Brian Stonehouse Brian Julian Warry Stonehouse MBE ( 29 August 1918 – 2 December 1998 ) was a British painter and Special Operations Executive agent during World War II . He was born in Torquay , England . When his family moved to France , he went to school in Wimereux , Pas - de - Calais . Back in Britain in 1932 , he studied art in Ipswich at Ipswich Art School Second World War years . Stonehouse worked as an artist but joined the Territorial Army after the outbreak of World War II . He was later conscripted into the Royal Artillery . In 1940 , he worked as an interpreter for French troops in Glasgow who had been evacuated from Norway . In the autumn of 1941 , he was training for a commission in the 121 Officer Cadet Unit when the Special Operations Executive contacted him . Due to his fluency in French , SOE recruited him as a wireless operator with code name of " Celestin " . On 1 July 1941 , Brian Stonehouse parachuted into occupied France near the city of Tours in the Loire Valley . His radio got caught in a tree and he spent five nights in the forest before he could get it down . After finally retrieving it , the radio would not work properly and his contact told him to move to Lyon . In September , accompanied by another agent , Blanche Charlet , he went to a safe house and made contact with the other SOE agents . By August he was in regular contact with the SOE station in London . However he became careless and transmitted too much and too long . As a result , German direction - finders triangulated his position and the Milice arrested him on 24 October 1941 in Chateau Hurlevent near Lyon . Blanche Charlet was also captured but later managed to escape to London . After the war Stonehouse discovered that Charlet had tried to committ suicide because of the capture of the man she loved whilst her responsibility . In Castres prison , the Gestapo placed Stonehouse in solitary confinement while subjecting him to frequent and brutal interrogations . In December he was transferred to Fresnes prison in Paris and further interrogated . Eventually he was shipped to Germany with other SOE prisoners . In October 1943 , he arrived in Saarbrücken and in November was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp . He spent a brief time in a Luftwaffe factory camp in Vienna . In the summer of 1944 , he was transferred to the Natzweiler - Struthof concentration camp in Alsace with Pat O ' Leary ( war alias of Albert Guérisse ) , the Pat Line organizer . There he saved his life by drawing sketches for the camp commandant , guards and their families . Throughout his time in five prisons he kept his personal vow of never painting or drawing an officer in uniform . At the camp he witnessed the arrival of four female SOE agents , Andrée Borrel , Vera Leigh , Diana Rowden and Sonya Olschanezky who were all executed and disposed of in the crematorium in an attempt to make them disappear without a trace , under the programme of night and fog . After the war , Brian Stonehouse and Albert Guerisse were able to testify at the Nazi war crimes trials as to the women ' s fate . In 1985 , Stonehouse painted a poignant watercolour of the four women from memory which now hangs in the Special Forces Club in London . From Natzweiler - Struthof , Stonehouse was sent to the Dachau concentration camp from where he was liberated by U . S . troops on 29 April 1945 . At home , he was created a military MBE . After the war , he remained in the military and was promoted to captain while working for the Allied Control Commission in Frankfurt , Germany where he assisted with the interrogation of Gestapo and SS members . Post - war . After 1946 , Stonehouse continued his career as a fashion artist in the United States , painting for magazines like " Vogue " , Harper ' s Bazaar and Elizabeth Arden . In 1979 , he returned to Britain and became a portrait painter . His clients included members of the Royal family . One of his last portraits of The Queen Mother , who sat for him many times , still hangs in the Special Forces Club in London . During his final years Stonehouse was an active Theosophist living at the London branch of the United Lodge of Theosophists . Brian Stonehouse ' s art . Whilst operating in France Brian continued to sketch and draw people he came across . He was on several occasions told not to carry his sketch books with him whilst ' on duty ' ( Interview with his surviving brother , May 2007 ) . Throughout his times in various prisons he continued to draw , at first secretly , but after discovery more openly . His collections of drawings of fellow SOE prisoners , life in prison and prison guards along with other personal artefacts was handed over by the Stonehouse Family to the Imperial War Museum London in May 2007 . These included , as well as the War Art , for example , postwar letters from surviving SOE operatives and letters and photographs from US President Dwight D . Eisenhower . This last collection included a signed photograph and note from Eisenhower upon meeting Stonehouse again shortly after the war ended . This stated that upon meeting each other again , Brian Stonehouse asked Eisenhower if he knew why he had survived the war . The response from Eisenhower was , " I was going to ask you that " . Moyse ' s Hall Museum Bury St Edmunds discovered and facilitated the handing over of the collections following a VE Day ( Victory in Europe Day ) / VJ day ( Victory over Japan Day ) exhibition , to which the family had bought Brian ' s art and other personal artefacts .