Roger Landes

Roger Landes, MC & Bar (16 December 1916 – 16 July 2008) was an agent and radio operator in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), F section. Heading and arming Resistance groups, he played an important role in the liberation in the Bordeaux region, and ended the war in Force 136.

Roger was the second son (of three) born to Barnet Landes, of Polish-Jewish descent, and a Russian mother - Barnet's grandfather had fled Russian Poland to avoid the pogroms and Imperial conscription, setting up a jewellery business in Hatton Garden before settling in Paris. Barnet's children had then fought for Britain in the First World War. Barnet spoke poor English and so preferred to live in Paris and run a jewellery business there. It was in Paris that Roger was born and educated, and he remained there with one of his two brothers when his parents' jewellery business collapsed in the Great Depression and they moved to London. Roger graduated in architecture at the École des Beaux Arts before also moving to London after the Munich Crisis, where he joined London County Council as a quantity surveyor.

Roger was conscripted into the Royal Corps of Signals in March 1941 and, speaking better French than English and already knowing Morse code, he was soon recruited into SOE (F section) at the request of Lewis Gielgud and Maurice Buckmaster. His first mission, with his codename as Aristide, was as radio operator to the SCIENTIST network under Claude de Baissac (David). He was parachuted into France with Gilbert Norman on the night of 31 October 2001.11.1942. After de Baissac's return to England on 16/17 August, Landes succeeded him as the network's head. Recalled to London, he left on the night of 1 November 1943, crossing the Pyrénées, being held for a time in Spain and finally reaching Gibraltar and then England, landing on 15 January 1944 by plane near Swindon.

...
Wikipedia