Obituaries

The Special Operations Executive had many characters who also went on to make a name for themselves after the war.

This section contains the obituaries of some of those individuals, their remarkable achievements both during the war and after. Not all are well known, indeed, many kept their wartime activities to themselves, their families or a close circle of friends. Some have direct links with SOE others are more tenuous but all are fascinating.

2004
Lise Villameur (née de Baissac) (Filed: 14/04/2004)	The Times Special agent who risked her life running her own operation in wartime France, but was denied a gallantry award	Read More
Lise Villameur (née de Baissac) (Filed: 01/04/2004)	The Daily Telegraph Lise Villameur, who has died aged 98, was one of the first two female agents to be parachuted into France by SOE in the Second World War.	Read More
Walter Freud (Filed: 11/02/2004)	Walter Freud, who has died aged 82, escaped from Austria to England with his grandfather Sigmund after the Anschluss in 1938 and towards the end of the Second World War had a brief but eventful career in the Special Operations Executive.	Read More
T A Sandrock (Filed: 06/02/2004)	T A Sandrock, who has died aged 83, was crime correspondent of The Daily Telegraph for more than 30 years, by the end of which time young detectives were consulting his wide experience.	Read More
Anthony Simkins (Filed: 02/01/2004)	Anthony Simkins, who has died aged 91, joined MI5 in 1948 and served as Deputy Director-General from 1965 until his retirement in 1971.	Read More
2003
Sir Derek Dodson (Filed: 26/11/2003)	Sir Derek Dodson, who died on Saturday aged 83, became a diplomat after enjoying a colourful war with the Special Operations Executive; in the last decade of his career he was successively ambassador to Hungary, Brazil and finally, Turkey.	Read More
Peter Johnsen (Filed: 30/07/2003)	Peter Johnsen, who died on June 4 aged 79, served throughout the second half of the War in Northern Europe with Phantom and the SAS, operating behind the lines in Occupied France.	Read More
Peter Wand-Tetley (Filed: 22/05/2003)	Peter Wand-Tetley, who has died aged 83, was parachuted "blind" into Greece in 1943 and was awarded the MC for his part in an SOE operation to equip and train Andarte partisans.	Read More
Sir Paul Getty (Filed: 18/04/2003)	Sir Paul Getty, the American-born multi-millionaire who died yesterday aged 70, was one of the most generous philanthropists Britain has ever seen.	Read More
Major Jim Davies (Filed: 17/04/2003)	Major Jim Davies, who has died aged 89, was a Special Operations Executive officer whose efforts against the Germans in the Peloponnese were complicated by the approaching civil war in Greece.	Read More
Sir Arthur Knight (Filed: 10/04/2003)	Sir Arthur Knight, who has died aged 86, was chairman of Courtaulds, the textiles group, and of the National Enterprise Board at a time when its role was being challenged by Margaret Thatcher's incoming government.	Read More
Sir Hardy Amies (Filed: 06/03/2003)	Sir Hardy Amies, who died yesterday aged 93, founded the most internationally successful couture house in Britain and was, from the time of her accession, dressmaker to the Queen.	Read More
2002
Lt-Col Geoffrey Gordon-Creed (Filed: 17/12/2002)	Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Gordon-Creed, who has died aged 82, was awarded the DSO for his part in an SOE operation to sabotage the Asopos viaduct in Greece in 1943.	Read More
Gordon Nornable (Filed: 12/12/2002)	Gordon Nornable, who has died aged 87, won the MC in 1944 as an SOE small arms and demolitions expert fighting with the Maquis in eastern France.	Read More
John Bunting (Filed: 05/12/2002)	John Bunting, who has died aged 75, was a noted sculptor and engraver and a key figure at Ampleforth College and Abbey in North Yorkshire.	Read More
Lord Hambro (Charlie) (Filed: 09/11/2002)	The Lord Hambro, who died suddenly in London on Thursday aged 72, represented many of the virtues of the old City of London, but found himself a witness to the break-up of his family's merchant banking business in the new world of global trading houses.	Read More
Sir Reginald Hibbert (Filed: 09/10/2002)	Sir Reginald Hibbert, who has died aged 80, was a dark horse in the contest for that most glittering prize in the Diplomatic Service, the embassy in Paris.	Read More
Sir Brooks Richards (Filed: 14/09/2002)	Sir Brooks Richards, who has died aged 84, had two notably exciting careers - first in the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, then as Ambassador in Saigon during the Vietnam War and in Athens after the end of martial law.	Read More
Ole Lippmann (Filed: 06/09/2002)	Ole Lippmann, who has died aged 86, was a leading figure in the Danish Resistance, and a key figure in enabling 6,000 Jews to escape to Sweden; he was also responsible for persuading the RAF to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen when the Germans were on the point of arresting members of the Freedom Council, which was leading the Resistance.	Read More
Arthur Sclater (Filed: 01/08/2002)	Arthur Sclater , who has died aged 92, was the leader of the Shetland Bus service, the organisation through which the Special Operations Executive supported saboteurs and other Resistance elements in occupied Norway during the Second World War.	Read More
Squadron Leader John Mott (Filed: 31/05/2002)	Squadron Leader John Mott, who has died aged 85, flew clandestine missions for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) after being shot down as a bomber pilot, evading capture and reaching home.	Read More
Frederick Bradnum (Filed: 22/02/2002)	Frederick Bradnum, who has died aged 81, wrote more than 70 plays and 140 dramatisations of novels for the BBC. Most were for radio and, from 1950 to 1961, he worked as a radio drama producer, continuing as a part-time script adviser until 1986.	Read More
Air Cdre Sir Dennis Mitchell (Filed: 17/01/2002)	Air Commodore Sir Dennis Mitchell, who has died aged 83, was awarded a DFC and Bar in 1944 for his courageous leadership of squadrons under his command in the north-west Europe Campaign; from 1956 to 1959 he was Deputy Captain of the Queen's Flight and Captain from 1962 to 1964.	Read More
2001
Group Captain Hugh Verity (Filed: 16/11/2001)	Group Captain Hugh Verity, who has died aged 83, was a member of the small group of RAF pilots who flew clandestine missions to support Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents and the French Resistance during the Second World War; they also picked up aircrew who had been shot down in Occupied France.	Read More
Lt-Col Robert Purvis (Filed: 18/08/2001)	Robert Purvis, who has died aged 91, won an MC for his exploits with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in enemy-occupied Serbia and France in the Second World War.	Read More
Hugh Fraser (Filed: 19/07/2001)	Hugh Fraser, who has died aged 79, had an adventurous war with SOE in German-occupied Crete; later he worked for the Colonial Service in Uganda and for MI5 in counter-espionage.	Read More
Ihsan Bey Toptani (Filed: 19/06/2001)	Ihsan Bey Toptani, who has died aged 93, was for half a century the doyen of the Albanian community in Britain.	Read More
Nigel Clive (Filed: 18/05/2001)	Nigel Clive, who has died aged 83, won an MC in 1944 for his exploits with the Greek resistance during the Second World War and later became an intelligence officer for MI6.	Read More
Leonard Pearson (Filed: 16/05/2001)	Leonard Pearson, who has died aged 79, was awarded a Military Medal for his work as a demolition expert in Burma, where he operated behind enemy lines as a Staff Sergeant Sapper with the Special Operations Executive's Force 136.	Read More
Charles Bovill (Filed: 09/05/2001)	Charles Bovill, who has died aged 90, played a key role in the creation and employment of Eureka and the S-phone, radio equipment that greatly enhanced two-way communications between SOE agents and Resistance parties on the ground after the fall of France and the Low Countries in 1940.	Read More
Brigadier Geoffrey 'Billy' Beyts (Filed: 22/03/2001)	Brigadier Geoffrey "Billy" Beyts, who has died aged 92, was awarded an MC and a DSO during a career with the Indian Army in which he saw action against Burmese rebels, Waziri tribesman and the Japanese Army.	Read More
Peers Carter (Filed: 26/02/2001)	Peers Carter, who has died aged 84, served as British ambassador to Afghanistan from 1968 to 1972; after his retirement from the Diplomatic Service he founded the Afghanistan Support Committee, an organisation to provide assistance to poverty-stricken villages in Afghanistan.	Read More
Tony Samuel (Filed: 22/02/2001)	Publisher and racehorse owner who, as an SOE courier during the war, had a close call in a Budapest lavatory.	Read More
Lord Terrington (Filed: 15/02/2001)	The 5th Lord Terrington, who has died aged 83, fomented revolution in Iran, became a Conservative MP and minister, and as C M Woodhouse wrote more than a dozen elegant books; during the Second World War, he played an important part in organising partisan resistance in Greece.	Read More
Hermione Countess of Ranfurly (Filed: 13/02/2001)	Author of To War With Whitaker, her memoir of life in Cairo with Eisenhower, SOE and the family retainer.	Read More
Sir Hugh Park (Filed: 30/01/2001)	Sir Hugh Park, who has died aged 90, was a Judge of the Family Division of the High Court from 1965 until 1973, and of the Queen's Bench Division from 1973 until 1985; he was scrupulously fair and sympathetic, but did not shrink from passing long sentences.	Read More
Leo Marks (Filed: 23/01/2001)	Leo Marks, who has died aged 80, was the chief cryptographer of Special Operations Executive during the Second World War; later he wrote the script for Peeping Tom, the film which destroyed the career of its director Michael Powell.	Read More
2000
A R Moore (Filed: 13/12/2000)	A R Moore, who has died aged 82, was a diplomat with a character moulded by his unusual childhood.	Read More
Clifford James (Filed: 16/11/2000)	Clifford James, who has died aged 84, was awarded an immediate MC in Italy in 1943.	Read More
Major Tom Hobbs (Filed: 09/11/2000)	Major Tom Hobbs, who has died aged 89, took part in Operation Panicle under the direction of the Special Operations Executive's Force 136 in Japanese-occupied Siam (now Thailand) in the Second World War. Although recommended for an MC, he was awarded an MBE.	Read More
Lady Ryder of Warsaw (Filed: 03/11/2000)	Sue Ryder began her work amid the chaos and desolation of Europe at the end of the Second World War. During the conflict she had served in the Special Operations Executive, but with the return of peace she volunteered for relief work in Poland.	Read More
Jim Chesshire (Filed: 14/10/2000)	SOE saboteur who wreaked havoc in wartime Albania until seized by the Gestapo and consigned to Colditz.	Read More
Miss Vera Atkins (Filed: 25/06/2000)	Vera Atkins, a formidable intelligence officer in Britain's Second World War secret service who hunted the Nazi killers of more than 100 special forces agents, died yesterday aged 92.	Read More
Brigadier Sir John Anstey (Filed: 06/10/2000)	Brigadier Sir John Anstey, who has died aged 93, played a leading role in the activities of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War; later, he became chairman of John Player & Sons, and of the National Savings Committee.	Read More