The FANY Agents — Sonya Butt

image-Sonya in her FANY uniform. MBE

Codename: Blanche

I am most grateful to Sonia for allowing me to reproduce her personal photographs and fake I.D. card for the site and to Martyn Cox for text and colour photographs.
The copyright © for the respective owners is shown for each item.

Sonya Butt [now Sonya "Tony" D'Artois] was also a WAAF who became a FANY, and with the codename 'Blanche'she parachuted in to France in May 28th 1944 to be part of Circuit 'Headmaster'.

At the outbreak of war Sonya's parents were already separated and she was at a private school in the South of France. For her safety her father arranged for the 15 year old to return to Britain, and at the age of seventeen and a half she joined the WAAF. She was given tedious admin duties but when Sonya realized there was a Free French squadron nearby she spotted an opportunity to find more interesting work by exploiting the fluent French she'd acquired in France. She requested a job as a translator, but once her second language had come to light she was soon approached by the SOE, and after various tests and assessments started her special forces training.

During this time she 'palled up' with Nancy Wake and they were to have many good times together before their missions. They were both great friends with the late Violette Szabo GC and still remember her fondly for her beauty, fun-loving personality, and of course for her great bravery.

Also during her training Sonya met her husband-to-be Guy d'Artois, who was a Canadian soldier who had previously trained at Canada's Camp X . By her own admission she did not have a mathematical or logical brain and so felt unsuited for coding or signals work. She was also not very good at map reading and so their instructor asked Guy to help her. This was very handy as their romance was blossoming!

Sonya specialised in explosives skills and also underwent very extensive weapons training – the latter involved learning all about every type and make of weapon that she may encounter, not only both British and American but also German and other foreign makes.

Although they'd only known each other three months Sonya and Guy married in London prior to either being given a mission to France. Col. Maurice Buckmaster, the boss of SOE's F Section, was not very amused by the wedding, because he would not now be able to send both into the field to work together as they had hoped. But following Guy's departure Buckmaster saw the look of disappointment on Sonya's face and couldn't refuse her request to at least be sent in on a separate mission.

image-Sonya's fake French identity card. Sonya was parachuted into the Le Mans area. Her cover was that she was an employee of a fashion house in Paris, but was suffering from bronchitis and had been sent to the country to recuperate in a nearby chateau. Her clothes and other items were dropped from the same aircraft but in separate container. She landed in a ditch but unfortunately the container landed on a road and was almost immediately picked up by a German patrol. Sonya was more annoyed that she'd lost her 'designer' clothes than that the Germans now knew that there was a new female operative in the area!

Sonya spent the following months constantly on the move within this region, only staying in a particular house or hide-out for a maximum of two nights. By day she and her colleagues were recruiting new résistants and giving them arms training as well as teaching them explosives techniques. By night her group were receiving drops of weapons and explosives, and then putting these to good use by attacking railway lines, roads, and bridges.

The area was full of Germans, and rather than hide from them she blatantly and brazenly mixed with them. She was obviously confident of her cover and her false papers, and with her good looks and blonde hair she certainly would not go unnoticed! But she still had several close shaves with the Germans. On one occasion she was cycling to a house to tell a group of résistants about their next meeting when a sixth sense told her to stop and wait – and as she did so German soldiers swooped on the house and arrested her contacts. On another occasion she was in a café frequented by German soldiers and she was sitting close to several of them. She accidentally dropped her handbag and an officer reached to pick it up for her – but it contained a .32 calibre handgun, and she quickly managed to beat him to it, as the weight of the bag would have undoubtedly given her away!

After D-Day the fighting by the résistants was far more open and Sonya was involved in much bigger actions involving groups of fighters numbering 20-30 or more. Trains were stopped and German soldiers captured. Once the Allies [in this area it was the Americans] had arrived she was told she could return to London via Paris, but she and the head of her circuit refused – and so they were used by the Americans to travel back and forth over the ever-moving battle line in order to identify German troop positions and strengths.

Sonya experienced what can only be described as hair-raising experiences on more than one occasion. On one incursion her group were aware that a German patrol were close by and so they buried their Sten guns in the woods prior to being captured. They were held for some time but the Germans didn't know what to do with them and so they let them go.

On another occasion she and her male colleague [Sydney Hudson] walked into a German held town, only to find it empty and deathly silent – the men had been rounded up and were under German guard in a square, while the women of the town were in hiding. It turned out that the Germans were hoping to bargain for their own safety by using the Frenchmen as hostages. Her colleague was arrested but she was allowed to leave and went in search of safety. Eventually the Germans gave in and everyone was freed.

Sonya returned to the American lines, but continued with this type of work until she went to Paris. Several weeks of celebrations followed, and she was joined by her Canadian husband Guy. After completing his own SOE work he had been searching for her elsewhere in France. She became pregnant with the first of their six children, and they went to live in Canada. Her husband Guy, who died three years ago, remained with the military and later founded the Canadian version of the SAS.

In 1947 he was awarded the George Medal after parachuting into the Artic Circle to rescue an Anglican priest who had been seriously wounded in a shooting accident. Guy spent several weeks searching for a frozen lake which would be strong enough to withstand the weight of a rescue plane, and eventually the patient was taken to hospital in Winnepeg.

NB: After WW2 Sonya changed the spelling of her first name by using a 'y' instead of an 'i'. But she has always been nicknamed "Tony".

Click image for a larger version.


Sonya (in her FANY uniform) and Guy on their wedding day.	Sonya, Guy and the wedding party.


Sonya's fake French identity card.	Sonya on parachute training.
Photographs Copyright © 2001 Sonya "Tony" D'Artois.
These photographs were taken in January 2002.

Sonya in London December 2001.	Reunion: Sonya and Nancy Wake together again after 57 years. London December 2001.


"The girls are back in town...!"	Reunion: Sonya and Sydney Hudson DSO in London December 2001.

Reunion: Nancy Wake, Sonya and Sydney Hudson DSO in London
Photographs Copyright © 2002 Martyn Cox.


Picture of Sonya from the Channel 4 Television documentary "Behind Enemy Lines – The Real Charlotte Grays"
Courtesy of DarlowSmithson / Channel 4 Television & Copyright © 2002 DarlowSmithson / Channel 4 Television