Jeannette Guyot

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeannette Guyot (1943)

Jeannette Guyot (born February 26, 1919 in Chalon-sur-Saône ; died April 10, 2016 there ) was a French resistance fighter during the German occupation of France in World War II . It is one of two women for their achievements in the Second World War that the US president , awarded Distinguished Service Cross received.

She was born as the daughter of the timber merchant Jean-Marie Guyot and the seamstress Jeanne Guyot. At the age of 17, she left school with the qualification Brevet élémentaire and began training as a midwife. Her parents After the defeat of France, her parents became members of the Resistance in June 1940 . Jeannette joined Félix Svagrowsky's network "Amarante", which belonged to the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (BCRA) of the Free French Armed Forces Charles de Gaulle , founded by André Dewavrin in exile in Britain . Since she lived on the demarcation line that separated the occupied northern zone from that of the unoccupied southern zone , she received an ID from the German occupiers authorizing her to enter the border area. Using this document, she secretly took people to the border river Saône , where they were taken to the unoccupied side by boat tugs .

In August 1941 she met Gilbert Renault, alias Colonel Rémy, who was head of the Confrérie Notre-Dame (CND). She became one of his liaison officers and from then on brought news and people from Paris via Sevrey to the unoccupied zone. In February 1942 she was arrested and held first in Chalon and then in Autun . Since the Gestapo could not prove anything, she was released after three months. Her ID was withheld, but this did not prevent her from resuming her work.

In June 1942, the CND was betrayed by Pierre Cartaud, which is why Jeannette Guyot had to flee to the unoccupied zone in Lyon . There she came across Jacques Robert alias "Denis", who also belonged to the CND. Robert founded the “Phratrie” network in Lyon, which, in addition to collecting and forwarding messages, also committed acts of sabotage and helped shot down British pilots to return to England.

The Wehrmacht also marched into the previously unoccupied zone in November 1942. Guyot and Robert were flown out by the Royal Air Force on a Westland Lysander aircraft that had landed at Luzillé and brought to London . There Guyot met Colonel Rémy and took the cover name Jeannette Gauthier. She was given administrative tasks at the BCRA, which she did not like. When she asked to return to France, Rémy sent her to the Praewood House school near St Albans , where the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) trained 120 volunteers for military intelligence. As part of Operation Sussex , they were supposed to clear up German troop movements in France in advance of the invasion of Normandy ( Operation Overlord ).

Jeannette Gauthier completed a brief parachuting course at Ringway Airport near Manchester in January 1944 . She was promoted to lieutenant and as part of Operation Calanque, with three male colleagues, parachuted to the southeast of Tours near Clion on February 8, 1944 (Mission Pathfinder). Their task was to find safe jumping-off areas and accommodation for the following 52 teams - a dangerous mission in view of the activities of the Gestapo and the highly effective German radio system location service. In the course of the following months, however, 20 jump zones and around 100 safe houses for Sussex agents were found.

In Paris, Guyot, with the help of a cousin, placed the operator from Operation Sussex in the Café de l'Electricité on rue Tournefort in the Montmartre district , next to an office of the Gestapo. Its owner Andrée Goubillon was privy to the project and agreed without hesitation. From Paris, Guyot traveled through northern France, often with luggage which, if arrested, would have been dangerous to find. She regularly provided London with important news. Ten of the Sussex agents paid with their lives.

After the liberation of Paris , she joined the French secret service Direction générale des études et recherches (DGER), founded in October 1944 . During this time she learned that her father had been arrested on February 5, 1943 and her mother ten days later, and that both had been deported to Germany in January 1944 . Her father died in Cham , Bavaria . The mother had been interned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . She survived since she was sold by the Gestapo to the Swiss Red Cross in April 1945 , and returned to France that month.

In June 1945 Jeannette Guyot settled in Sevrey near Chalon and married the former Sussex agent Marcel Gaucher. She was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor and awarded the Croix de guerre . She received the Distinguished Service Cross from the Americans and the George Medal from the British .

Jeannette Guyot had four children. The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph dedicated a full-page obituary to her after her death in April 2016 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ The other recipient of this award was the American Virginia Hall .

Web links

Commons : Jeannette Guyot  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Jeannette Guyot, Free French agent - obituary at telegraph.co.uk, accessed February 9, 2020
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Biographie de Jeannette Gaucher née Guyot (02/26/1919 - 04/10/2016) at plan-sussex-1944.net, accessed on February 9, 2020
  3. ^ A b Jeannette Guyot, French WWII Heroine: February 26, 1919 - April 10, 2016 at warhistoryonline.com, accessed February 8, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Guyot, Jeannette
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Chalon-sur-Saône
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2016
Place of death Chalon-sur-Saône