Anne-Marie Walters

Infobox Military Person
name=Anne-Marie Walters


caption=
born=birth date|1923|3|16
died=death date|1998|10|3
placeofbirth= Geneva, Switzerland
placeofdeath=
nickname=Colette
allegiance=United Kingdom, France
branch=Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Special Operations Executive, French Resistance
serviceyears=1941-1944
rank=Field agent
unit=
commands=Wheelwright
battles=
awards=
relations=
laterwork=Author, Editor and Translator

Anne-Marie Walters (16 March 1923 – 3 October 1998) was a WAAF officer recruited into the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Her code name was "Colette".

Walters was born in Geneva of an English father, F.P. Walters, who had been Deputy Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and a French mother. The family left Switzerland for England after the outbreak of the war and Walters initially joined the WAAF in 1941 (Service Number 2001920 [Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott, "Mission Improbable: A salute to the RAF women of SOE in wartime France", London, Patrick Stevens Limited, 1991. ISBN 1-85260-289-9] ). On 6 July 1943 she was recruited into SOE and during the summer and autumn of that year underwent training as an agent at the SOE Special Training School 23 at Loch Morar, Scotland. [National Archives, Kew, HS 9/339/2 (filed under her married name of Anne-Marie Comert)]

The first attempt to parachute her into France in December 1943 failed because of bad weather over the dropping zone and ended with a crash-landing back in England (at a diversionary airfield because of widespread fog). [National Archives, Kew, HS 9/339/2] There is a dramatic account of this incident in the first chapter of her book. [Walters, Anne-Marie, "Moondrop to Gascony" (Macmillan 1946)]

In the company of a fellow agent, Claude Arnault ("Néron"), she was successfully dropped into the Armagnac area in SW France on the night of 3rd/4th January 1944, to join George Starr’s WHEELWRIGHT circuit. [Foot M.R.D., "SOE in France", (Routledge 2004), 332.] Walters acted as a courier for Starr until after D-Day. She worked alongside Yvonne Cormeau (Starr's Wireless Operator). On her return to Britain in August 1944 she attempted to return to France on active service, if not with SOE then with the Free French Forces. In this she was unsuccessful. Having been promoted to the rank of Section Officer in May 1944 while she was in the field, Walters resigned her commission in November 1944 and left SOE at the same time. She was subsequently awarded the MBE (Civil list) for her work in occupied France. [National Archives, Kew, HS 9/339/2]

in 1947.

After the war she lived in Spain and France and was known as a translator and editor under her married name Anne-Marie Comert. She died in France in 1998 at the age of 75.

References