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We’re back to exploring the gritty unhinged history of WWII spies this week as Theresa shares the story of the war’s most decorated spy, Odette Samson. This French-born woman left her three young girls in Britain and joined the war effort, as a courier (the fatality rate of couriers was over 40%). During this mission, she fell in love, got tortured, sent to Ravensbruck, and survived without giving the Axis powers any intel.

This all-around badass is a name we should all know.

This episode pairs with:
WWII Spy: Nancy Wake
WWII Spy: Toto Koopman

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two compulsive nut jobs are going to read history and then we’re going to verbally assault friends, family, and co-host with story we’ve only recently learned. I am host number one. I am Teresa and that that oh, I’m Angie. 

Angie: Sorry. Sorry. I was reading something. 

Theresa: I can tell. Okay. So I am going to go ahead and I am going to start by giving if you tuned in last week, Angie did a total solo episode and she connected the sliced bread and the mafioso and how they ended up helping the ally forces when World War II. 

I am surprisingly going to keep us in theme. My sources, codename Lease by Larry Loftus. I used another one of his books a while back when I covered Aileen Griffith. I’m so excited. We’re so on scene today. 

I had a feeling that was going to make you so thrilled. Time magazine, The Extraordinary Bravery made this woman one of World War II’s most remarkable spies by Larry Loftus. There is a website Nigel Perrin. They have a feature on Odette Simpson. Okay. So Odette Marie-Saleen Brally. I butchered the last name but I nailed the first. Can I just, what? 

Angie: Sorry. Can I just tell you Odette is one of my very favorite names. 

Theresa: So they’re going to hear a lot. You’re going to hear a lot in this story. So Odette’s born to French parents on April 28th, 1912. She’s one of the first, or she is the first of three different children. Her life was, but I hope they don’t be different. I mean, if they were, if they were conjoined, it would be a different story. 

Angie: Well, I guess if you could say three identical children, maybe triplets. So I’ll stop. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. 

Theresa: In World War I, dad is killed and foredone. And that’s actually just a few weeks before the end of the first World War. And she ended up like her, I didn’t have this in my notes, but I’m going to sidebar this. Her growing up with such a heavy influence from her grandparents, they talked quite extensively about her dad’s sacrifice. And every week they would go put flowers on his grave. And they would talk about how your dad was a hero. Your dad did all of these things. When your country needs you, you need to be willing to sacrifice as much as your father did. Good God. 

Okay. Like this level of like, in reining this into her. When she’s young, she suffers this string of illnesses. Like at one point she is blind for two years. And her doctors are like, well, that’s it. This is her life. 

And her mom is like, absolutely not. Starts taking her to basically which doctors as far as Western medicine is concerned. And they have to do like daily treatments, daily eye drops. But she regains eyesight. But like as she’s blind, her family is like, okay, so you can’t see. Figure it out. 

Angie: I thought I still got chores. You handle it. Yeah. Listen, there’s no, there’s, you can be a genital. A genital parent and you can be, you can cuddle and love your children, but you do not have to cuddle them. 

They can still be self-sufficient individuals. Like one of the things we say to our kids all the time is handle it. Handle your business. It’s your business handle it. Yeah. And they handle their business because they’re going to be adults one day. 

Theresa: In the middle of this, she’s bedridden for months. But this makes her so headstrong because she is given no quarter by her family. Okay. And so she’s like, okay, great. 

This is what I got to do. So she ends up like going to a conference school and the nuns are like, we got nothing. Like this, if she says she’s going to do it, good luck. Like she has some tenacity there. Ask you to either manage her or the country. 

Angie: I cannot do both. Now 1926, she moves to Beloyne with her mother and there she meets an English hotelier named Roy Samson and she marries them in 31. They have their first child, Francois, and they moved to London where she has two more daughters, Lily in 34 and then Marianne in 1936. And in 1939, Britain declares war. And so Roy joins the army and Odette and the children move to the safety of this tiny little hamlet in Somerset, Devon, like right on the border. That sounds dreamy. 

Doesn’t it? Now life is peaceful in this very backwater sheltered little place. And it’s not until the spring of 1942 that she sees this all call for photos of the French coast because just like the Americans didn’t know anything about Sicily, Britain was like, great, we need the French coast. If you’ve got any pictures of the French coast, so she sends it, she’s supposed to send it to, oh gosh, I didn’t put this in my notes, but she’s supposed to send it to the Admiralty and she sends it to the War Department instead. 

Pictures of her brother and her on the coast. Well that ends up getting sent to the SOE. And so they end up like, hey, can you come in and chat with us? Hey, yeah, don’t worry about your photos. 

We’ll get your photos maybe another time. You’re a native French speaker. How convenient. What a, you’re very patriotic. Maybe we could use this. Oh, you have three small children at home. 

No problem. Maybe we can get you to do some part-time work. You know, oh, you’ll do translation services. We’re going to hold on a second and they keep inviting her back for these additional interviews, not real life. 

She’s like oblivious. Like I just want my photos and what do you want me to send a couple like cheese loaves to the soldiers? Do you want me to be pen pals? What do you need? But I’m staying with my kids. 

Angie: I’ll send tea cakes. Like what can I do for you? 

Theresa: Yeah. And so she’s doing all of this, but then she’s also, as she’s going home and sitting with her children and listening to the words of her grandfather in the back of her mind, she starts feeling guilty and she starts realizing that as a mom she could sit out the war and use these children as a shield or she could go and do her duty, which is what she was grown up being told to do. Right. And so all of this is happening and then she gets officially recruited by the SOE. 

Okay. And so they had only just decided to start sending female agents in. Oh, so she’s like one of the first. Right. Because Todokutman, remember when Todokutman raised her hand and said like, look, I’m already doing the work. You might as well just give me the official sanction. They were like, okay, but you’ve got boobs. 

Angie: Overy’s can’t ride on trains. You silly woman. I know. 

Theresa: So she, Odette ends up joining. She goes through the full thing, you know, like the full training and everything. Part of this, I have it in my notes. I’m going to stick to my notes so that I don’t go too far off. To provide some cover in case of being arrested as a spy in occupied France, she joined the Fanny, which feels dirty because as an acronym in Britain, that seems the butt. Yeah, like, you know, but Fanny in this case is first aid nursing, Yowmini, which I think was just an acronym. Like just they created the acronym just to be able to say Fanny’s. I love this for them. 

Let’s go. Now the Fanny’s in this case are a volunteer corps that supplied the SOE with drivers, cipher clerks, telephonists and administrators. Now, so secretaries. Yeah. 

Okay. She passed several stages of training, including parachute school. Now, for parachute school, like in the book, okay, first off, the book is incredible. I recommend really reading it. 

This is the glorified book report. Larry Loftus says every single quote in the book is backed up by sources. He pulled every quote. He added phrases like she sighed. He huffed. 

Angie: That’s in my prayer, in the story I just said the Matthew Black is the whole reason we even know the story. And he did the same thing in his book. It is definitely a true story, but he said, you know, and the buildings huffed smoke, you know, like he added a little bit of just the dramatic flair. 

Theresa: Yeah. But every quote in this book is pulled out. So they go to say, okay, great, we’re getting ready to do that last step of parachute school. And she’s like, look, I just did it like eight times in a row. Can I like have a bit of a break, come at it after lunch refresh? And they’re like, no, do it once more. Just once more. Well, she ends up fucking face planting. Of course. 

Angie: Like landing on. I told you I needed to eat lunch. 

Theresa: She landed, like used her face as a parking brake, gives herself a massive concussion, ends up like screwing up her ankle at the same time. And it was just like, what do you want from me? Right? 

Like I literally told you all of this, like this shouldn’t have been. But anyhow, she ends up going to quote finishing school in the. Boliera estate in Hampshire, where students would learn how to operate in the territory. 

So this is super neat. Now her reports there could almost have been written by the same conference school teachers that she’d had. They’re describing her as enthusiastic, but also excitable and temperamental, impulsive and hasty in her judgments. 

Angie: I too am going to be inside. Excitable and temperamental when I told you I need to eat lunch and you told me to jump out of the plane one more time. 

Theresa: I mean, but it’s like, OK, they also concluded that her main weakness is a complete unwillingness to admit that she could ever be wrong. Love her. Yeah, like lover or hater. This is what you get. Now there is the head of the French section who is this man named Major Maurice Buckmaster. Now he ends up like getting these reports and he had such high hopes for Odette because there’s so very few native French speakers and we need native French speakers to be able to do this so they don’t get caught. 

Right? So he sits down with Odette and he’s like, look, I know I’ve been talking to you. I know I’ve actively recruited you. I know that we need you for this assignment. 

I’m not telling you anything about. But you’ve got these reports and as soon as he says these quotes that I had just said, she’s like, yeah, they’re true. They’re true. This is who I am. Like I can’t even. I could lie. 

Angie: I’m not even going to try. 

Theresa: And we would both know I am sipping on this kind of deal. And he’s basically like, do you want to? And she’s like, I will basically march into France on broken ankles if you guys need me to. 

Like this is tag me in, coach. Right. So he ends up kind of going, all right. All right. 

I think you could be invaluable in the field even though you have these mixed reports and he allows for her to continue preparing to go. Good. Now there for SOE circuits, these SOE circuits are comprised of three agents. We have a circuit leader. We have a courier. 

We have a radio operator. And that is the three that make up. And they would work alongside the French resistance fighters to sabotage German trains, barges, bridges, and supply depots. So this is kind of what we have. 

So this kind of gave me a lot more of that back end for the French SOE that I didn’t know I needed in my life. Now in some cases, these hit and run gorilla attacks are staged. But to accomplish these, the couriers, they end up carrying messages and money to the associates on almost a daily basis. So they are the ones doing all this. Two-on-two things. Yeah. Now here is something. 

This next paragraph is going to be the most important for probably the story just to kind of set the tone. World War II buffs, even military historians lose sight of the fact that the female couriers operating in occupied France at the second highest allied fatality rate at 42 percent. 42 percent died. This is behind bomber commands 45. 

Angie: Wow. And these are women. 

Theresa: OK. But it’s Odette tenacity. It’s that just stalwart. I’m going to do it. Yeah. That that can. What’s the face I’m making? Like there’s like there’s a word I’m looking for. I’m going to do it. Yeah. Whatever that that one word is that I’m not coming to. That’s what it is that it’s just. 

Angie: Tenacity is definitely one of them. I think he said that though. Yeah. 

Theresa: Her first objective would be to contact the resistance group on the French Riviera before she would move to Oxair and Burgundy. Now when she got to Oxair she was going to end up trying to establish a safe house for other agents passing through. She’s got this false identity. It’s loosely based off her real life. There’s going to be a that would be so her a false identity is Madame Odette Mette air which is a widow from San Rafael. 

Angie: But when it came to her cover story is she’s a widow from San Rafael. Yeah. OK. Or Saint same for Rafael. 

Theresa: Sorry. Now when it came time to leave there’s going to be some some issues there because she ends up trying to take a ship. And there are there’s an uncomfortable Mediterranean crossing with five other agents. And eventually like it’s just it’s just a pain in the ass. It is just a pain in the ass to get her there. And every time like they go to try to parachute her in and the plane is just not good. Like they end up not being able to do that. 

Then they’re thinking about maybe doing a submarine and they have to do this boat. So like she is just struggling to get there. She finally gets there. 

She gets all of these plans raised in London and she starts making she makes contact with a the leader of circuit leader who’s known as Raul. He’s better known as Captain Peter Churchill. OK. No relation to Winston Churchill or my Jack Churchill. I don’t know if he’s related Jack Churchill. There was no. 

Angie: Hold on. I know I can continue talking. I’ll interject because he had a brother who was also part of the war effort. OK. 

Theresa: So Peter Churchill is the charismatic head of Spindle. And this is the SOE network based in Cannes. Now Churchill’s work relied on the help of a artist named Andre Girard who lives nearby. Now Girard flatly refuses to help. Oh that reed socks air and leaves her stranded in the Riviera. 

Angie: Oh how nice. I mean there are worse places to be stranded. 

Theresa: There are. But when you’re help is on helping with the war effort there are problems with this. With no clear idea of what to do. Churchill asks if she could run an air informant instead because that’s like he at one point in the book he’s like why don’t you go take a nap with the other the other women who arrived. And she’s like I didn’t come here and nap. I can do something to do. I am bored. 

Angie: So I love her. I love her so much. 

Theresa: She you’re going to you’re going to you’re going to be just over the moon with her. Because. At this time she’s not only a straight agent in Cannes this town is a wash with all of these agents. So they come to Churchill for help and sometimes they end up working for him instead. One of these chance recruits is a man named Adolf Revinovich whose code name is Arnaud. And Arnaud is a foul mouth humorless Jewish Egyptian wireless operator. 

Angie: Oh that’s like Wonder Bread coming up with the idea of the name at a balloon race at the International Speedway. 

Theresa: I know now Arnaud is like. Incredible right like I am team Arnaud the whole way like. He’s been. Just foul mouth telegrams back to London. Yes. And gets everybody in trouble for just putting on inept people to be radio operators in country. And he’s just like I’m not dealing with you. I will quit if you have that that pancake operating the wire. 

Theresa: Of course he has. That are deleted from that transmission but of course they were transmitted. 

Theresa: Okay. Okay. Now so. Arnaud and Churchill they end up really liking Odette and they’re like dude we could really use her on our team. You know like this would be great if we could. Convince her and they convinced. 

London to let Odette be part of their team to be their third right so. Okay. She ends up making a successful trip to Mars a to deliver a suitcase. 

And. That’s when Churchill’s like you’re cool because she ends up having to kind of navigate this day the night a brothel a brothel that is ran or like visited exclusively by Germans. Like that’s where she had to spend the night. Like I like her like the first night and she’s like well I guess I’m just going to sleep right next to the enemies getting it on in the next room. 

Angie: Hey it’s the walls are saying she can learn information. The walls are said and 

Theresa: also they’re really not going to look for a spy at a. Then you such as. 

Angie: Okay so they’re really they should because if you think about it women have the power to make men talk and they’ve been doing it this way for thousands of years. 

Theresa: Yeah but after she comes back Churchill convinces London to be like she’s one of ours and Buckmaster goes. I hate all of this but fine you get what you want. Okay. So that’s that’s kind of what’s happening there now she has this very puritanical attitude against black market restaurants. And she doesn’t want to like live in this very high flute way she doesn’t drink she doesn’t smoke she doesn’t curse. 

Angie: I want to know the black market restaurant is well okay 

Theresa: think about so many of like the calories were rationed at 1800 per person and even still like per day and then even so you get like such a paltry amount of meat. So if you wanted to have more of that you had to go to restaurants that were able to source this through not. 

Angie: Oh yeah yeah okay okay I’m picking up a twin down now yeah they’re not serving penguin. 

Theresa: At every you know thing right you’re not eating baby seal. Gotcha okay. So it’s not near as as exciting as you would think now November 11th the Germans invaded the unoccupied or Vichy zone of southern France and this sparked an incredible power struggle between Gerard and his chief of staff. On refrager now Churchill agreed that they should both fly back to London to source out a solution. But there’s a series of bludgers so Churchill leaves and we got our no and Odette there right so they’re stuck holding down the fort while all this is going on. Now by January of 1943 the network had descended into chaos and Odette Churchill and for a year are nearly caught up in a German ambush during the attempt to make them fly out of a secret landing field. Now during this Odette is chased by German shepherd and this part of the like the book starts with this and then like circles back to like how she got there sort of deal. It is harrowing it is below freezing conditions outside and they realize they’re being chased so they scatter and Odette here’s a dog being released. She turns around sees the German shepherd and she goes taken off she has to like wade through water chest deep water to get to the other side. The dog doesn’t want to go in the water. Okay now she has to survive not getting severe hypothermia because she is completely wet. 

Angie: Right and it’s obviously right okay and not getting caught by this. 

Theresa: So there’s all that they make it through that now to make matters worse. The Gestapo has begun raiding resistance hideouts and cans because they’re aware of the presence of British officers in the area. Now they’re hot on the tail of the heels of Spendle which is her group and it would only be a matter of time before all of the agents are hunted down and she knows this. You ready? 

Are we ready for this? Because Churchill decides to move his team immediately to the safety of a Swiss Italian like okay so San or Saint Horace. It’s a village in the Swiss Italian Alps. Okay. And during this time Churchill and Odette are posing as a married couple and they’re taken in by a couple running a hotel. And all this time Arnaud is setting up his wireless set in a village about 10 miles away. 

Okay. Now Churchill has to fly back to London in March while Odette and Arnaud are left to hold the fort down. 10 miles away from each other. Yeah and Odette’s having to go back and forth. 

Angie: Because Arnaud doesn’t seem like the type that’s going to get on the bike and drive over. 

Theresa: Well but I also think he’s probably going to stick out a bit more. Remember he’s a Jewish Egyptian. 

Angie: Yeah I guess he screams I look a little different than everybody else than this little French girl who can just bike herself over. Yeah that makes sense. 

Theresa: I mean and she’s a courier. She’s literally like that is her role. She is a Nancy Wake in this situation. This makes sense. Okay. Now Odette is thrilled to be away from the Riviera but now she’s faced with a more insidious threat because it’s at this time that there’s a member of the German military intelligence that is just coming after them. So within hours of Churchill’s departure we get Sergeant Hugo Blacker and he is the star spy catcher in France. That’s a hell of a job title. I mean like this whole thing seems so movie-esque. I had a hard time realizing this was not made for TV. Because like okay Blacker has already captured an agent of Fred Gears named Andre Marsak in Paris. 

He ends up gaining Marsak’s cooperation in the most smooth way like just becoming his friend like everybody else is in the bad cop and he’s like oh my friend. Why would they treat the Germans the Nazis. We are completely different. 

Angie: They’re not cigarettes and I’m just like I’m here for you. Like they are awful to you. That’s the fastest way to get into. 

Theresa: Exactly and he knows this and he is so good at it. It is just disgusting. He ends up infiltrating Churchill’s network posing as Colonel Henri and he loves this because Marsak and something like here infiltrate my group. You’re going to just do this and I’m going to call you Colonel Henri. 

He goes oh I get a battlefield promotion and I get into your little group. You’re dumb. Love this. 

So. Colonel Henri the character Colonel Henri is this disaffected war mark officer wanting to help the allies. And so he’s given a guided tour of this city including the same hotel that Odette and Churchill are staying at. Of course because that makes perfect sense. Now while he’s at the hotel he ends up meeting Odette for the first time. She doesn’t believe like her story about wanting to defect from the British. Because this seems highly suspect and Odette’s got a hell of 

Angie: like she he wants to defect from the Germans right. That’s what he wants to say. 

Theresa: He’s saying I want to defect from the Germans. I’m going to do everything I can to help Marsak out. You know like you just I just need help. I just need a wireless operator. I just need a radio just just contact for me. You know like get me a plane. All of this and we’re going to take down the entire group and getting a bomber as we do it. 

That’s like. Now she doesn’t buy this at all. But her and our note choose to wait for Churchill before taking the action because he’s still in London. Right. 

OK. So they’re trying to stall. Now April 15th 1943 Churchill parachutes back to them in safety. Now this event is absolutely batshit insane because our no and Odette and a couple of others have to hike in the dark to the summit and they build a bonfire to signal a drop off point for Churchill. Now he parachutes out of a plane in pitch dark to land on the summit and then they have to hike back down. 

Angie: I love this. OK. Where is this movie. 

Theresa: It should be. And there was a movie. I’ll get into that. Now in the book it talks about how quiet and fast it was when Odette just plummets just goes off the cliff. Oh. Odette. She falls. 

Yeah. Odette main character. She falls 30 feet. OK. Lands in a sickening thought. Now the rest of the group scurry down to her like frantic. They get down to her. 

She’s got a sickly gray power. She’s not moving. They’re screaming her name. They’re rubbing snow on her face because of course everything is covered in snow and she’s not waking up. They’re shaking her nothing. They start dribbling alcohol down her throat and she jumps up and it’s just like what are you guys doing. We’ve got places to be. Let’s go. I love her so much. 

While she is popping jumping up and pretending that she’s not hurt what she’s hiding is that she’s got a concussion and a shattered vertebrae. OK. This is going to be important later. 

Angie: I feel like the shattered vertebrae would be very hard to hide. 

Theresa: I don’t know if we’ve met Odette Samson before although I feel like I am her. 

Angie: I’m just thinking she sounds familiar. 

Theresa: There’s a reason I love this woman so so much. Now they get back to town and they’re believing that Blacker because Blacker said he’s going to return like in a couple of days. They thought they had some extra time. So Odette persuades Churchill come back to the hotel with me decompress and then we’ll take down everything and then we’ll move to a new place. She gets back to the hotel. She convinces Churchill you to come with me. Hang out relax take a nap take a shower whatever you need to do freshen up. We’ll change safe houses a bit. We need to worry about it right now. 

And that evening there’s a knock on their door and Odette is asked to come downstairs to quote C.A. Strange Man. Oh, okay. Now, in the book, it talks about how stairwells are blind spot at every single turn, and they are the perfect opportunity for an ambush. 

Mm-hmm. And so she is a little nervous at every turn. And that’s when she walks into the reception area, and she’s greeted by the sight of Blacker waiting for her, accompanied by several Italian soldiers. So she knows this is an arrest. 

Angie: Right. I wouldn’t have gone down the stairs. That’s just me. What else are you going to do? Out the window? 

Theresa: Okay. They’re on like the high, like a high floor. And Hugo says, oh, Dad, like he extends his hand. She declines it because she is, she is just, I love her. Now, she also says, don’t call it for Churchill. 

Don’t yell. Because if you do, he’s going to jump. And we’ve got the building surrounded. If he jumps, they have orders to shoot. You will sign his death warrant. Oh, okay. What you should do is just walk us on up. 

And we’ll bring him out peaceably. I don’t like this. I don’t either, but she does that. She does just that because she’s like, you know what? He will get shot. And I want him alive because at this point, she has fallen in love with Peter. 

Angie: Is it she or you married? 

Theresa: She is, but the marriage is just a little bit, it’s kind of on the rocks, right? 

Angie: Like, oh, yeah, I mean, he’s probably a way at war anyway. 

Speaker 4: He is a way at war anyway. They haven’t seen each other in years. 

Theresa: And it was probably a bit strained prior to. Okay, got it. Okay. And I mean, when you’re working side by side, but this incredibly hot dashing officer, you’re going to be like, I mean, he is hot. He’s charming. Yeah. Okay. 

And we’ve already, we’ve already called him charismatic. So this has been building. These are things. Right. 

So she wants him to live now. Blacker agrees to place them both in Italian custody at this place called the Anisee barracks that are nearby. Now, Italy at this point had occupied a large portion of southeastern France. Now, this temporarily delays their interrogation. Now, in the book, it is, it’s kind of, it’s kind of hilarious because Blacker asks Churchill, he says, well, do you want to go with the Italians or do you want to go with the Germans? And his response is the Gallows are firing squad. Yeah. Okay. But he’s like, you know what, we’ll go with the Italians. 

I was going to pick the Italians. Yeah. That delays the interrogation. Now, after a week’s respite, they’re taken by train to Paris and driven to the friend’s prison. And this, this is cramped with a ton of French resistance and dissidents. There’s SOE agents and then there’s common criminals as well. There’s strict orders that are given for Odette and Churchill to be kept in solitary confinement, but they each receive one visitor. Colonel Henri, Hugo Blacker. 

Now, he was zero time trying to get Odette to cock, but she just bites it nothing, refuses all of his brides. He’s saying things like, you only have two shirts, one you’re wearing and one that’s filthy. Let me wash one. Give one to me. I’ll have my people wash it. I can take you out. Like, let me take you to go see some music. This place is horrid. I hate these conditions. I hate seeing you taken like, care of like this. 

Angie: I mean, they’re giving us our hands. 

Theresa: I was saying, Rastians, you should, I can get you extra food. I like his work. 

Angie: And this is where the whole world finds out that I could easily take a bride. 

Theresa: I mean, I’m not saying I would, but you should try. She refuses it every step of the way. Now, he realizes that she’s not going to be persuaded. So he leaves her to the less sophisticated methods of the SS. 

I hate this. Now Odette and her commanding officer slash kind of lover, Peter Churchill are sent, you know, they’re, so they’re in furnace prison and then they’re interrogated at 82 Avenue Fosh and this is the notorious Gestapo headquarters. Now, as they’re, they’re going through the full interrogation, Peter Churchill is confronted with one of two scenarios that he was trained for. Pretend to be the idiot or, you know, pretend not to give any information or so he pretends to be the idiot. He’s like, this is the best way to go about it. Now, as he’s being the idiot, he’s denying everything other than, well, I guess I am a British idiot. You got me there. 

Angie: Odette is doing the opposite. Can’t really hide my accent. 

Theresa: Yeah. He has like a very convincing accent. So, you know, he’s, he’s pretty good at his job. Odette’s doing the opposite. She’s like, given the Germans what they want to hear, but only what she wants them to know. Like she’s like, oh, no, Peter, Peter is the idiot. I’m the circuit leader. But Peter’s related to Winston Churchill and I’m married to Peter. No, he’s not and she’s not married to, but she, so she’s like, look, 

Angie: you can’t piss Mr Winston Churchill off. Yeah. 

Theresa: That’s my husband’s uncle. Love this. Okay. 

Angie: Now, Claire Fraser could take a lesson from this woman. 

Theresa: Dude, she had to have like this had to have been written off of Odette. Okay. Now, and she’s also saying like Peter’s just a pawn. Peter’s just a pawn. Arno, the radio guy. 

Yeah, he’s great. Peter’s eye candy and boy, isn’t he. Now, the Gestapo, they pounced. They keep summoning her to Avenue Fush. They bring her there 14 times. They’re always pressing her for the, for Arno’s location and the hideout of the other circuit leader. 

Now she knows the answer to both of these, but she refuses to answer. Now, trigger warning. If you are not a fan of listening to descriptions of torture, now is the time to hit skip about one minute into the future. The Gestapo, they don’t want to be charged with treating the French poorly. And so they pay for a French man to enter the room of the parapliers. 

Angie: Can I also take my headphones off? Nope. 

Theresa: Nope. You’re stuck here for good and always. Now. 

Angie: This is payback for the bride, isn’t it? 

Theresa: Yeah, a little bit. Now, they explain, you know, we’ve got these pliers. The average person passes out after two or three nails. We think that you’ve got the ability to be a little bit more resistant. And we’re willing to go slow just to keep you around because if you pass out, we’ll wait. We’ll wait. 

And you can end it because after each toenail, we’re going to ask you the questions. Our nose location. Where’s the other leader? And if you say, I don’t know or kick rocks, we’re just going to go, we’re going to start all the way on the left. We’re going to work our way all the way to the right. 

Angie: This is the point with which I ask, how come in all of these, all of these events, we never hear somebody just lie and give you a place that I don’t know a three days journey away? I don’t know. So you have to go check. 

Theresa: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But either way, by October of 1940, she gets through all 10 toenails without saying, without whimpering. Yeah. October 1943, the effects of torture and deprivations at the friend’s prison are beginning to take a toll on Odette’s health. 

Angie: She’s having shocking. I’m surprised. 

Theresa: She’s got this huge swelling on her neck. It’s like a gland that is just swollen. It’s also suffering. Yeah, it sounds like it. And like stomach problems. There’s also no treatment coming. And so she’s at least moved out of solitary to communal cell. 

Angie: Oh, okay. And then she’s allowed to spend some time in the sewing room. 

Theresa: Now, when she’s in the sewing room, she’s supposed to be doing work and she looks the guard full in the face and was like, absolutely not. Now, I will be making dolls and the dolls I make will be going to my daughters back home, but I am not sewing uniforms for your personnel. 

Okay. She also sort of short circuits the electric in there, realizing that it powers a good chunk of the prison and then has other people that she knows like SOE pulled in because she says they’re great electricians. And then while they’re quote working because she knows what she does sabotage it, she goes, oh, and you’re going to need to bring them some extra rations. They’re going to need to have their brains good for this. 

And so after they eat, she goes, hey, just fix that right there. That’s what I did. Okay, great. You guys are good. 

Go back to yourself now. Love that. So she is just insidious and I love every single bit of this. Now, the dolls that she made, those are still on display in the Imperial War Museum in London. Oh, that’s cool. Now, in the new year, the decision was taken for Churchill, who’s now believed to be a very important prisoner. He’s moved to Berlin. Odette’s fate contains she hanging the balance because they’re not convinced that she’s married to Peter. 

Oh, no. So she’d already been condemned to death some months earlier. And then every morning she just wakes up with the thought of this will be my last day. 

Okay. She’s starved. She’s tortured. She never breaks. 

Every time she’s asked a question, her answer’s the same. I have nothing to say. That’s it. That’s okay. I have nothing to say. Good. And the Gestapo recognized this is a broken record. She’s a poor conversationalist. And they sent her to the place every woman in Europe feared, Ravensbrook. 

Angie: We talked about Ravensbrook. 

Theresa: We did talk about Ravensbrook. But she doesn’t go there first. In May, 1944, after more than a year of imprisonment, she’s taken to Avenue Fosh to join a group of seven other women. All of them are fellow SOE agents who’ve been captured working for various networks across France. Now, remember, the French couriers had a 42% fatality rate. They’re all packed aboard a train where they were the unsuspecting victims of night and fog, which was the Nazi policy to erase all traces of enemy enemies of the Reich by deporting them to camps in Germany, Austria, and Poland. They arrive together at Karlsruhe prison near the western German border. And in early July, Odette’s comrade suddenly disappeared. 

A week later, she’s moved to Frankfurt. Unbeknownst to her by September, all members of that group would be dead. Four were deported to the Knapswaller concentration camp where they were given lethal injections while the other three were shot at Dock-O. 

Wow. Over the next several days, locked in a cage with two other women, Odette endured further squalor and the Gestapo brutality at Hals before arriving at the women’s concentration camp of Ravensbrook on the 26th of July. Now, having been informed that Mrs. Churchill is among their newest intake, the camp comadotte Fritz Schoeren had her thrown into a completely dark cell in the bunker and put on a starvation diet. 

Angie: Oh, because she wasn’t already hungry enough. 

Theresa: Now, the bunker in the camp comadotte Fritz Schoeren, I kind of spoke a little bit about him in Total Coopments episode, but we’re going to hear a bit more about Fritz because this man, this man. Now, for three months and eight days, she languished in the small cell. She’s on starvation rathams. There’s only five minutes a day where the overhead lights illuminated. Other than that, she sits in total darkness. I mean, I would sleep through it, but okay. 

Angie: I kind of have to keep you comfortable. 

Theresa: Yeah, it’s not designed for comfort or, you know, mental health. Yeah. Her body eventually is covered in scabs and she’s suffering from dysentery and scurvy. Her hair begins falling out, her teeth become loose, and she lapses into a semi-coma. Oh my God. So the infirmary doctors give her an injection or turn her back to her cell. Oh, that’s nice of them. 

Angie: Her dark cell, right? Yeah. 

Theresa: She’s not put back in the dark cell. No, she’s not put on, you know, sun-drenched. Right. Yeah. But it’s very likely that she met Total Coopment there because Total Coopment was working in the infirmary under the guise of the nurse. That’s right. 

Okay. Now, following the Allied landings of Southern France in August, the SS imposed even worse conditions on the ground that she’d helped the invasion by sending details of the plant to the Naval base in Marseille to London. This was one of her courier jobs. Now, all the food during this time is withdrawn and the heating gets turned up to an incredibly high level in her cell. She’s found unconscious by a warden one morning. And the Camp Doctor reported that she would not survive more than a few weeks in her current conditions, but she’s returned to her cell all the same. And I’m going to take a sip, too. 

Angie: Why are they trying to simultaneously kill her and keep her alive? Like, what’s their end goal for her? Good question. Stay tuned. 

Theresa: Oh, okay. Okay. Now, in December, Sherhan, he comes to make his monthly visit after which, and during his monthly visit, he basically says, and how are you doing? And she’s like, I’m enjoying my accommodations. Thank you. Like, sarcastic, but she’s also not going to accept any gifts because she doesn’t want to be put on the receiving end of what those costs will cost. Right. 

Now, after this, he moves her to a normal cell upstairs. He also recognizes that Germany’s defeat is edging ever closer. And so he’s starting to think of an exit strategy for himself. Now, he needs to ensure that this special prisoner, this potential wife of Winston Church Hill’s nephew, is kept alive. 

He needs this bargaining chip. So, after the turn of these basic privileges, she realizes that her cell is a few yards from the crematorium. And she has to endure the terrible sounds of some of the prisoners that are burned to death. 

Wow. And her cell is filling with the ashes. Now, in January, three more of her French section comrades, Denise Block, Violette Sabol, and Lillian Rolf, would be held in the bunker and executed with an earshot. 

Okay. It’s another four months before the allies get close enough to trigger her evacuation. Now, before this, in total coupments, you have the Red Cross they come in and they negotiate for the release of 750 or 7,500 prisoners. And that’s when total coupments gets out. 

Angie: Right. Weighing what was it, like 72 pounds or something like that, right? 

Theresa: A ridiculously small amount. Odette is retained. Okay. So, it’s in December that Sharon makes his, or nope, Sharon, who, he sees all of the writing on the wall, right? So, he starts this 14-hour journey to the camp at Nusdod. So, May 1, 1945, Sharon, who escorted her from Raven’s book, suddenly ordered her to get into his black Mercedes and drive out of camp. Now, it’s just her and him in a top-down coop and there’s some boxes of paperwork in the back. Now, she’s expecting to get shot in the nearby woods and she is incredulous when he says that he’s intending to hand her over to the Americans. 

Okay. Now, as they get closer, he drives off, you know, he pulls over the side of the road and she’s like, this is where I get shot and he has her help him burn the paperwork of some of his most insidious things because it was on his desk that there was paperwork from Himmler that another prisoner saw that said, you need to execute 2000 women a week. 

Angie: Which you mentioned in the total story. Yeah. Right. Okay. 

Theresa: So, he’s trying to get rid of some of this evidence because he’s not ready to go down because he realizes he’s cooked. 

Angie: He probably should have thought to, I don’t know, burn that upon reading, just a thought. 

Theresa: I mean, but when you think you’re going to win, why would you burn it? I guess, yeah. Now, he ends up being true to his word because they at last reached the Allied lines and Odette personally accepts his surrender and his Walther pistol. But his plan to evade justice fails. And this is because of the evidence she delivers at the Nuremberg trials. Yes. 

He would eventually be sentenced to death by the French military court in 1950. Okay. Now, she arrives back in London a week later and finds that Churchill, whom she’s heard nothing of since she’s left Paris, has miraculously survived the concentration camp at Soxsonhausen, Flossenberg and Dachau. My God. So he’s had quite a journey to get back. Now, they do find out that Arneau, the radio guy, he was executed in 1944, having been parachuted into the waiting arms of the Gestapo on his second mission. I loved him. 

Angie: I did too. 

Theresa: Okay. Now, Odette required months of intensive rehabilitation because she’s had quite to go off of. And it’s here that they’re like, oh, yeah, and she has a broken vertebrae. And Peter’s like, the hell you could have told me. 

Angie: Well, you know, busy. 

Theresa: Yeah. Now she’s treated for nervous tension for more than a year after her return. And it’s in her medical reports that they know it like, hey, she’s got some toenails growing in. She’s got burn marks on her back from part of the torture I neglected to tell you before they told the toenails. And in case of she’s, she’s been through it. 

She’s been through it. Now, for her services, Odette was awarded the Order of the British Empire member. And in 1946, she became the first woman to ever receive a George Cross, the highest non-military decoration for gallantry. 

There were two other women, Violette Zorbo and Nor Inat Khan, who were awarded the George Cross host humorously. Okay. And she’s the one leading that group. 

That’s awesome. She received five other medals as well. She is the most decorated spy, regardless of gender. Yes. Now, following the divorce of her first marriage, Odette’s relationship with Peter Churchill rekindled and they married 1947. Oh. 

Good for her. Now, the wedding of spies attracts a ton of media attention and it further escalates with the success of Gerard Tickles best-selling biography, Odette, in 1949 and Hilbert Wilcox’s film, The Following Year, titled Odette. Now, in this film, we have Anna Nagel in the starring role. Ingrid Bergman turned it down, by the way. Now, Bergman felt that- So, we have her? You would think, but she thought that Odette’s story would be too harrowing to attract public interest. She’s like, no, but it’s too, too exciting. Interesting. Okay. Now, Odette and Churchill accompanied the cast during most of the filming, revisiting many of the real-life locations, including 84 Avenue Foch, where she’d been interrogated. 

Angie: Oh, good God. No, thank you. 

Theresa: Now, according to- I wouldn’t go back there. I don’t think I would either. Like, it would require a lot of gen and a lot of therapy. Mm-hmm, agreed. You have the biographers, Nagel and Wilcox, according to them, it was one of two occasions that they saw Odette break down. The other was when they shot the interrogation scene later in the studio. Yeah, that’s fair. 

But beyond that, just stalwart, right? Now, 1945, that’s when that film, Odette, premieres. The charity premiere is held at the Plaza Theater in London on June 6th. 

It’s attended by King George himself. And by the- Isn’t that neat, though? I like that. 

Okay. By the standards of its time, Wilcox’s depiction of Nazi brutality was unusually stark. And by the end of the film, provoked several minutes of silence from the audience, followed by continuous applause until the lights went up. 

Wow. Now, the portrayal of Odette in Tickles’ biography and the film were a definite, like, it just set the tone for the female SOE pop agent in British Imagination. And it strongly influenced SOE-inspired biographies and the films and novels that have appeared ever since. 

That’s awesome. The book that- this is a glorified book report on goes on to share that Peter and Odette get a divorce. It hints at possibly infidelity on Odette’s part. But goes on to say that it shows how much Peter really adored her because he never remarries. Oh, wow. 

Angie: I have to ask, do we know what happened to her children? 

Theresa: I don’t, but I have pictures. 

Angie: Like, they survived the war. They survived the war. They survived the war. Okay, that’s all I wanted to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Theresa: And I probably could have pulled that out of my brain because I know they talk about her after the war and all of this stuff. 

Angie: No, I was just curious because I would have thought that the Germans would have used that against her. 

Theresa: So I was- But she did not really admit that she had kids. It came up in like somebody at some point mentioned that she had kids and knew their ages and she just basically plays the cold hard woman. Ah. 

Angie: Like she- I have the ability to make more. Yes, yes. Yeah, that kind of deal. 

Theresa: Even though you know that she absolutely loves these kiddos. Now, Churchill and Odette, they divorced in 55 and then she remarries this man named Jeffrey Howells. And he’s another member of the SOE that served in France. She took an active role in public life supporting the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association. She becomes the vice president of Fannie in 67 and later the president of 282 East Ham Erichadette Squadron. For many, Odette personified their sacrifice that were made by the SOEs, women of France. 

And certainly no other agents became so well known by their first name alone. Yes, she is like Madonna. Exactly. 

Her entry for the who’s who was modest, her occupation being listed as housewife and her interest as reading, traveling, cooking and trying to learn patience. Love that. Now, at some point there is that becoming like this nasty smear campaign against Odette after the film claiming that she’d inflated her work, exaggerated the tortures that she endured, the whole nine. It is so intense and none of it is backed up by any remote bit of evidence that Peter Churchill takes them to court over this matter. Nice. 

Angie: I like him. Big fan. Big fan of his work. I know. 

Theresa: He just, this man, nearly half a century after her deportation, Odette returned to Ravensbrook to unveil a memorial to the other women of the French section who were executed during her captivity there. She dies at her home in Surrey in March of 1995 at age 82. Every year she had laid a wreath beneath the Fannie Memorial of St. Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge where she would attach a small bunch of violets and remember in remembrance of her SOE comrades who failed to return. A plaque of her memory has been added there since and the tradition of leaving violets continues. 

Angie: She was alive during her lifetime. Yeah. And I’ve got pictures. Thank you. Oh, look her on a stamp. Yep. She is exactly what you think she looks like. I’m looking at the seabed-otoned black and whiteish curly-haired French girl in uniform in the first picture. In the second picture I’m assuming that’s Peter. That is Peter Churchill. Yep. 

They are in full military garb. She’s got the great 40’s hair, the big curl in the front, you know, the big, great girl. Looking fabulous. Oh, okay. I’m going to assume this has been with her children, with the children. This is the three girls. 

They are very cute. Again, military outfits. This is probably the day she was awarded the cross because she’s got a plaque or something in her hand. Yep. That went to like… That is my assumption. It is exactly what you would imagine the family to look like. Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: And then this is her as an older woman with Hallows, the husband number three. Gotcha. Okay. 

Angie: She barely changes at all. Oh my gosh. 

Theresa: But you know that she’s older. She’s like mid 50’s. Yeah. You know. Looking fabulous. Yeah. But that is the story of Othette Simpson, the most decorated spy of World War II. I love that. Thank you for that. My absolute pleasure. 

Angie: Indeed. How exciting. I mean, we’ll not spy on things. Yeah. 

Theresa: If you would enjoy listening to this, maybe you want to share it with your favorite person who would be the best spy that you know of because boy, they just know how to get into anybody’s anything. Right? 

Angie: Or they already don’t have toenails. Yeah. 

Theresa: Make it easier on them. And share this with your favorite pedicurist. 

Angie: Yes, yes.