Claude de Baissac Claude Denis Boucherville de Baissac , known as Claude de Baissac or by his codename " David " ( born 28 February 1907 , Curepipe , Mauritius - died 22 December 1974 ) was a Mauritian of French descent who became an agent in the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) . He organised the important French Resistance network SCIENTIST , in south - west France from August 1942 to March 1943 and in Britanny from February 1944 onwards . His elder sister Lise was also an SOE agent . World War II . His first mission came on 30 July 1942 , when he and his radio operator Peulevé were parachuted in from a Halifax near Nîmes to set up and head the SCIENTIST network . However , they were dropped from too low an altitude and landed badly - de Baissac broke his ankle and Peulevé was so badly hurt he had to return to England . In the following months , de Baissac developed the SCIENTIST network in the Bordeaux region , receiving reinforcements in the form of Roger Landes ( codenamed " Stanislas " , his new radio operator , dropped on 2 November ) and Mary Herbert ( codenamed " Marie - Louise " , his liaison officer , landed by boat on 8 November ) . Certain resistance group concentrated their efforts for a joint attack on the submarine pens in the port and other operations in the Landes countryside . As explained by Paddy Ashdown in a BBC " Timewatch " documentary , due to " a Whitehall cock - up of major proportions " , de Baissac was preparing to take explosives on board German ships in the harbor of Bordeaux when he heard explosions from the partly successful Operation Frankton . Had the Royal Marines of Operation Frankton cooperated with de Baissac , they could have jointly dealt a stronger blow , but SOE ' s policy of secrecy even from other parts of the British Forces prevented this . De Baissac worked closely with Francis Suttill and his " Prosper " - PHYSICIAN network in Paris , before briefly returning to London on the night of 17 / 18 March 1943 in a Lysander to announce that the network had 11 , 000 men at its disposal . In May 1943 , Suttill warned de Baissac that he thought Henri Déricourt , a member of SCIENTIST , was working for the Germans just before de Baissac was parachuted back in at the full moon with new instructions . The parachute drops of men and supplied intensified , but on 23 June the Gestapo captured Suttill and hundreds of other agents and Resistance workers from " Prosper " - PHYSICIAN and other networks and attached groups . The SCIENTIST network was caught up in PHYSICIAN ' s fall and on the night of 16 / 17 August , Claude , Lise and Nicholas Bodington returned to England by Lysander , with Roger Landes ( " Aristide " ) replacing Claude at the head of SCIENTIST until November 1943 . In February 1944 de Baissac was parachuted into Mayenne with an all - Mauritian team made up of his sister Lise , captain Jean - Marie Renaud - Danticolle ( codenamed " René " ) and the radio operator Maurice Louis Larcher ( code named " Vladimir " ) . His new mission was to amalgamate , arm and energise the Resistance groups in the region stretching from Caen to Laval . When D - Day came , he joined George Starr and his WHEELWRIGHT network in the south - west . Family . After the war he and Mary Herbert married .