Francis Suttill

Major Francis Alfred Suttill DSO (17 March 1910 – 23 March 1945) was a British special agent who worked for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) inside France. He organised and coordinated the Physician network, better known by his own code name Prosper. He was captured and executed by the Nazis.

Suttill was born in Mons-en-Barœul near Lille, France, to an English father, William Francis Suttill, and a French mother, Blanche Marie-Louise Degrave. His father managed a textile manufacturing plant in Lille. Suttill studied at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England. For the school year 1927/8, he attended the College de Marcq in Mons-en-Barœul, gaining his Baccalauréat. He then read law at the University of Lille and was accepted as an external student at University College London. In 1931, he moved to London to continue his studies and eventually became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. He married in 1935 and had 2 sons.

In May 1940, he was commissioned into the East Surrey Regiment of the British Army. He was later recruited by the SOE and, after being trained during the summer of 1942, was chosen to found a new resistance network in northern France, based in Paris, with the operational name, Physician. His code name was Prosper and his assumed identity was "François Desprées".

On 24 September 1942, his courier, Andrée Borrel, alias Denise, was parachuted into France to prepare for his arrival. He himself parachuted into France on 1 October 1942 near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre. Suttill and Borrel, posing as brother and sister, travelled around a large part of northern France to start building their network, known in France as Physician-Prosper. They were joined by wireless operators, Gilbert Norman (Archambaud) in November, and Jack Agazarian (Marcel) in December.

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