Last update: 18 January 2024 - Dernière mise-à-jour: 18 janvier 2024
Photo of Raymond LaBrosse from http://www.rcsigs.ca/index.php/LaBrosse,_Raymond_Joseph_Marcel
Raymond LaBrosse
Ottawa, Ontario (1922 – 1988)
WW2 MI-9 Undercover Agent
This site is dedicated to the memory of Raymond LaBrosse.
Born in Ottawa, Raymond LaBrosse was 18 years old when he went overseas for the first time in 1940 as a radio operator for the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. The British Secret Service was typically short of wireless operators who were fluent in French. Section 9 of Military Intelligence (MI-9) contacted LaBrosse, who became the first Canadian to be part of MI-9 in 1942. His covername was Marcel Desjardin, a seller of medical supplies. Parachuted down in France during Nazi occupation as secret agents, LaBrosse and his colleague Claude Dumais were instrumental in Operation Bonaparte which was a key component of the SHELBURN network. This network became to be one of the most efficient in WW2 with 307 pilots downed behind enemy lines to be smuggled back to England; 128 of these were attributable to Labrosse and Dumais.
Raymond LaBrosse was awarded the Military Cross, the U.S. Medal of Freedom, the Croix de Guerre from France in addition to the Legion of Honour. In 1948, he joined the Royal 22nd Regiment and participated in the Korean War in 1953-1954. He died in August 1988 at the age of 67 years old. A road, in the southern section of Chapel Hill in Ottawa/Orleans, was named in his honour “Raymond LaBrosse Street” in 1990. Raymond LaBross is buried at the Pinecrest Cemetery in Ottawa.
Source: SOE Archives & “Canadians Behind Enemy Lines” by Roy MacLaren (1981)
More information will be forthcoming with the acquisition of SOE Archive materials from the UK National Archives (17 May 2019) ...
If you have questions or suggestions, please email Richard at his spytools@sympatico.ca email address.
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