Odette Sansom

Odette Sansom Hallowes
Odette Sansom in 1946
Born	(1912-04-28)28 April 1912 Amiens, France
Died	13 March 1995(1995-03-13) (aged 82) Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	First Aid Nursing Yeomanry
Years of service	1942–1945
Unit	Special Operations Executive Spindle network
Battles/wars	Second World War
Awards	George Cross Member of the Order of the British Empire Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (France)
Spouse(s)	Roy Sansom (1931–46) Peter Churchill (1947–56) Geoffrey Hallowes (1956–95)

Odette Sansom Hallowes GC, MBE (28 April 1912 – 13 March 1995), also known as Odette Sansom and Odette Churchill, was an Allied intelligence officer during the Second World War.

Her wartime exploits and endurance of a brutal interrogation and imprisonment, which were chronicled in books and a motion picture, made her one of the most celebrated members of the Special Operations Executive, the British sabotage and espionage organisation, and one of the few to survive Nazi imprisonment.

She was the first woman to be awarded both the George Cross, and to be appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.

She was born Odette Marie Céline Brailly in Amiens, France, the daughter of Gaston Brailly, a bank manager, who was killed at Verdun shortly before the Armistice in 1918 and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and Médaille militaire for heroism. She had one brother. As a child she contracted serious illnesses one of which blinded her for three and a half years, as well as polio, which resulted in her being bedridden for months. She had a convent education and was considered difficult, perhaps because of her illnesses.

She met an Englishman, Roy Sansom, in Boulogne and married him in 1931, moving with him to Britain. The couple had three daughters: Françoise, Lily and Marianne. Roy Sansom joined the army at the beginning of the Second World War, and Odette Samson and the children moved to Somerset for their safety.