Edgard Potier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dominique Edgard Potier was a Belgian Air Force officer, who escaped to England, via France, Spain and Portugal, arriving in March 1942. He joined MI9 and in July 1943 was parachuted into the Ardennes, with his radio operator Conrad Lafleur, to set up escape routes for downed allied airmen - the POSSUM line (also known as Mission Martin). Their mission was to organise the recovery and shelter of evading allied personnel in the Belgian Ardennes and establish escape lines to the region of Reims in northern France, along which the evaders could travel. From there the evaders were either returned to England by aircraft (Lysander) or passed on to other escape line organisations. The organisation was betrayed and Potier was captured by the German Sicherheitsdienst, at the end of December 1943. After extreme torture, he committed suicide on 8 January 1944, in Reims prison and died on 11 January 1944.