Leyton & Leytonstone

Historical Society

Peggy Knight, The Leyton Typist with Nerves of Steel (continued)

^^ map of places mentioned in the text  ^^

‘Donkeyman's’ founder and leader, Henri Frager, had himself been to London and met the approval of the SOE.  To reconstruct French Resistance networks after their partial discovery by the German authorities, Frager built up a ‘circuit’ based on Auxerre in Burgundy, but with a territory extending to Normandy and Nancy.

Peggy Knight was given the alias in France of ‘Nicole’ and the operational name ‘Kennelmaid’.  Dropped with her was the radio operator Noel.  “We stayed there two days, indoors, hoping to see nobody, instead of which the whole village came in to see us, to wish us the best of luck”.  Something was ‘going on’, but it is not clear what.  

Peggy formed a low opinion of many of the 'Donkeyman' circuit members she encountered.  Alain de Laroussilhe, known as ‘Michel’, made it widely known that she was a British agent, and gave his subordinates little work other than to collect money, tobacco and food tickets.  The circuit was riven by distrust and lack of co-operation.  Charles de Gaulle was a thorn in the side of the British and American governments but he established his claim to be the leader of Free France and united much of the Resistance.  Communists and other left-wingers offered an alternative but not one the UK and the US governments wanted to encourage.  An army officer agent in the SOE has suggested the high prevalence of political disputes amongst the French Resistance was “the resurgence of French national spirit” as the Allies gained an upper hand over Nazi Germany*.

* Major Hillier quoted by Marcus Binney in The Women Who Lived For Danger, The Women Agents of SOE in the Second World War