This detailed, intricate, and extensively researched story by the Canadian host of CBC’s Radio’s Ideas, provides exquisite detail of the lives of two Canadian Special Operations Executives during the Second World War.
Sonia Butt, and Guy Artois were daring heroes who worked behind enemy lines in France, just before and after D-Day. They were immensely influential in providing radio communications to London and leading sabotage of German operations, often at great peril to themselves. It was only much later that they received any recognition for their major roles.
Guy was born in Richmond, Quebec and joined the Canadian Army as a paratrooper. But he was also an charming natural leader and adventurer and after the war, served in the Korean War, and lived a military life, travelling around the world, often away from his family for extended periods.
Sonia Butt was born in France, then moved to England and later to Canada. Before women were allowed into regular combat roles, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was also parachuted into France behind enemy lines. She married Guy shortly before they were separated to run different operations and did not know each other’s fate for more than two years. She had a brief affair with a British officer, which Guy forgave her for when they reunited. After the war they raised six children in a variety of military homes across Canada, mostly in Quebec.
The horrors of the war are described in heart-wrenching detail and were not limited to the Nazis, with cold- blooded shooting of hundreds of men line up against a wall by the SOE. In my mind, there is little more cruel than threatening to take the lives of innocent relatives of enemy operatives, a widespread practice of Nazis.
Not familiar with much of the geography of France, I found some of the description of operations in small towns and villages confusing.
4.0/5
Thanks, Michelle and Rhynda.
The Passionate Reader 