Blue Plaque To Be Installed for Ealing's Wartime Heroine
Odette Sansom won George Cross for aiding the resistance
Odette Sansom was living at 6 Lawrence Road when war broke out. Picture: Google Streeview
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May 7, 2025
A woman who served behind enemy lines to help the allied war effort in World War II is have be honoured with a blue plaque on her former home in South Ealing.
Mother of three, Odette Sansom, was born in France but moved to number 6 Lawrence Road after marrying an Englishman. Her husband joined the army when war broke out and she moved to Somerset with her children.
Responding to a plea from the Admiralty for pictures of the French coast, she mistakenly sent photos taken with her family to the War Office in 1942. This brought her to the attention of Colonel Maurice Buckmaster's Special Operations Executive who were looking for native French speakers.
After some training, she was landed at a beach in France to work with the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe. Operating mainly as a courier, she was captured in 1943 and questioned 14 times by the Gestapo who branded her with a red-hot poker and pulled out all her toenails. She nevertheless refused to disclose the whereabouts of her fellow agents. Sentenced to death on two counts she told her captors, "Then you will have to make up your mind on what count I am to be executed, because I can only die once.”
Odette Sansom. Picture: Imperial War Museum
She was transferred to a concentration camp where she remained until the end of the war. On her return she was awarded the George Cross.
English Heritage announced this Thursday (8 May) that the plaque is to be placed on the ordinary, late-Victorian terraced house that she lived at the outbreak of World War II.
Howard Spencer, Senior Historian at English Heritage, said, "Odette Sansom's story is one of exceptional courage and determination. A blue plaque at her pre-war home in Ealing serves as a powerful reminder of her extraordinary bravery and the significant sacrifices she made. We remember her not only for her wartime heroism but also for the life she led before, and the path that led her from this ordinary house and the life of a 1930s mother-of-three to becoming one of the best-known female agents of the war.
“Today, as we celebrate a special VE Day – 80 years since the Nazi regime officially surrendered and victory in Europe was declared – it seems all the more poignant to honour Odette with this plaque. It was this very day in 1945 that saw her homecoming after a year in captivity.”
Born Odette Marie Céline Brailly in Amiens, northern France, Sansom made a considerable contribution to the Allied war effort.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Odette Sansom's return to England on 8 May 1945, following her harrowing experiences in Nazi captivity. Her return, coinciding with the end of the war in Europe, was a moment of national celebration and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
Odette Sansom joins other remarkable female agents, such as Noor Inayat Khan, Christine Granville, and Violette Szabo, who are also commemorated with English Heritage blue plaques, highlighting the vital contributions of women to the war effort. You can learn more about what they did in a talk for the Ealing Branch of the Historical Association by Sue Elliot taking place on 13 May.
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