Royal Air Force squadron leaders

Maurice_Southgate

Maurice Southgate (20 June 1913 – 17 March 1990), code named Hector, was an officer in the Royal Air Force and an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
Southgate was the organiser (leader) of the SOE's STATIONER network (or circuit) operating in a large area centered on Châteauroux in central France and Tarbes in southern France from 1942 to 1944. He was captured by the SS in Montluçon in 1944 and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp where he survived until its liberation by American forces in 1945. Southgate was regarded by Maurice Buckmaster, head of SOE's French Section, as one of his best agents.