Odette Sansom

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Odette Marie Celine Sansom, GC, MBE, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur, (April 28, 1912 - March 13, 1995) was an Allied heroine of World War II.

Odette Marie Celine Brailly was born in Amiens in the Somme département of France. Her father was the First World War hero Gaston Brailly who was killed at Verdun when she was six years old, in 1918.

She married the Englishman Roy Sansom in 1931, moving with him to England. When the War Office requested all French-born residents of London to supply them with photographs of their home towns, Odette volunteered her family album which contained many useful depictions of the Channel coast. She joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and was later asked to train under Colonel Maurice Buckmaster of the Special Operations Executive and return to Nazi-occupied France to work with the French underground. She left her three daughters in the care of her husband.

She made a landing near Cannes in 1942, where she made contact with her supervisor, Peter Churchill. Using the code name Lise, she brought him funds and acted as his radio operator.

Churchill's operation in France was betrayed by a double agent, and Odette and Churchill were imprisoned. Under torture by the Gestapo at Fresnes prison in Paris, Odette stuck to her cover story that Churchill was the nephew of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and that she was Peter's wife. The hope was that in this way their treatment would be mitigated.

Odette was condemned to death in June 1943 and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. She survived the war and testified against the prison guards at a 1946 war crimes trial.

Odette's husband had died during her imprisonment and she married Peter Churchill in 1947. They were divorced in 1956.

Her third husband was Geoffrey Hallowes.

Odette was appointed an MBE and was the first of three World War II FANY members to be awarded the George Cross (gazetted 20th August, 1946).