Historical Notes

Was there actually a triple agent working for SOE, the Gestapo, and under the ultimate control of MI-6? Were SOE agents deliberately sacrificed to protect Fortitude, the secret of the Allied invasion?

There are no definitive answers to these questions—and the issue is still fraught with controversy.

Of course The Paris Spy is fiction and only fiction—what could be imagined to have happened. However, even distinguished historians continue to dispute what exactly happened to SOE agents in Paris during World War II.

Jacques Lebeau is based on the very real Henri Déricourt, a French agent for SOE. He definitely worked as a double agent for the Sicherheitsdienst in Paris—but whether he was working only for the Germans, or really as a triple agent for MI-6, remains unclear.

Colonel Henry Gaskell is loosely inspired by Colonel Maurice James Buckmaster, the leader of SOE’s F-Section. Despite receiving multiple messages lacking agreed-upon security checks, Buckmaster refused to believe that F-Section’s networks—especially the Prosper network—had been compromised—thus sending many SOE agents to their arrests and deaths.

Diana Lynd is modeled on Vera Atkins, a British intelligence officer working with SOE’s F-Section under Colonel Buckmaster. She also failed to pull agents out (or convince Buckmaster to pull them out) from France when they repeatedly omitted the security double-checks on their transmissions.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Claude Edward Marjoribanks Dansey of MI-6 and the London Controlling Section, who served under Major General Sir Stewart Menzies, is the inspiration for Colonel George Bishop. By all accounts, Dansey disdained SOE, considering them “bumbling amateurs.” M. R. D. Foot, the official historian of SOE in France, alleges that Dansey was responsible for the betrayal of the Prosper network. Foot writes: “It was widely believed in France that [Francis] Suttill’s circuit was deliberately betrayed by the British to the Germans even directly by wireless to the Avenue Foch [German military headquarters in Paris].”

Here’s what makes coming to any definite conclusion about what really happened in France tricky: the relevant files either were destroyed or are still not allowed to be opened. In 1945, the SOE’s files, including F-Section’s, were supposed to be given over to the Foreign Office. They were marked: “Important Historical Records. Never to be destroyed.” Those records burned in a fire before they could be moved.

Other files on SOE’s and MI-6’s wartime activities—ones that may shed light on F-Section and the roles of Henri Déricourt, Colonel Buckmaster, Vera Atkins, and Colonel Dansey in the deaths of SOE agents in France—remain sealed until 2037.

Until then, we wait and wonder.

I must express special appreciation for the excellent book Asylum: A Survivor’s Flight from Nazi-Occupied Vienna Through Wartime France, by Moriz Scheyer and P. N. Singer for its vivid descriptions of Scheyer’s time in hiding at a French convent.

The escape from Avenue Foch was inspired by the one made by SOE agent Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan (January 2, 1914–September 13, 1944), to whom this novel is dedicated. Also known as “Nora Baker,” “Madeleine,” and “Jeanne-Marie Rennier,” Khan was sent from Britain to Paris, to work with the French Resistance. Khan was betrayed, either by Henri Déricourt or Renée Garry, and sent to Avenue Foch. She attempted to escape from the SD Headquarters, along with fellow SOE agents John Renshaw Starr and Leon Faye. However, they all were recaptured on the roof of Avenue Foch during an air raid alert (detailed in Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, by Shrabani Basu). Khan was ultimately moved to Dachau Concentration Camp. On September 13, 1944, she and three fellow female SOE agents (Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman, and Madeleine Damerment) were executed by shots to the back of their heads. Khan’s last word was recorded as “Liberté.”