Roger Landes Roger Landes , MC & Bar ( 16 December 1916 – 16 July 2008 ) was an agent and radio operator in the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) , F section . Heading and arming Resistance groups , he played an important role in the liberation in the Bordeaux region , and ended the war in Force 136 . Biography . Roger was the second son ( of three ) born to Barnet Landes , of Polish - Jewish descent , and a Russian mother - Barnet ' s grandfather had fled Russian Poland to avoid the pogroms and Imperial conscription , setting up a jewellery business in Hatton Garden before settling in Paris . Barnet ' s children had then fought for Britain in the First World War . Barnet spoke poor English and so preferred to live in Paris and run a jewellery business there . It was in Paris that Roger was born and educated , and he remained there with one of his two brothers when his parents ' jewellery business collapsed in the Great Depression and they moved to London . Roger graduated in architecture at the École des Beaux Arts before also moving to London after the Munich Crisis , where he joined London County Council as a quantity surveyor . Roger was conscripted into the Royal Corps of Signals in March 1941 and , speaking better French than English and already knowing Morse code , he was soon recruited into SOE ( F section ) at the request of Lewis Gielgud and Maurice Buckmaster . His first mission , with his codename as " Aristide " , was as radio operator to the SCIENTIST network under Claude de Baissac ( " David " ) . He was parachuted into France with Gilbert Norman on the night of 31 October 2001 . 11 . 1942 . After de Baissac ' s return to England on 16 / 17 August , Landes succeeded him as the network ' s head . Recalled to London , he left on the night of 1 November 1943 , crossing the Pyrénées , being held for a time in Spain and finally reaching Gibraltar and then England , landing on 15 January 1944 by plane near Swindon . His second mission began on 1 / 2 March 1944 with an aborted attempt to parachute him back into France , in Gascony this time , postponed to the night of 2 / 3 March 1944 . The second attempt was successful , and he was accompanied by Allyre Sirois . As the head of the ACTOR network , he rebuilt it from the remains of the SCIENTIST network and equipped and headed several Resistance groups up until the liberation of Bordeaux . On the city ' s liberation on 17 September 1944 , he was presented to général de Gaulle , who said to him " You ' re English ? Your place is not here " and asked him to leave the country within 2 days . Roger Landes left Bordeaux , but stayed for a time in Paris , returning to England on 10 October , where he was looked after . In 1945 , he volunteered to join Force 136 in the Far East . In March he was sent to Colombo , and in May he and 15 commandos were parachuted into the Malayan jungle near the Thailand frontier . His actions as part of this special unit brought him a bar on his Military Cross . Recognition . In August 1950 , he was invited to Bordeaux by Jacques Chaban - Delmas , who awarded him his Légion d ' honneur in a ceremony reuniting the townsfolk and old Resistance workers . Marriage and issue . His first wife was Ginette Corbin , daughter of Charles Corbin ( a French agent of the Scientist network , to whom André Grandclément revealed that he intended to betray the arms caches to the Gestapo ) , and they had one son . She died in 1983 ( obituary - Times , 12 March 1983 ) , and Landes married Margaret Laing in 1990 , who survived him .