Marcus Reginald Bloom (24 September 1907 – 6 November 1944) was a British Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War.

Early life

Bloom was born in 1907 in Brick Lane, Whitechapel (as per his birth certificate) but the family later moved to Tottenham, London, the son of Harry Pizer Bloom and Anna Sadie Davidoff Bloom, in an orthodox Jewish home. He helped out working at his father’s cinema in Wandsworth, their mail order textile firm, or in their restaurant business. In the 1930s his father sent him Paris to run the mail-order business, and he became fluent in French. The firm closed after five years and he returned to London and married in March 1938.

World War II

He served in the Royal Artillery in 1941 and joined the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

The National Archives : HS 9/166/7 – Marcus BLOOM
/ref> in February 1942. On the night of 3/4 November 1942 he was landed at Port Miou, near

Cassis Cassis (; Occitan: ''Cassís'') is a commune situated east of Marseille in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, whose coastline is known in English as the French Riviera, in Southern France. In 2016, ...

in southern France, with SOE agents George Starr, organiser of

WHEELWRIGHT A wheelwright is a Artisan, craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright", (which comes from the Old English word "''wryhta''", meaning a worker or shaper of wood) as in shipbuilding ...

; Mary Herbert, courier for

SCIENTIST A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...

;

Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBE Croix de Guerre, CdG (born 20 April 1890, Sedan, Ardennes, Sedan, France) was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine organization, the Special Operation ...

, courier for

SPRUCE A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ( taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the sub ...

; and Odette Sansom for

SPINDLE Spindle may refer to: Textiles and manufacturing * Spindle (textiles), a straight spike to spin fibers into yarn * Spindle (tool), a rotating axis of a machine tool Biology * Common spindle and other species of shrubs and trees in genus '' Euony ...

.''Secret Flotillas: the Clandestine Sea Lines to France and French North Africa'', Brooks Richards,

HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the U ...

, 1996. He became wireless operator in the PRUNUS network organised by

Maurice Pertschuk Maurice Pertschuk MBE, LdH, CdeG (31 July 1921 – 29 March 1945) was a French Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. Early life The son of Jacob Joseph Pertschuk and Ethel Muriel (née Sborowfsky), Russian-born Jews ...

, with

Philippe de Gunzbourg Baron Philippe de Gunzbourg LdH CdG MBE (1904–1986) was a French aristocrat who became a Special Operations Executive agent during the World War II. Early life Philippe Georges de Gunzbourg was born in Paris on 17 February 1904, the son ...

as courier. Bloom worked very successfully and sent and received many messages to and from London (estimated at over fifty), having to keep constantly on the move to avoid the German radio detection vans. He also assisted in sending and receiving messages for Starr in the WHEELWRIGHT network. Philippe de Gunzbourg noted that Pertschuk had a reckless lack of security, with resistance leaders sharing tables in black-market restaurants in Toulouse and speaking in English, and on 12 April 1943 Pertschuk, Bloom, and several of their key colleagues were arrested. They were possibly betrayed by double agent Roger Bardet. The network collapsed though de Gunzbourg escaped and transferred to the WHEELWRIGHT network. Pertschuk was deported to

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

and executed.''Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France.'' Max Hastings.
/ref> Bloom was taken to

Fresnes prison Fresnes Prison (''French Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes'') is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne, south of Paris. It comprises a large men's prison (''maison d'arrêt'') of about 1200 cells, a small ...

and Avenue Foch in Paris and severely beaten but revealed nothing. In August 1944 he was deported to Mauthausen and executed on 6 November 1944. Marcus Bloom -1

"Lt Marcus R Bloom Mentioned in Despatches Jewish secret agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) lived at 9 Brownlow Court. Captured and murdered in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, 1944. Be Strong and of Good Courage (Joshua 1:9) Hebrew Text (Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and AJEX U.K.)"

Recognition

Awards

* United Kingdom:

Mentioned in Despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

Monuments

* He is honoured at The Valençay SOE Memorial,

Indre Indre (; oc, Endre) is a landlocked department in central France named after the river Indre. The inhabitants of the department are known as the ''Indriens'' (masculine; ) and ''Indriennes'' (feminine; ). Indre is part of the current administ ...

, as one of the 104 agents of section F who lost their lives for France’s liberation. * Brookwood Memorial, Surrey. Panel 21 Column 3. * On a plaque on his mother’s grave at Edmonton Federation Synagogue cemetery, Montague Road, London. * On the War Memorial of the St John’s Wood Synagogue in Grove End Road, London. *Memorial at Mauthausen camp. *A memorial plaque at Brownlow Court, Hampstead, erected in 2022 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and AJEX -U.K.

Early life

World War II

Recognition

Awards

Monuments

References

Further reading