Memorial Reisitance Fighter Walthère Dewé

In the Brouwerijstraat in Ixelles there is a memorial plaque with French text for Walthère Dewé.
Translated: "Here fell the convinced Liège patriot Walthère Dewé,
hero of the two wars 1914-1918 - 1940-1945
who refused to surrender,
on January 14, 1944 under German bullets."

Walthère Dewé (1880-1944) was a telecommunications engineer.
At the start of World War I, together with Professor Chauvin, he set up a spy network called "Michelin" to establish contacts with the Allied intelligence services.
Later the name of the network was changed to "Dame Blanche".
Dewé developed the network professionally, dividing the territory into four separate sectors, which reported to a headquarters, which in turn smuggled the information gathered to the Netherlands. This allowed the network to continue to function, even if a unit was rolled up. The network monitored rail traffic, identified the army units behind the front, intercepted mail and also monitored the German police.
After the war, in 1919, he was praised by Douglas Haig and was crowned by the British king
George V appointed Commander of the British Empire.

In 1939 Dewé was contacted again by the British Secret Intelligence Service to set up an intelligence network. He subsequently founded the Corps d'Observation Belge (COB), made up of Belgian businessmen. Under cover of their commercial connections to Germany, these agents engaged in industrial espionage to monitor the progress of the German war effort.
In June 1940, from the beginning of the German occupation, he started spying on the Wehrmacht along with his close associate Hector Demarque whose war name was "Clarence". Dewé also took this war name for the network.
On July 22, 1941, a first search took place in Dewé's house while he was in hiding. The Gestapo repeated this again in September and December, but each time they came out empty-handed.
In 1943 Dewé's wife died of a heart attack.
On January 14, 1944, a week after the arrests of his two daughters and son, Dewé in hiding was still in contact with resistance members within the Régie des Téléphones, where he was formerly chief engineer. He learned that the Gestapo had identified Thérèse de Radiguès, one of the co-founders of the Clarence network. He immediately went to Ixelles to warn her, but when they arrived the Gestapo was already there.
He tried to flee, first by tram and then on foot, but was shot by a passing officer of the Luftwaffe on Place Flagey and died.
The Gestapo did not know his identity, it was only at the end of the war that it became clear that the leader of the Clarence network had died.

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Source

• Text: Marie-Christine Vinck
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck