• Operation Frankton

Date of birth:

September 11th, 1895 (Sutton/Surrey, United Kingdom)

Date of death:

January 8th, 1987 (Germany)

Nationality:

British

Born in 1895 in Sutton, Surrey, Mary came from a privileged background yet chose a life of service. During World War I she trained as a nurse, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment where her stubborn spirit once earned her a night’s confinement after a spat over cleaning bedpans. Soon she joined the French Red Cross’s Secours aux Blesses Militaries, and in 1917 at Soissons she risked everything to care for wounded soldiers—even when the press mistakenly reported her death. Her gallantry earned her the French Croix de Guerre (with Star) and the Russian Order of St. Anne.

After the war, Mary married Count Marie Joseph de Milleville and settled in Paris with their three children—Maurice, Octave, and Marie (“Barbé”). When Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940 and her husband was abroad, Mary quickly turned her focus to rescuing stranded British soldiers and airmen. Displaying her WWI medals prominently on her Red Cross uniform, she utilized a farm near Sauveterre-de-Béarn on the border between occupied and unoccupied France as a key transit point. Through bold negotiations with German officials and cooperation with escape networks like the Pat O’Leary Line, she helped hundreds reach safety.

Her daring work, however, led to her arrest in early 1941, resulting in a nine-month solitary confinement (with her son Maurice also imprisoned separately). After a dramatic escape—disguised as an elderly governess and aided by an American Vice Consul—Mary reached London in July 1942. Following training with M19 operatives, she returned covertly to France in October 1942 to establish the Marie-Claire Line, which continued to channel aircrew and soldiers to freedom despite further hardships, including a severe cycling accident and later detention in Ravensbruch concentration camp. Rescued by the Swedish Red Cross on 25 April 1945, Mary resumed her post-war role with the RAF Escaping Society, although she later mourned the loss of a son in a concentration camp. She died on 8 January 1987 in Germany.

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• Photo 1: kathrynspurling.com
• - Ashdown, P., A Brilliant Little Operation - The Cockleshell Heroes and The Most Courageous Raid of World War 2 (2013)
  - ordredelaliberation.fr
  - London Gazette
  - Medals

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