Editing Violette Szabo (section)

==Special Operations Executive==
It is unclear how or why Szabo was recruited by [[SOE F Section networks|F-Section]], as her surviving official file is thin, but her fluency in French and her previous service in the ATS probably brought her to the attention of SOE. She would have been invited to an interview regarding war work with E. Potter, the alias of [[Selwyn Jepson]], a detective novelist and the F-Section recruiter. Szabo was given security clearance on 1 July 1943 and selected for training as a field agent on 10 July. She was commissioned as a section leader in the [[First Aid Nursing Yeomanry]], a civilian service often used by SOE as a cover for female agents.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=47–49}}

After an assessment for fluency in French and a series of interviews, Szabo was sent from 7–27 August to STS 4, a training school at [[Winterfold House]], and after a moderately favourable report, to Special Training School 24 of Group A at [[Arisaig]] in the Scottish Highlands in September and October. Szabo received intensive instruction in fieldcraft, night and daylight navigation, weapons and demolition. Again her reports were mixed, but she passed the course and moved on to Group B.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=53–60}}

Szabo was sent to the SOE "finishing school" at [[Beaulieu, Hampshire]], where she learnt [[escape and evasion]], uniform recognition, communications and [[cryptography]], and had further training in weaponry.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=61–63}} The final stage in training was parachute jumping, which was taught at [[Ringway Airport]] near Manchester. On her first attempt, Szabo badly sprained her ankle and was sent home for recuperation, spending some time in [[Bournemouth]] (it was this ankle that was to fail her later in France). She was able to take the parachuting course again and passed with a second class in February 1944.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=63–65}} On 24 January 1944, Szabo made her will, witnessed by [[Vera Atkins]] and Major R. A. Bourne Paterson of SOE, naming her mother, Reine, as executrix and her daughter Tania as sole beneficiary.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=81–82}}

In 2012 [[Max Hastings]] wrote that Szabo was "adored by the men and women of SOE both for her courage and endless infectious [[Cockney#Dialect|Cockney]] laughter", while [[Leo Marks]] remembered her as "A dark-haired slip of mischief....She had a Cockney accent which added to her impishness".{{sfn|Hastings|2012|p=}}{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|p=79}} Assessments by her trainers were mixed: "she lacks ruse, stability and the finesse which is required and...she is too easily influenced...[but] she set an example to the whole party by her cheerfulness and eagerness to please".{{sfn|Vigurs|2021|page=38}}

===First mission===
Due to the ankle injury, Szabo's first deployment was delayed, but it was during her second course at Ringway that she first met [[SOE F Section networks#Salesman|Philippe Liewer]] (d. c. 1948). While in London, she also socialised with [[Bob Maloubier]], so SOE decided she would work as a courier for Liewer's Salesman circuit. However, the mission was postponed when F Section received a signal from [[Harry Peulevé]]'s (codename Jean) Author circuit warning that several members of the Rouen-Dieppe group had been arrested, including [[Claude Malraux]] (codename Cicero; brother of novelist [[Andre Malraux]]) and radio operator Isidore Newman.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=77–79}} This extra time meant Szabo could be sent for a refresher course in wireless operation in London, and it was then that Leo Marks, SOE's [[Cryptography|cryptographer]], seeing her struggle with her original French nursery rhyme, gave Szabo his own composition, ''[[The Life That I Have]]'' as her code poem.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=80–81}}

On the night of 5/6 April 1944, Szabo and Liewer were flown from [[RAF Tempsford]] in [[Bedfordshire]] in a [[Westland Lysander]] aircraft and landed in German-occupied France, near the village of [[Azay-le-Rideau]] in the heart of the [[Loire Valley]].{{sfn|Vigurs|2021|page=125}} Her cover was that she was a commercial secretary named Corinne Reine Leroy (the latter two names being her mother's first and maiden names), who was born on 26 June 1921 (her real birthdate) in [[Bailleul, Nord|Bailleul]], and who was a resident of [[Le Havre]], which gave her reason to travel to the Restricted Zone of German occupation on the coast.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|p=82}}

Under the code name "Louise", which happened to be her nickname (she was also nicknamed "La P'tite Anglaise", as she stood only 5'3" tall),{{sfn|Binney|2002|p=220}}<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Foot |first=M. R. D. |chapter-url=http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/38046 |chapter=Szabo, Violette Reine Elizabeth (1921–1945) |edition=rev. online |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/38046 }}</ref> she and SOE colleague Philippe Liewer (under the name "Major Charles Staunton"), organiser of the Salesman circuit, tried to assess the damage made by the German arrests, with Szabo travelling to [[Rouen]], where Liewer could not go as a wanted man (both he and Maloubier were on wanted posters with their codenames), and to Dieppe to gather intelligence and carry out reconnaissance. It soon became clear that the circuit, which originally involved over 120 members (80 in Rouen and 40 on the coast) had been exposed beyond repair. Szabo returned to Paris to brief Liewer, and in the two days, before they were due to depart, she bought a dress for Tania, three frocks and a yellow sweater for herself, and perfume for her mother and herself.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=84–94}} While the destruction of Salesman was a heavy blow to SOE, her reports on the local factories producing war materials for the Germans were important in establishing Allied bombing targets.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

[[File:Westland Lysander-B-MA.jpg|thumb|Westland Lysander MkIII (SD)]]
She returned to England by [[Westland Lysander|Lysander]], piloted by [[Bob Large]], [[Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)|DFC]], of the RAF, on 30 April 1944, landing after a stressful flight in which the plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Chateaudun, and Szabo was thrown about the body of the plane. Large had turned off the intercom when attacked and did not turn it back on for the rest of the flight, so when the plane landed heavily due to a burst tyre, and he went to get Szabo out, she (thinking they had been shot down and not having seen her blond pilot) let Large have a volley of abuse in French, mistaking him for a German. When she realised what had really happened, he was rewarded with a kiss.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=92–93}}<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12104267/Flight-Lieutenant-Bob-Large-obituary.html |title=Flight Lieutenant Bob Large – obituary |work=Daily Telegraph |date=17 January 2016 |access-date=18 January 2016}}</ref> Philippe Liewer returned at the same time in another Lysander. On 24 May 1944 Szabo was promoted to [[Ensign (rank)|Ensign]] in the [[First Aid Nursing Yeomanry#Second World War|FANY]].{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|p=95}}

===Second mission===
After two aborted attempts, due to stormy weather on the night of 4/5 June and the abandonment of the intended landing ground on 5/6 June by the Resistance reception committee because of German patrols, Szabo and three colleagues were dropped by parachute from a [[USAAF]] [[Consolidated B-24 Liberator|Liberator]] flown from [[RAF Harrington]] in [[Northamptonshire]] onto a landing field near [[Sussac]] on the outskirts of [[Limoges]] early on 8 June 1944 (immediately following [[D-Day]], and Tania Szabo's second birthday).{{efn|Vickers provides a useful illustrated narrative of Szabo's second mission and her capture by elements of 'Das Reich'.{{sfn|Vickers|2000|pp=97–110}}}} Szabo was part of a four-person team sent to operate in the department of Haute Vienne with the circuit codename 'Salesman II', led by her SOE commander Philippe Liewer (now codenamed Hamlet), whose rolled-up Rouen circuit had been 'Salesman', and including [[Second Lieutenant]] Jean-Claude Guiet (codenames Claude and Virgile) of the [[United States Army]] as wireless operator (W/O), and Bob Maloubier (alias Robert 'Bob' Mortier; codenames Clothaire and Paco), Szabo and Liewer's friend and comrade of SOE who was to act as military instructor to the local Maquis, and who had worked as weapons instructor and explosives officer for Liewer on the original Salesman I circuit. For this mission, Szabo's cover was that she was a Mme Villeret, the young widow of an antiques dealer from Nantes.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|p=105}} It is possible Szabo had twisted an ankle on landing.{{sfn|Vickers|2000|p=102}}

Upon arrival, she was sent to co-ordinate the activities of the local [[Maquis (World War II)|maquis]] in sabotaging communication lines during German attempts to stem the [[Normandy landings]]. When he arrived in the [[Limousin]], Philippe Liewer found the local maquis to be poorly led and less prepared for action than he expected. To better co-ordinate [[Resistance during World War II|Resistance activity against the Germans]], he decided to send his courier, Szabo, as his liaison officer to the more active Maquis of [[Correze]] and the [[Dordogne]], led by Jacques Poirier (SOE), head of the renamed Digger circuit, who had taken over from Harry Peulevé of the Author circuit, upon the latter's arrest.{{sfn|Ottaway|2003|pp=101–105}} However, due to poor intelligence gathering by the local Resistance, Liewer was unaware that the [[2nd SS Panzer Division]] was making its slow journey north to the [[Normandy]] battlefields through his area.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}