Raymond Couraud

Raymond Couraud (aka Captain Jack William Raymond Lee, born 12 January 1920 at Surgères, Charente-Maritime – 1977), was a French soldier and gangster, who through his World War II military exploits became a highly decorated member of the French-section of the British Army's Special Air Service.

Biography Couraud was born 12 January 1920 at Surgères, Charente-Maritime, France. Little is known of his early life, or education.

French Foreign Legion On 19 March 1938, Couraud joined the French Foreign Legion under his real name, but with a birth date of 12 January 1916 in Namur, Belgium. This would have made him 22 and old enough to join, whereas he was actually just over 18 and too young.

After training, on 3 March 1940, he was assigned to the 5th Company of the 13th Brigade. With this unit he took part in the Battles of Narvik, for which he won the Croix de Guerre with palm, for dislodging two enemy soldiers with a grenade attack: in April 1944 the unit withdrew for recuperation in Scotland.

Operation Gaff

After Couraud returned to the UK, he was commanded to set up a specialist six-man assassination unit in preparation for D-Day and the Invasion of Europe, which would target high-ranking Nazi Wehrmacht staff.

From March 1943, British Intelligence had been trying to find Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's headquarters in France. Part of the brief looked at creating a timetable for Rommel, to assess how easy it would be to kill him. Much as though he had been against the plan pre-D-Day, with manpower losses escalating Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery approved the plan post D-Day, even though they still didn't know where Rommel's base was. In a bizarre coincidence, on 9 June SAS Lieutenant General was heading for a meeting with a French Resistance unit. Resting in a barn, he was approached by a man who lived in La Roche-Guyon, asking for assurances that as Rommel's headquarters was in the village, that the Royal Air Force would not bomb them.

On learning of the location of Rommel's HQ, Couraud and his unit were moved to a flat in London, to wait for a storm to pass and be parachuted into Orléans. Arriving on 18 July, the team radioed in, but found that Rommel had been severely injured the previous day after his staff car had been over turned in an attack by RAF Hawker Typhoons, and replaced by Günther von Kluge.

Post August 1944 After Operation Gaff, Couraud was assigned as second in command of 2 SAS under Roy Farran. Split into two teams starting from Orléans and Rennes, the teams met up near Langres, where they built an SAS field operations base.

Returning to England in September 1944, with the liberation of France, Couraud left the British Army in December 1944.