Additional
Information: |
Son of Louis Gaston Antelme and Mauricia Antelme, and husband of Doris O'Toole, France Antelme was born in Curepipe, Mauritius, into a prominent family of planters and politicians. He was one of 14 Franco-Mauritians who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a World War II British secret service that deployed agents into enemy-occupied territory for sabotage and espionage.
After attending the Royal College Curepipe, Antelme worked as a broker and trader, traveling extensively between Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, and South Africa. In 1932, he settled in Durban as Madagascar?s trade representative and married Doris O'Toole the following year, with whom he had two sons, Michel and Gaston.
In November 1941, while serving in the South African artillery, Antelme was recruited into the SOE. He joined Lt. Col. J.E.S. Todd's mission to gather intelligence on Madagascar and sway political leaders to the Allied cause ahead of Operation Ironclad, the British landing at Diego Suarez in May 1942. Antelme landed by boat near Majunga, Madagascar, in February 1942 and provided critical political and military intelligence before returning to England. On July 1, 1942, he joined the SOE F section, training at Beaulieu and Arisaig, Scotland.
On his first mission to France (November 1942 - March 1943), Antelme organized the BRICKLAYER circuit, establishing contacts with French political leaders and civil servants to secure food and currency for Allied forces. Returning to France in May 1943, he carried messages from Winston Churchill to French leaders Edouard Herriot and Paul Reynaud, though their extraction proved impossible due to tight surveillance. His mission included the demolition of locomotive turntables at Le Mans, but his associate, Francis Suttill, was arrested in June, dismantling the PROSPER circuit. Antelme evaded capture and was extracted by a Lysander aircraft in July. He brought back Maitre W.J. Savy, who later formed the WIZARD network, instrumental in targeting 2,000 V1 rockets.
While Antelme was in France, Noor Inayat Khan arrived as a wireless operator for the PHONO circuit he had set up. After the PROSPER circuit was betrayed, Inayat Khan evaded capture for months, sending over 20 messages before being betrayed and arrested. Despite warnings that PHONO had been compromised, Antelme volunteered for a third mission. On February 29, 1944, he parachuted with SOE operatives Lionel Lee and Madeleine Damerment into German-controlled territory near Saintville. Captured upon landing, he was taken to the Gestapo headquarters in Paris but reportedly refused to cooperate under torture.
Antelme was among 18 SOE agents captured after being parachuted into compromised networks. Eleven of them, including Antelme, were dropped between February and March 1944. Earlier in February, another SOE team was similarly betrayed and captured. Both teams were executed at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia in mid-1944. Damerment was later shot at Dachau on September 13, 1944, alongside fellow agents Noor Inayat Khan, Yolande Beekman, and Eliane Plewman.
Antelme is commemorated on the Valencay SOE Memorial in France, the Brookwood Memorial in England, the Cenotaph in Durban, South Africa, and a memorial at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp honoring the SOE agents who perished. |
