Date of birth:

January 19th, 1908 (Paris, France)

Date of death:

February 9th, 1971 (Boulogne-Billancourt/Hauts-de-Seine, France)

Service number:

180574

Nationality:

British

At the beginning of WWII Langelaan was a journalist working in France. After the fall of France he was recruited to work for SOE in occupied France. Yet as he had facial features that were too distinctive, it was then decided he first had to undergo plastic surgery in London. Two operations in a civilian clinic in London took place. One had pinned back his ears and reduced the size of the lobes. The next had distorted the shape of his chin by enlarging it with a bone graft taken from his thigh.
Subsequently, on the night of 6/7 September 1941- codenamed Langdon - he was parachuted back into France together with Benjamin Cowburn, Michael Trotobas, Victor Gerson, Jean du Puy, and André Bloch near Châteauroux.

See the information under the Croix de Guerre for more information.

After the war Langelaan returned to his pre-war job of writing and published many books of which "The Fly" became most famous since it was later produced into a film starring Jeff Goldblum.

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Period:

Second World War (1939-1945)

Unit:

F Section, Special Operations Executive (SOE), British Government

Awarded on:

December 1946

Citation:
"George Langelaan was parachuted into France in September 1941. Using Lyons as a base he established contact with various British sympathisers and with their help obtained a job as a local food distribution officer and under that cover was able to travel in the surrounding countryside. He amassed a great deal of valuable intelligence regarding French Resistance, the railways, and the press but was arrested and imprisoned. He finally escaped and made his way home via Spain."

In fact Langelaan was imprisoned at Beleyme prison at Périgueux in the Dordogne. Conditions were grim here, but in March, he , together with other SOE agents were moved to Mauzac concentration camp nearby.
From there Langelaan and eleven other SOE agents (Michel Trotobas, Georges Bégué, Clément Jumeau, Pierre-Bloch, Jean Bougennec, Jack Beresford Hayes, Jean-Philippe Le Harivel, Philipe Liewer, Robert Lyon, Raymond Bruce Roche) escaped in July 1942 with the help of Virginia Hall.
All 12 men eventually made it back to London, with some spending time in a Spanish prison.

• - Recommendation for Award for Langelaan, George Rank: Captain Service No: ... | The National Archives
  - https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35146/supplement/2428 - https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/39442/supplement/381 - https://www.specialforcesroh.com/ - https://mh.bmj.com/ - https://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/ - https://rhapsodyinwords.com/tag/mauzac-prison-break/ - https://isfdb.org/