Madeleine Damerment


Madeleine Zoe Damerment was a French spy in World War II who served in the French Resistance and Britain's Special Operations Executive. Damerment was to be a courier for SOE's Bricklayer circuit in France during World War II but was arrested upon arrival by the Gestapo, who knew she was coming. She was subsequently executed at the Dachau concentration camp.

Early life

Damerment was born in Lille, France, the second daughter of the city's postmaster. Her father got her a job as a clerk in the Post Office.

Wartime service

Escape line

Following the occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, Damerment's family became actively involved with the French resistance. Damerment worked as an assistant to Michael Trotobas on the Pat O'Leary escape line set up by Albert Guérisse, where she helped downed British airmen and others to escape France until 1942, when it is believed that one of her fellow resistance workers, Harold Cole, betrayed the group and she fled to England.

Special Operations Executive

In England, she volunteered to work with the Special Operations Executive and was allocated the cover name Martine Dussautoy and commissioned as an ensign in the FANY. Sent to Scotland for paramilitary training, Captain Dixon-Robertson, her signals instructor at Inverie, determined that, only being considered fair for sending and receiving messages, she was unsuitable for work as a wireless operator, though Captain Smith reported that for physical training Damerment was a "keen and hard worker with good stamina." She had a good grasp of the principles of close combat, worked well and was aggressive. For rope work, she was reported to have fair muscular strength and good co-ordination but required more practice. She worked well and showed keenness in fieldcraft although she found the theoretical side difficult.
For weapons training, she was reported to have improved and was "now a fair shot with pistol and carbine, but is lacking in aggressivness." She was very good at explosives and demolitions, both in theoretical and practical work, as she was reportedly "extremely keen" and made up "splendid charges", and was very good at writing route reports, being "accurate and painstaking". For schemes and tactics, she was considered to have been a "very hard-working member of a band on all schemes and has a good knowledge of tactics as well as a fund of common sense." She was not very interested in boat work but "worked well and acquired a fair knowledge for elementary small boat handling and of knots."
Captain Parson, the Commandant, reported the following:
After celebrating Christmas and New Year in England, Damerment was sent to Beaulieu for a clandestine warfare course. Major Wedgewood, an instructor at the House on the Shore, reported the following in the beginning of February.
B.III showing the later rectangular fins and Bristol Hercules radial engines.
Assigned the role of courier for the Bricklayer circuit, she and agents France Antelme and Lionel Lee were parachuted from a RAF special duties 161 Squadron Halifax into a field near the city of Chartres in France on the night of 28/29 February 1944. However, the Gestapo were waiting after as a result of having captured SOE wireless operators and transmitted false messages with their radios. Damerment was transported to Gestapo headquarters on the Avenue Foch in Paris, where she was interrogated. On 12 May 1944 she was sent with several other captured female SOE agents to Karlsruhe Prison, the civilian prison for women, where they were held for four months.

Execution

On 12 September, Damerment was abruptly transferred to Dachau concentration camp with fellow agents Yolande Beekman, Noor Inayat Khan and Eliane Plewman, and at dawn on the following morning, 13 September, the four women were executed.
A Gestapo man named Max Wassmer was in charge of prisoner transports at Karlsruhe and accompanied the women to Dachau. Another Gestapo man named Christian Ott gave a statement to American investigators after the war as to the fate of Damerment and her three companions. Ott was stationed at Karlsruhe and volunteered to accompany the four women to Dachau as he wanted to visit his family in Stuttgart on the return journey. Though not present at the execution, Ott told investigators what Wassmer had told him.
This cannot be considered a reliable account as Ott told the investigator he had asked Wassmer the following question after being told what had happed to the women: "But tell me, what really happened", to which Wassmer replied: "So you want to know how it really happened?"

Honours and awards

Following the war, Damerment's contribution to freedom was recognised by her government with the posthumous awarding of the Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre, the Médaille de la Résistance, and by the British King's Commendation for Brave Conduct. She is recorded on the FANY memorial at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London and also in column 3 of panel 26 of the Brookwood Memorial as one of 3,500 "to whom war denied a known and honoured grave".
She is also listed on the "Roll of Honor" on the Valençay SOE Memorial in the town of Valençay, in the Indre Département of France. There is also a plaque on the south wall of the crematorium at the former Dachau concentration camp, where the four SOE agents are remembered.

1939–1945 StarFrance and Germany StarWar Medal with King's Commendation for Brave Conduct
Légion d'honneur
Croix de Guerre Médaille de la Résistance

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