Francis Suttill
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Francis Suttill (March 17, 1910 – March 21, 1945) was a British espionage agent who worked for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) inside France. He organized and coordinated the Physician network, better known by his own code name Prosper. He was captured and killed by the Nazis.
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[edit] Early years
Francis Alfred Suttill was born in Mons-en-Barœul near Lille, France, to an English father, William Francis Suttill, and a French mother, Blanche Marie-Louise Degrave. His father managed a textile manufacturing plant in Lille. Suttill studied at Stonehurst College, Lancashire, England and later at the University of Lille, Lille, France, where he received a law degree. In 1931, he moved to London to continue his studies and eventually became a barrister to Lincoln’s Inn. He married in 1935.
[edit] Wartime activities
In September 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, he joined the British Army as an intelligence officer. He was later recruited by the SOE, where his bilingualism was highly valued, and he volunteered for a posting in France. After being trained during the summer of 1942, Suttill was chosen to create a new spy network in northern France, based in Paris. His code name was Prosper and his assumed identity was François Desprées.
On September 24, his courier Andrée Borrel, aka Denise, was parachuted in France to prepare for his arrival. He himself parachuted near Vendôme on October 1, 1942. Suttill and Borrel, posing as brother and sister, traveled to Chartres, Melun, Blois, Beauvais, Compiègne, and Saint-Quentin to start building their network, known as Physician-Prosper. They were joined by wireless operators Gilbert Norman (Archambaud) in November, and Jack Agazarian (Marcel) in December.
During the first half of 1943, the Prosper network grew considerably, covering a large part of northern France, and involving an increasing number of agents. On January 22, former French Air Force test pilot Henri Dericourt was sent back to France to find landing sites and organize the transport of agents in and out of France. During the next few months, he managed the transfer of over 67 agents, mostly for the Prosper network. But Suttill and Agazarian saw troubling signs and began to doubt Dericourt’s loyalty. On May 13, Suttill returned to London to receive a new set of instructions. He expressed his concerns regarding Dericourt to Nicholas Bodington and Maurice Buckmaster, who were unconvinced and refused to recall Dericourt to England.
[edit] Imprisonment and death
Suttill was parachuted back in France over Romorantin on May 20. He was arrested by the Gestapo at his hotel on June 23. Borrel and Norman were arrested the same day. Hundreds of agents were arrested the following days, from end of June to early July. When Noor Inayat Khan learned of Suttill’s arrest and the potential infiltration of the Prosper network, she immediately warned SOE. Yet SOE remained skeptical and sent Bodington and Agazarian to determine the status of the network. Agazarian was trapped and arrested by the Gestapo late July. The Prosper network was totally destroyed.
Suttill was taken to Gestapo headquarters, where he was tortured for several days. There is a controversy over the fact that he or perhaps Norman made a deal with the Germans whereby he would give details of ammunition dumps in exchange for being considered prisoners of war and having his life and those of the other agents spared. One theory even suggests that this entire scenario was planned by SOE to intoxicate German intelligence services. Nonetheless, Francis Suttill was executed on March 21, 1945 at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.
Francis Suttill is honored on the Runnymede Memorial in Surrey, England and also on the Roll of Honor on the Valençay SOE Memorial in Valençay, in the Indre département of France.
[edit] Further reading
- Henri Noguères - Histoire de la Résistance en France de 1940 à 1945, Robert Laffont, 1976.
- Hugh Verity - We Landed by Moonlight, (revised edition). Manchester: Crecy Publishing, 2000.
- Anthony Cave Brown - Bodyguard of Lies: The Extraordinary True Story Behind D-Day , 1975.
- M. R. D. Foot - S.O.E. in France, Frank Cass Publishers, 2004 (first published London, HMSO 1966). Official history.
- John Vader - The Prosper Double-Cross, Sunrise Press, Australia, 1977.
- Richard Seiler - La Tragédie du Réseau Prosper, Pygmalion, 2003.
