Henri Jacques Paul Frager (3 March 1897 – 5 October 1944) was a member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He was second in command of the CARTE network (under André Girard), then head of the SOE (F section) network DONKEYMAN, rising to the rank of major within SOE. SOE was a secret British organization. Its objectives were to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and Asia against the Axis powers, especially

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. SOE agents in France allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from Britain. In 1944, Frager was betrayed to the Germans, deported and executed.

Early life

Henri Jacques Paul Frager was born in France on 3 March 1897, the son of Alphonse Jean Frager and Eugénie Louis Adolpine Frager, née Sauvier. He married the Russian-born Louba Frager and worked as an architect in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionAndré Girard in a restaurant in

Antibes Antibes (, , ; ) is a seaside city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in Southeastern France. It is located on the French Riviera between Cannes and Nice; its cape, the Cap d'Antibes, along with Cap Ferrat in Saint-Jean-Ca ...

. Girard wanted to develop a network to resist the occupation and influence of

, whereas Frager was then preparing to get to London via Algeria. He reached Algeria in December that year but, after several failed attempts to get from there to London, returned to Antibes in April 1941 and got back in contact with Girard, who recruited him into CARTE as his second in command under the codename ''Louba''. With André Gillois and Colonel Vautrin, Girard and Frager recruited others for the growing network, and on 19 September 1941 Girard had his first meeting with an SOE agent, Francis Basin (codename ''Olive'').

Wartime activities

Exploring the possibilities for CARTE–SOE cooperation, SOE summoned Girard or any other officer of CARTE to come to London. Not wanting to go himself, Girard sent Frager and, on 30 June 1942, the Polish trawler ''Tarana'' took on Frager and brought him to Gibraltar, from where he flew to England by plane. In London that July, at Orchard Court, he met SOE's chiefs ( Maurice Buckmaster, Nicholas Bodington, and probably Charles Hambro and Colin Gubbins). In Girard's name, Frager set out CARTE's needs (means of communication, arms, etc.). Wanting to know more, SOE sent him back to France with Bodington (codename ''Jean-Paul'' or PROFESSOR) to study the possibilities of cooperation, clarify the confused situation in the

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

region and organised possible parachute drop-zones (SPRUCE). They were landed at Cap d'Antibes on the night of 29/30 July 1942 from the boat ''Seadog'', with agents Harry Despaigne (MAGNOLIA) and Yvonne Rudellat (SOAPTREE), and on 12 September Bodington returned to England to make a highly favourable report on CARTE. In November 1942, however, major disagreements broke out between Girard and Frager. The Germans having occupied the previously unoccupied zone of France, SOE wanted to review its plans with CARTE and demanded in a message on 12 November (received via Adolphe Rabinovitch, radio operator of the SPINDLE network) that Girard return to London. Several pick-up attempts that December failed and Frager prepared a report criticising Girard, to be transmitted to London, but Girard found out and also noted the good relations between Frager and Peter Churchill. In January–February 1943, Girard put off his departure for London indefinitely, before finally being picked up by a Hudson on the night of 21/22 February. Frager and Churchill were picked up by Lysander on the night of 23/24 March (landing at Estrées-Saint-Denis near

Compiègne Compiègne (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Oise Departments of France, department of northern France. It is located on the river Oise (river), Oise, and its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois'' (). Administration Compiègne is t ...

, piloted by Hugh Verity, flying in Francis Cammaerts and Georges Duboudin) and joined Girard in London. However, Girard refused to meet them and SOE distanced itself from Girard, opposing his return to France and warning Frager that he would have to lead what remained of the CARTE network against Hugo Bleicher (known as "colonel Henri") . On the night of 14/15 April 1943 Frager was returned to France by Lysander (BRONCHITE drop zone, near

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

) and welcomed back by Henri Déricourt (GILBERT). He flew to London again on 20/21 October 1943 (in a Hudson, from the ACHILLE landing strip near

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

), but his pick-up had been organised by Déricourt, now under surveillance by the

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, "Security Service"), full title ' ("Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''"), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the Schutzstaffel, SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence ...

(SD), the German intelligence agency.. An altercation occurred before this between Frager and Déricourt over breakfast in a café facing Angers' train station. Frager had brought along his substitute and friend, Roger Bardet (in fact released from prison by Bleicher in exchange for Bardet feeding him information, a promise Bardet seems to have kept), to assist in his departure for London, but Déricourt forbade him from doing so. Frager also believed Déricourt to be a Gestapo agent and Déricourt suspected that Frager thought as much. Hugo Bleicher wrote in his book of his recruitment of Roger Bardet as V-Mann, and how Bardet had got into Frager's good books by revealing to him that Déricourt was a double agent working for Kieffer. There was no sympathy between Bleicher (and the Abwehr) and Josef Kieffer (of the SD). Hugh Verity gives Bleicher's account thus:

Paul (Frager) once more took the plane to London. He hoped to return about 15 days later. His visit was facilitated by Gilbert, who once more enjoyed the British's confidence and had become head of all personnel on the ground for secret flights and landings by SOE's French section. This made it hard for Paul to accept Gilbert as the organisor of his visit. On this occasion there was an argument between them that Roger told me about. Roger had accompanied Paul to the secret landing strip. They had scarcely arrived when Gilbert told Roger to accompany Paul to London, telling him that the order came from F section in London. He opposed this order, and was embarked on the plane by force. Ignorant of all this, Paul also had his suspicions. I suppose Gilbert, who came into D leaderKieffer's office daily and knew the SD officers well, had been informed by them of Roger's true role and he thus wanted to dispose of him by sending him to London with a denunciation on his head. If Gilbert had got there, Paul's position would have been shaken. There was a serious altercation between Paul and Gilbert. Only Paul's determination, threatening to use his pistol, prevented Roger from being kidnapped and transferred to London by force.

Plaque Henri Frager boulevard du Montparnasse

On 29 February 1944 Frager was returned to France at Beg-an-Fry near Morlaix, under the codename ''Jean-Marie''. He was sent as head of the DONKEYMAN network, with orders to develop Resistance groups in the

Yonne Yonne (, in Burgundian: ''Ghienne'') is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight con ...

and on the

Côte d'Azur The French Riviera, known in French as the (; , ; ), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is considered to be the coastal area of the Alpes-Maritimes department, extending fr ...

. His networks developed normally, one under Bardet and the other under Kieffer (Kiki). A group headed by Frager sabotaged the celophane factory at Mantes, and reports and photographs of its missions were sent to London. Between June and August 1944, Frager's groups were supplied by 25 parachute drops, but Frager was betrayed by Bardet and arrested on 3 August 1944 and handed over to Bleicher on 8 August 1944.''Flames in the Fields'', Rita Kramer, Penguin books, 1966''Tentative of History of In/Exfiltrations into/from France during WWII from 1940 to 1945 (Border Crossings, Parachutes, Planes PU & Sea Landings), rev108-31122023'' (http://www.plan-sussex-1944.net/anglais/pdf/infiltrations_into_france.pdf), Le Plan Sussex 1944, p. 80 Deported to

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Nazi Germany, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (pre-1938 ...

, he was executed on 5 October that year.

Recognition

Distinction

* UK : Mentioned in Despatches, * France : Médaille de la Résistance (rosette).

Monuments

* As one of the 104 agents of SOE's F section F to die for France, Henri Frager is mentioned on the

memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

at Valençay (Indre). * Brookwood Memorial, Surrey, panel 21, column 3.

References

Sources and external links

* Thomas Rabino, ''Le Réseau Carte'', Perrin, 2008. * Michael Richard Daniell Foot, ''SOE in France. An account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944'', London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1966, 1968 ; Whitehall History Publishing, in association with Frank Cass, 2004. Ce livre présente la version officielle britannique de l'histoire du SOE en France. Une référence essentielle sur le sujet du SOE en France. * François Marcot (dir.), ''Dictionnaire historique de la Résistance'', coll. Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 2006, . Article "''Vomécourt, Philippe de Crevoisier de''" signé Michael R. D. Foot, pages 548-549. * Hugh Verity, ''Nous atterrissions de nuit...'', préface de Jacques Mallet, 5eme édition française, Éditions Vario, 2004. * Sir Brooks Richards, ''Secret flotillas'', 1996 {{DEFAULTSORT:Frager, Henri 1897 births 1944 deaths French Special Operations Executive personnel Recipients of the Resistance Medal French people who died in Buchenwald concentration camp British Army personnel killed in World War II British Army General List officers Military personnel from Paris