Geoffrey MacLeod Hallowes was an officer of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War.
13 Facts About Geoffrey Hallowes
Geoffrey Hallowes was the third husband of World War II heroine Odette Sansom ; they married in 1956.
Geoffrey Hallowes was educated at the Aldro prep school, Eastbourne, the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz in Switzerland, and at Jesus College, Cambridge, but left without a degree.
Geoffrey Hallowes's unit was one of the last to escape into Singapore before the causeway to Malaya was destroyed.
When Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942, Geoffrey Hallowes joined Major "Nick" Nicholson to form one of two pairs of officers who were sent to carry the order to ceasefire to garrisons on the islands of Pulau Blakang Mati and Pulau Brani.
Geoffrey Hallowes became a staff captain in Bombay in May 1942, but volunteered to join SOE.
Geoffrey Hallowes joined a special forces training school in Haifa, and became a member of SOE's Force 133, in Cairo, earmarked for assignments in Yugoslavia.
Geoffrey Hallowes led his team, code-named "Jeremy", with French Lieutenant Henri Charles Giese and radio operator Sergeant Roger Leney.
Geoffrey Hallowes assisted the Free French forces by arranging a drop of arms, assisting them to liberate French villages, and encouraging them to prevent the Germans from withdrawing across the Rhone.
Geoffrey Hallowes received a Croix de Guerre for his activities in France.
Back in Britain in September 1944, Geoffrey Hallowes joined SOE's Special Planning Unit 22, to consider the feasibility of sending German-speaking SOE operatives into German territory.
Geoffrey Hallowes took charge of the prisoner of war elements, which gained useful intelligence of the Germans before the war ended, and of Soviet forces afterwards.
Geoffrey Hallowes retired from the board of IDV in 1983, and died in 2006, aged 88.