Claude Marc Boucherville de Baissac (1907 - 1974)

Born 28 Feb 1907 in Curepipe, Mauritius

Died 22 Dec 1974 at age 67 in Aix‐en‐Provence, France

Biography

Claude was born 28 Feb 1907 in Curepipe, Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation. His parents were British aristocratic landowners, who sent him to be educated at the Lycée Henri‐IV in Paris. Claude worked for a mica mining company in Madagascar but later returned to France, where he went into advertising.

After the German invasion in May 1940 Claude fled Paris for the south, crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, and spent seven months in prison before he eventually reached the UK.

He was a Mauritian of French descent who became an agent in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He organized the important French Resistance network SCIENTIST, in southwest France from August 1942 to March 1943 and in Britanny from February 1944 onwards. His elder sister Lise was also an SOE agent.

In February 1944 Claude de Baissac was parachuted into Mayenne with an all-Mauritian team made up of his sister Lise, captain Jean-Marie Renaud-Danticolle (codenamed René) and the radio operator Maurice Louis Larcher (code named Vladimir). His new mission was to amalgamate, arm and energise the Resistance groups in the region stretching from Caen to Laval. When D-Day came, he joined George Starr and his WHEELWRIGHT network in the south-west.

For his actions, Claude de Baissac was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 (France), and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.

In November 1944, after the war, Claude and fellow agent Mary Herbert (code name Claudine), a courier for Scientist, were married. Mary, had given birth to their daughter, Claudine, nearly a year before. Despite arrest and imprisonment by the Gestapo in Poitiers, she had managed to maintain her cover story and gone into hiding with Claudine after her release.

After leaving SOE Claude worked in Germany with the Allied Control Commission in Wuppertal, then became a director for a mining company in West Africa. In 1964 after his divorce from Mary, he remarried a "Cameroonian" (a Central African country on the Gulf of Guinea), Colette Avril, and later moved to Aix‐en‐Provence, France, where he directed security for Banque Société Marseillaise de Crédit.

Claude de Baissac passed away in 1974.

Research Notes

"Wikipedia" has his full name as Claude Denis Boucherville de Baissac with his code name being David.

"Nigel Perrin" has his full name as Claude Marc Boucherville de Baissac with his code names being Denis, David, and Clement.

"Find A Grave" has his full name as Claude Marc Boucherville de Baissac.

"Revolry" has his full name as Claude Denis Boucherville de Baissac.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_de_Baissac

• http://nigelperrin.com/claudedebaissac.htm#.WZTpp1GGPIU

• Find A Grave Memorial# 67522877 URL: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=67522877

• https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Claude%20de%20Baissac

• http://spartacus-educational.com/SOEbaissacC.htm