Tag: George Medal

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The Sussex Plan and Three Very Brave Women

Sandy and I have decided to take off August in regard to creating two new blogs for the month. We will switch our focus to finishing the second volume of the German occupation of Paris (Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters?). We’re so close to wrapping up the new book that I am going to put blinders on and spend one hundred percent of my time trying to complete it.

In the meantime, we are “repurposing” two of our prior blogs for August. This blog was published in 2017 as The Sussex Plan and a Very Brave Woman (click here to read the original blog). Notice the change in title? I received an e-mail from a relative of Evelyn Clopet pointing out her contributions to the Sussex Plan, its mission, and her ultimate sacrifice. I promised Caroline that I would reprint the 2017 blog but on an expanded basis to include Evelyn. So, here it is.

Remember the “rabbit hole” I talked about in a past blog post? (click here to read the blog, Curious George Flees the Nazis) Well, I went down the rabbit hole for a week and popped back up with the relatively forgotten story of The Sussex Plan and its 120 brave agents. What initially grabbed my attention was the address in Paris of an established safe house used to shelter more than forty Sussex agents. The former cafe will be one of the stops in our third and final volume of Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters? A Walking Tour of Nazi-Occupied Paris (1940−1944) Deportations & Liberation.

The stories, memories, and memorabilia of The Sussex Plan and its agents are kept alive by Dominique Soulier and the MM Park France Museum (twelve miles north of Strasbourg France). M. Soulier is the son of Georges Soulier, a former Sussex Plan agent. More on this later. Click here to visit the museum’s web-site. Read More The Sussex Plan and Three Very Brave Women

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The Sussex Plan and a Very Brave Woman

Insignia of Plan Sussex 1944. Photo by Sussex 44 (2016). With gratitude to Dominque Soulier and Collection SUSSEX 1944 – MM PARK – 67610 La Wantzenau. PD-Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Insignia of Plan Sussex 1944. Photo by Sussex 44 (2016). With gratitude to Dominque Soulier and Collection SUSSEX 1944 – MM PARK – 67610 La Wantzenau. PD-Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.

Remember the “rabbit hole” I talked about in a recent blog post (click here to read Curious George Flees the Nazis)? Well, I went down the rabbit hole for a week and popped back up with the relatively forgotten story of The Sussex Plan and its one hundred twenty brave agents. What initially grabbed my attention was the address in Paris of an established safe house used to shelter more than forty agents. It will be a stop in my new book.

The story and memory of The Sussex Plan and its agents are kept alive by Dominique Soulier and the MM Park France Museum (twelve miles north of Strasbourg France). M. Soulier is the son of Georges Soulier, a former Sussex Plan agent.

SOE and Resistance Efforts

By mid-1943 the Nazis had successfully infiltrated and crippled the efforts of the British run Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization (click here to read Women Agents of the SOE). The same could be said for some of the larger French resistance networks when their leaders were arrested, interrogated, and tortured. If these men and women survived the torture, they were either killed by the Gestapo, committed suicide, or deported under the Nacht und Nebel decree (click here to read Night and Fog).

About this time, General Eisenhower and Prime Minister Churchill had agreed upon an invasion of Europe for some time in 1944. To plan properly for the invasion, Eisenhower needed information on German troop movements and other surveillance facts, particularly in northern France. However, the SOE and its agents in France could not be counted on to accomplish what was needed. So British MI6 created a new organization called The Sussex Plan and its mission was to gather information to assist in the planning of D-Day. Read More The Sussex Plan and a Very Brave Woman