André Marsac

André Marsac was a member of the French resistance organisation known as the CARTE network or circuit, based in Cannes, organised by André Girard. Marsac acted as a courier.

In November 1942 Marsac was travelling on a train from Marseille to Paris carrying a briefcase containing a list prepared by Girard of 200 potential resistance fighters, with full descriptions of their identity and locations. His briefcase was stolen by an agent of the Abwehr while he dozed off, and the CARTE network was fatally weakened.

Marsac was arrested in Paris by German intelligence officer ‘Colonel Henri’ Hugo Bleicher who put him in Fresnes prison, where he convinced Marsac that he was an anti-Nazi German officer and could help release him, but this would require the help of a fellow agent. Marsac wrote a letter to Roger Bardet asking him to visit him in prison to discuss his escape. Armed with this letter and another to Marsac’s wife, Bleicher set off for Saint-Jorioz on the banks of Lake Annecy where Peter Churchill had relocated the SPINDLE network,