Phyllis Latour Doyle: S.O.E Agent & Radio Operator in World War Two

The Second World War produced many courageous people, including the female operatives of the British Special Operations Executive, also known as S.O.E.  One of these incredible young women was a South African girl from Durban, named Phyllis or “Pippa” Latour. This intrepid lady served in occupied France for over three years, working under the very noses of the German’s, and courting danger at every turn. Of  SOE's 55 female agents, at least  thirteen were killed in action or died in Nazi concentration camps.

Phyllis Ada Latour was born in Durban, South Africa, on the 8 April 1921. Her mother Louise was a British Citizen and her father, Philippe Latour, was a French doctor. In 1939 Phyllis left South Africa to finish her education in Europe - just as war was being declared.  She originally joined the RAF in 1941 to train as a flight mechanic and her Service Number was 718483. She was fluent in French and the secret services soon spotted her immense potential. She was commissioned as an Honorary Section Officer on 1 November 1943.

“It wasn’t until after my first round of training that they told me they wanted me to become a member of the SOE,” she said in a rare interview five years ago, “They said I could have three days to think about it. I told them I didn’t need three days to make a decision; I’d take the job now.”

A close family friend – her godmother’s father – had been shot by the Germans and her godmother had committed suicide after being taken prisoner by the Nazis. “I did it for revenge,” Mrs Doyle told the New Zealand Army News magazine in 2009.

S.O.E TRAINING SHEET ON HOW TO DISGUISE YOURSELF

As well as extensive physical fitness training, Mrs Doyle told how one of their instructors was ‘a cat burglar who had been taken out of prison to train us’. She said: ‘we learned how to get in a high window and down drainpipes, how to climb over roofs without being caught.’ She also had to “undergo a course of commando training, which included 14 parachute jumps”.

She was eventually parachuted behind Nazi lines and risked her life gathering vital information on enemy positions ahead of the D-Day landings. She was given many different code names – including Genevieve, Plus Fours and Lampooner.  “Genevieve” was the original name of the patron saint of Paris - a shepherd’s daughter who lived in the 5th-century, and who encouraged the citizens when threatened by Attila and the Huns, and also brought them aid when Childeric attacked the city.

She was first deployed in Aquitaine, Vichy France from 1942. She was then dropped into the Calvados area of Normandy on May 1, 1944 to operate as part of the Scientist circuit. She worked as a wireless operator with Resisitance member Claude de Baissac who was also a southern-African, hailing from Mauritius, and his sister Lisé de Baissac (the courier). This meant sleeping rough in forests or staying with other Allied sympathisers. “One family I stayed with told me we were eating squirrel,” she told the Army News, “I found out later it was rat. I was half starved so I didn’t care.”

She entered France several times by parachute, spending lengthy periods engaged in propaganda work. She made her reports and received her instructions by radio. Sometimes she lived as one of an ordinary French provincial family; at other times she worked on farms or at other apparently normal occupations. Maintaining her incognito was made more difficult by the frequent searches and inspections of documents to which the local population was subjected. Although then aged 23, she assumed the identity of a poor 14-year-old French girl, selling soap to German soldiers to make them less suspicious.

S.O.E. SURVIVAL KIT AND RADIO SET

Hidden on pieces of silk among the brave young woman’s knitting were her secret codes.

It was lonely work in a land of strangers, and anxiety was an ever-present emotion – anxiety as to what was happening to family and friends, with whom she could not communicate; anxiety about making contact with certain persons at specific times, and the endless anxiety as to how long the deception could be kept up. If she encountered the enemy she would ‘talk so much about anything and everything trying to be ‘‘helpful’’, and they’d get sick of me’.

On one occasion Gestapo agents mistakenly took Latour and her colleagues as simple peasants and “questioned them closely about some suspected persons who were obviously none other than themselves”. On another occasion German soldiers actually hung their wet washing on a supposed clothes line that was in fact none other than the aerial of her portable receiving set!

In total, Phyllis transmitted 135 secret messages to Britain via radio sets after linking up with the French Resistance. She used bicycles to tour the area, passing on information to allied command. The messages would take half an hour to send and the Germans an hour and a half to trace the signal. She would have just enough time to send her message and move on before being discovered.

RADIO EQUIPMENT

Mrs Doyle also told Army News how she once sent a message requesting a German listening post be taken out by bombers, but a German woman and two children died.

‘I heard I was responsible for their deaths. It was a horrible feeling,’ she said. “I later attended the funeral of a grandmother, her daughter and her two grandchildren, knowing I had indirectly caused their deaths. I can imagine the bomber pilots patting each other on the back and offering congratulations after a strike. But they never saw the carnage that was left. I always saw it, and I don’t think I will ever forget it.’

After the War II she married an Australian engineer called Patrick Doyle. They went to live in Kenya where she had previously gone to school, and then moved to Fiji, and Australia. She now lives in Auckland, New Zealand. She and her husband had four children and divorced in the mid-1970s.

Her former bridesmaid, Barbara Blake, 91, who lives in north London, said her friend had never wanted publicity for her deeds. For decades she had remained in the shadows; a reluctant heroine with an astonishing past but the 93-year-old former British spy stepped back into the limelight  when she was awarded the Legion of Honour on Tuesday November 25, 2014. 

PHYLLIS LATOUR DOYLE'S MEDALS

She only revealed her story to her children after her eldest son had read something about her online. 

"15 years ago I finally told my children about my past. They insisted I send off for my medals. So I did." After the war she was awarded Parachute Regiment wings, an MBE, and the Croix de Guerre. “I was asked if I wanted them to be formally presented to me, and I said no, I didn’t, it was my family who wanted them.”

Laurent Contini, the French ambassador to New Zealand said:

‘Pippa stands out as a formidable example for younger and older generations alike.  As part of its commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, France is recognizing military veterans and civilians who fought in the Second World War. I have deep admiration for her bravery and it will be with great honour that I will present her with the award of Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration.”

Mrs Doyle, who was helped by two of her sons, said nothing publicly beyond remarking that it was a ‘privilege and honour’ to receive the medal.