Roger Bardet

Roger Julien Bardet (14 March 1916 – 7 April 1972 ) was a member of the French resistance organisation known as CARTE, based in Cannes, organised by André Girard. He was betrayed by a fellow agent and became a double agent.

In November 1942 CARTE courier André 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,

London's response to Bardet's request for air transport for Marsac and ‘Colonel Henri’ was to refuse outright and insist that he immediately break off contact with Marsac and ‘Colonel Henri’, however Bardet ignored the orders and returned to Paris where he, along with a number of other agents, was arrested by Bleicher and placed in Fresnes prison.

After a series of casual daily talks in Marsac's cell, Bleicher knew just about all there was to know about the SPINDLE group in St Jorioz, including the names of Churchill and Sansom. In April 1943 he returned to Saint-Jorioz where he arrested them and transferred them to Fresnes prison, where they were interrogated before being transferred to concentration camps.

Bardet betrayed the INVENTOR network, leading to the arrests in October/November 1943 of its organiser Sidney Jones, wireless operator Marcel Clech, and courier Vera Leigh, all of whom were executed, and resulting in the collapse of the network.

Bardet also betrayed Henri Frager, another former Carte member who had been commissioned by the SOE as leader of its Donkeyman circuit, whom Bleicher arrested in July 1944, and Frager was subsequently executed.

Having obtained his liberty and sensing that Germany would lose the war, Bardet eventually rejoined the resistance movement.