she vowed that she would do her utmost to defeat the Germans who had killed her beloved husband. Whatever it took, she was determined to avenge his death.
Rommel with the 15th Panzer division. They were defeated by Montgomery’s troops at El Alamein and forced to retreat toward Tunisia.
Special Agent Szabo
During her time in the ATS, it had been noted that Violette spoke fluent French, so that, after Étienne’s death when she began to inquire about how she could best help the war effort, a top-secret organization known as the Special Operations Executive (SOE) made contact and asked if she would be willing to work for them. Their role was to liaise with resistance cells in Occupied Europe, organizing the delivery of weapons and supplies with which they could sabotage infrastructure, thus obstructing German troop movements, as well as radio sets so they could report on enemy activity. The SOE wanted Violette to operate as a courier behind enemy lines; still stricken with grief, she didn’t hesitate to accept. She entrusted Tania to the care of a nanny in London’s Mill Hill, and in July 1943 her training began.
Violette was sent to a camp at Arisaig in the Scottish Highlands, where she learned how to read maps, handle explosives, shoot a gun, use a knife to kill, and jump from an airplane. She sprained her ankle badly during her first parachute jump, but carried on with a plucky determination recognized by everyone who met her. When asked, “Why are you doing this?” she invariably replied, “Because I want to kill Germans.” It was a simple equation—they had killed Étienne and she would take revenge by killing as many of them as she could.
Training finished in February 1944, at which point she was judged ready for her first overseas mission. She knew she was risking her life, so before setting off she made a will leaving all her possessions to her infant daughter.
The identity card Violette used in France with the name Corinne Reine Leroy. Her profession is given as “commercial secretary.” At home, she told people she worked for the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), as a cover used by female SOE agents.
On the night of April 5, 1944, Violette parachuted into Occupied France and was met by members of the local Resistance. She made her way by train to Rouen, where she toured the surrounding area to find out what had happened to members of a Resistance cell that had broken up before making arrangements to restructure it. On the way back through Paris, she bought herself some new dresses at the salon of the fashion designer Molyneux before meeting the Lysander plane that picked her up from a field southwest of the city on the night of April 27th. The plane attracted enemy fire on the flight back to Britain, but arrived intact with the mission successfully completed. In recognition of a job well done, the SOE promoted Violette to the rank of ensign.
The Ill-fated Second Mission
Two further planned missions were aborted before Violette again parachuted into Occupied France on the night of June 7th, 40 hours after the D-Day landings had begun in Normandy. The Maquis Resistance fighters she met southwest of Limoges were not as well-organized as she had been led to expect, and it was soon apparent she would have her work cut out in helping them to obstruct German troops making their way toward Normandy. Perhaps feeling apprehensive, she decided to take a Sten sub-machinegun in her handbag on June 10th when she and two colleagues set out by car to meet the new head of the local cell.
As they approached the quiet village of Salon-la-Tour, they saw a German roadblock ahead. They knew they couldn’t bluff their way through, because the guns they were carrying would be found, so they jumped out of the car, firing furiously. They tried to escape through a wheatfield, but Violette’s weak ankle gave way and she realized she wasn’t going to make it. She urged the others to escape, providing cover for them and holding off their pursuers for 20 minutes until she ran out of ammunition—at which point she was arrested. A German soldier offered her a cigarette a
nd she spat in his face, so fierce was her hatred.
WOMEN SPIES
Some remarkable women worked as spies for the SOE, including Virginia Hall, an American agent who once evaded capture by crossing the Pyrenees on foot, despite her prosthetic leg; Nancy Wake from New Zealand, known by the code name “White Mouse,” alleged to have killed a German soldier with her bare hands; Krystyna Skarbek from Poland, who carried out wartime missions in Poland, Hungary, France, and Egypt, and in 1944 talked a Gestapo officer into sparing two other agents who were due to be executed; and Odette Sansom, who was tortured and sentenced to death after being captured by the Germans, but who managed to avoid execution by claiming to be married to Winston Churchill’s nephew. All these women survived, but of the 39 female SOE agents sent into France during the war, 13 were arrested by the Gestapo and never returned.
Violette was an extraordinarily determined character, driven by her ambition to avenge Étienne’s death.
She was taken to Gestapo headquarters, first in Limoges and then in Paris, and some reports say she was tortured during questioning, though she didn’t give them a single name—not even her own. In late August, she was herded onto a train and taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, then on to a work camp in Königsberg, where she was made to clear trees and dig up solid ground. It was back-breaking work, made harder when the snows came; the prisoners subsisted on starvation rations with no fires for warmth and inadequate clothing for the conditions. Violette made many friends in the camp and did her best to keep everyone’s spirits up. She masterminded several escape plans, but before she was able to carry any of them out, on January 19th or 20th, word came that Violette would be transported back to Ravensbrück along with two other SOE captives, Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe.
The crematorium at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Prisoners’ ashes were dumped in the nearby Schwedtsee Lake.
No explanation was given for this journey. All three were given a fresh set of clothes, some soap, and a comb. Violette kissed her friends at Königsberg goodbye, and on reaching Ravensbrück she was placed in solitary confinement. One evening a few days after their arrival, the three women were taken outside and told by the camp commander that their execution had been ordered. The women were forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the neck, the three of them meeting death with a courage, it is said, that moved all the Germans present. Violette, only 23 years old, was the youngest.
The Most Decorated Couple of the War
Violette never knew it but in September 1944, while she was in Ravensbrück, she was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her heroism in holding off German troops under fire, allowing two colleagues to escape. In December 1946, one of Britain’s highest military honors, the George Cross, was bestowed on her in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in which her little daughter Tania, attended by Violette’s parents, accepted the medal from King George VI himself. Tania’s father, Étienne, had also been recognized with the Légion d’Honneur, the Médaille Militaire, and the Croix de Guerre with Star and Palm. Not surprisingly, the combined weight of all her parents’ medals was too much for little Tania, so her grandmother had to fashion a neck strap to hold them all up. Mr. and Mrs. Bushell emigrated to Australia in the early 1950s, taking with them their granddaughter, whose memories of the woman who had been her mother were perhaps as distant as soon would be the country she had left.
Violette and Étienne’s daughter Tania, weighed down by all the medals that were awarded to her parents.
Violette had become a spy to avenge the death of a man with whom she had only spent two full weeks as man and wife, a decision that may seem impetuous and even irresponsible. But her love for Étienne—and his for her—had been uncommonly intense. The evening before her arrest, she went for a stroll with a Resistance colleague. As they chatted, she told him of her belief that all of life was a chance, that people must take such opportunities as come their way. She added that she wanted her life somehow to make a difference. There’s no doubt that both her life and her husband’s did exactly that.
…she wanted her life somehow to make a difference.
Charley & Jean Paul
The Carleton and York regimental flag. The cost of the war was heavy for Canada, with 42,042 dead and 54,414 wounded out of 1.1 million who served.
…on September 1939, as soon as Canada announced that it was joining the war, Charley enlisted.
Charley knew how to spin a good line, and when he fell for Jean he painted a picture of life in Canada that made it sound as though he was virtual royalty. But when she arrived after a long journey by ship, train, and canoe, she found his extended family all living in one tiny shack.
Charley was a Maliseet Indian, raised on the Tobique First Nation reserve in New Brunswick, Canada, at a scenic spot where the Tobique River meets the St. John River. He was one of seven children who lived with his mother and father in a small shack, with no electricity or running water. They lived off the land and occasional federal government handouts, and were educated by nuns at the local convent. There were no opportunities for a young man to better himself on the reserve, so on September 10, 1939, as soon as Canada announced that it was joining the war, Charley enlisted. He had to lie to the army board about his age—he was only 17—but he soon joined the Carleton and York Regiment, a New Brunswick militia unit, and on December 1st was shipped to Britain to begin a period of intensive training.
Charley was based near Coulsdon in Surrey and on nights off, he and his friends found their way to local pubs such as the Midday Sun or to dances held at Cane Hill psychiatric hospital. It was at one of those dances in 1942 that Charley noticed a pretty red-haired girl dancing with a friend of his. Between dances, he joined them, turned on his considerable charm, and made sure that the friend was soon out of the picture. The girl told him her name was Jean; she was just 16 years old, while Charley was almost four years older. She introduced him to her mother, with whom she had come to the dance, and Charley asked if he might see Jean again when he next had leave. He seemed like a nice boy so she agreed.
Jean’s two younger sisters, Kathy and Mary, had been evacuated to Leeds and her older sister, Pat, was working for the WAAF at RAF Kenley in south London. Meanwhile her father was in Formby, Lancashire, with the King’s Own Regiment, so it was just Jean and her mother at home and they often went out together in the evenings. Her mother really took to Charley, who was an easy-going character, and she didn’t mind her daughter spending time with him. He was romantic, buying Jean gifts and even singing love songs to her, and soon she was swept off her feet. But, by January 1943, it became evident that they’d been doing more than having a kiss and a cuddle on their evenings out, because Jean was pregnant. She was thrilled about it, but her mother and father were less than pleased and she had to endure a long lecture from Father Tindal at St. Aidan’s Church. Charley was delighted because he had fallen madly in love with Jean and as soon as he heard the news, he asked her to marry him. The service took place on April 20th, with Jean wearing a fur stole borrowed from her mother. But there was precious little time for the newlyweds to enjoy themselves, as in July 1943 Charley’s regiment was dispatched to the Mediterranean to take part in the invasion of Sicily. By this time, Jean was seven months pregnant.
Charley (left) with two of his friends in Coulsdon; they enjoyed meeting locals in their time off duty.
October 23, 1943: infantrymen of the Carleton and York in Campochiaro, Italy. The Germans had abandoned the town as the Canadians approached, but snipers stayed behind to delay their progress.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE WAR
Approximately 3,000 Canadian status Indians volunteered to serve in the war, including 72 women. Like Charley Paul, they sought economic advancement, a chance to learn new skills, and to see the world. It must have been an eye-opening experience for those like Charley, who had never so much as seen a town before or traveled by ship, train, car, or plane. Some 44,000 Native Americans served in the American
military, a higher percentage than from any other population group and, unlike African-Americans, they were not placed in segregated units, but served alongside white soldiers.
Lt. Ernest Childers of the Creek Nation, Oklahoma, receives the Congressional Medal of Honor in Italy, July 13, 1944.
Aboriginal Australians were at first banned from serving because the government worried there might be friction if they lived alongside white men, but many lied about their heritage to join up and it’s estimated that at least 3,000 successfully enlisted. All those who survived the war received pensions and educational benefits, but after a taste of life in the outside world, many Aboriginals decided not to return to their reserves, causing a huge disruption to their communities.
Three Native American women in the US Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, October 16, 1943.
From Surrey to the St. John River
On September 9, 1943, Jean gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Christine. A family friend glanced into the crib to look at the baby and remarked, “Oh, she’s white!” Jean’s older sister, Pat, was astonished, because none of the family had ever thought of Charley as being anything other than white, despite his indigenous blood. Coulsdon was sometimes a target of German bombing raids, so as soon as she was able to travel, Jean took her baby up to Liverpool to stay with an aunt and await her new husband’s return.
The Carleton and York had spent July and August as part of the British Eighth Army battling for control of Sicily, where they were frequently aided by the local mafia, who hated Mussolini. In September, they were one of the first assault battalions to invade the Italian mainland and they faced heavy fighting as the German Army tried to contain them in the south. However, Charley was fighting a more private battle, having contracted malaria, and he almost died. He was shipped back to the UK and while in the hospital recovering, was diagnosed as having arthritis in his back and neck, which had been causing crippling upper back pain. He couldn’t walk and needed intensive treatment, but in all the months of rehabilitation Jean was only able to travel down from Liverpool once to introduce him to his new baby daughter before he was fit again to return to his regiment, which by now was forging its way up the Italian mainland.
