F . F . E . Yeo - Thomas Wing Commander Forest Frederick Edward " Tommy " Yeo - Thomas , " Croix de guerre " ( with palms ) , Commandeur of the Légion d ' honneur , ( 17 June 1902 – 26 February 1964 ) was a British Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) agent in World War II . Codenamed " SEAHORSE " and " SHELLEY " in the SOE , Yeo - Thomas was known by the Gestapo as " The White Rabbit " . His particular sphere of operations was Occupied and Vichy France . Life and career . Early life . Forest Frederick Edward Yeo - Thomas was born in London to John Yeo Thomas , a coal merchant , and Daisy Ethel Thomas ( born Burrows ) . Early in his life , his family moved to Dieppe , France . He spoke both English and French fluently . He saw action in the Polish - Soviet War of 1919 - 1920 , fighting alongside the Poles . He was captured by the Soviet Russian forces , and avoided execution by escaping , in the process strangling a Russian guard . Life as an agent . Between the wars , Yeo - Thomas worked for Molyneux , a successful fashion - house in Paris . However , after the fall of France and the chaotic evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940 , he escaped back to England , where he initially worked as an interpreter for de Gaulle ' s Free French forces . However , he was quickly prised away from de Gaulle by the British Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) , a newly formed intelligence and subversion organization . He had enlisted in the RAF but was soon made an officer . At first Yeo - Thomas worked in an administrative capacity , but SOE soon used him as a liaison officer with the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d ' Action ( BCRA ) , the Free French intelligence agency . He was parachuted into occupied France for the first time on 25 February 1943 . Both within France and back in England , Yeo - Thomas forged links with Major Pierre Brossolette and Andre Dewavrin ( who went under the codename Colonel Passy ) , and between them they created a strategy for obstructing the German occupation of France . While working for SOE , he returned to France on 17 September 1943 . He was appalled by the lack of logistical and material support which the French resistance movements such as the " maquis " were receiving , to the extent that he begged five minutes with Winston Churchill , the British Prime Minister . Churchill , reluctant at first , but fascinated by what Yeo - Thomas told him , agreed to help him obtain resources for the resistance . In February 1944 , Yeo - Thomas was parachuted into France after flying from RAF Tempsford . However , he was betrayed and captured at the Passy metro station in Paris . In endeavouring to hide his true identity , Yeo - Thomas claimed he was a British pilot named Kenneth Dodkin . He was then taken by the Gestapo to their headquarters at Avenue Foch and subjected to brutal torture , including repeated submersion in ice - cold water ( each time to the point that artificial respiration was required to bring him back to consciousness ) , innumerable physical beatings , and electric shocks applied to the genitals . Held in Fresnes prison , he made two failed attempts to escape and was transferred first to Compiègne prison and then to Buchenwald concentration camp . Within the camp , he began to organize resistance , and again made a brief escape . On his recapture , he passed himself off as a French national and was sent to a prisoner - of - war camp , Stalag XX - B , near Marienburg . While at Buchenwald , Yeo - Thomas met Squadron leader Phil Lamason , the officer in charge of 168 Allied airmen being held there . At great risk , Yeo - Thomas assisted Lamason in getting word out of camp to the German Luftwaffe of the airmen ' s captivity , knowing that the Luftwaffe would be sympathetic to their situation . Eventually , after several more failed attempts to escape , he succeeded and reached Allied lines in late April 1945 . After the war . After the war , Yeo - Thomas was to be an important witness at the Nuremberg War Trials in the identification of Buchenwald officials . He was a key prosecution witness at the Buchenwald Trial held at Dachau Concentration Camp between April and August 1947 . At this trial , 31 members of the Buchenwald staff were convicted of war crimes . He was also a surprise defence witness in the war crimes trial of Otto Skorzeny , particularly on the charge of Skorzeny ' s improper use of American uniforms in infiltrating American lines . Yeo - Thomas testified that he and his operatives wore German uniforms behind enemy lines while working for the SOE . He died at the age of 61 in his Paris apartment following a massive haemorrhage . He was cremated in Paris and then subsequently repatriated to be interred in Brookwood Cemetery , Surrey . His grave can be found in the Pine Glades Garden of Remembrance . In March 2010 his life was commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque erected at his flat in Queen Court where he lived in Guilford Street , Camden , Central London . George Cross citation . The London Gazette 15 February 1946 citation read : Awards and Honours . Yeo - Thomas ' s medal list : < br > Medals . Yeo - Thomas ' s George Cross and other medals are displayed within the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum .