Anne-Marie Walters

Anne-Marie Walters (16 March 1923 – 2 October 1998), code name Colette, was a WAAF officer recruited into the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II.

SOE agents allied themselves with groups resisting the occupation of their countries by Axis powers.

The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied countries.

The SOE supplied resistance groups with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.

Walters was born on 16 March 1923 in Geneva to an English father, Francis Paul Walters, who was Deputy Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and a French mother.

She pursued her studies in the International School of Geneva, founded in 1924 by officials of the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization, in collaboration with educators from the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The family left Switzerland for England after the outbreak of World War II and Walters initially joined the WAAF in 1941 (Service Number 2001920. ) On 6 July 1943 she was recruited into SOE and during the summer and autumn of that year underwent training as an agent at the SOE Special Training School 23 at Loch Morar, Scotland.

SOE's appraisal of Walters after the completion of her training was cautionary.

"She is well-educated, intelligent, quick, practical, and cunning...[but] She will not hesitate always to make use of her physical attractiveness in gaining influence over men. In this respect she is likely to have a disturbing effect in any group in which she is a member."

Nevertheless, she was approved to be sent to France as an agent of SOE.

The first attempt to parachute her into France in December 1943 failed because of bad weather over the drop zone and ended with a return to England and a crash-landing at a diversionary airfield because of widespread fog.

She suffered a minor head injury in the landing.

Walters was a courier for the Wheelwright network, working from January 1944 until August 1944 in southwestern France.

Twenty-years old when she arrived in France, she was, next to Sonya Butt, the youngest female agent of SOE.

In the company of a fellow agent, Claude Arnault (code name Néron, but more commonly called Jean-Claude), she was successfully dropped into the Armagnac area in SW France on the night of 4 January 1944, to join George Starr's WHEELWRIGHT network (also called circuit and reseau).

Walters acted as a courier for Starr until after D-Day.

Yvonne Cormeau was Starr's wireless operator.

Arnault, who was the same age as Walters, was an explosives expert.

Walter's cover story was that she was a student from Paris recovering from pneumonia who was visiting a farmer friend of her fathers.

She stayed with the family in their farmhouse at Mamoulens.

Starr's headquarters were 3 km distant at Castelnau-sur-l'Auvignon.

Early in her stay in France, Starr visited her almost every day and she had to interrupt work to chat with him.

She said she wished for more independence.

In her book Walters never mentions the presence of Cormeau, the efficient wireless operator.

As a courier, Walters traveled widely by bus, train, bicycle, and charcoal-powered vehicle around southwestern France.

One of her first jobs was to organize the flight to Spain across the Pyrenees of a group of 15 members of the French Resistance who had escaped from a French prison.

She also helped convey several suitcases full of explosives to Toulouse to blow up a powder factory.

Walters, in the words of local historian Raymond Escholier, was well liked by the resistance fighters, the marquisards.

She was regarded as "the true sister of the marquisards."

With the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1944, the maquis of the resistance became bolder and the Germans more aggressive in suppressing any opposition to their occupation of France.

Starr collected about 300 men, one-half French and one-half Spanish, and arms at Castelnau sur l'Auvignon, but on 21 June an estimated 2,000 soldiers of the German army attacked Starr's men.

During the battle, Walters distributed hand grenades to the maquisards, buried incriminating documents, and collected SOE money and took it with her when she and the maquisards withdrew from the village.

Nineteen of the maquisards were killed.

After the battle, Starr and his men joined with other factions of the resistance to form the "Armagnac Battalion" commanded by a French officer, Maurice Parisot, which harried the Germany army in the region.

Walter's appraisal of Starr was unflattering.

She later said, "[Starr] is strictly an agent and neither a politician nor a military strategist...the guerrilla action he commanded was most unsuccessful."

Starr was even more critical of his youthful courier.

Among his complaints about Walters, was that she wore "high Paris fashion," thus violating his principle that couriers should be inconspicuous.

He ordered her to leave France.

On 31 July 1944, Starr sent a message to SOE headquarters in London explaining his action.