Thame war hero to be made Honourary Citizen

THAME Town Council is to confer on a local man, who worked behind enemy lines during WW2, the title of Honourary Citizen.

Arthur Staggs, now aged 97, has lived in Thame since the late 1940s and is now a resident of Meadowcroft Residential Home for the elderly in Thame.

After doing his wireless operator training at Thame Park in the early years of the war, Arthur worked with the Special Operations.

His story is a facinating one as this biography put together by Jeannette Matelot Green, illustrates.

Lt. Arthur Albert George STAGGS

Arthur?s mother died when he was two years old. His Father joined the Royal Engineers in 1914 and fought in France where he met and married a French lady who spoke no English. Arthur spent a year in France and attended an Ecole Maternelle – becoming bilingual. Afterwards he returned to England and attended a Catholic School at Grays in Essex until 1925. The family then moved to Roubaix near Lille where Mr Staggs Snr worked as an engineer for a British company. Arthur served his apprenticeship here before moving to another company at Croix-Wasquehal, in Nord, where the family was living by this time.

Arthur started as a labourer but attended the firm?s night-school classes for three years studying algebra,
draughtsmanship etc. He qualified as a Quality Inspector for the forge – malleable, soft, hard iron. This was the time of the Depression and the French Government introduced a new law to reduce the foreign labour force by 35%.
Arthur?s work permit was withdrawn. His father knew the head of Perrott & Perrott and this man followed Arthur?s progress with interest finding a loop-hole to enable Arthur to continue working in France. The firm was entitled to have a full-time interpreter, which gave Arthur some valuable experience.

In September 1939, Arthur became a linguist at the Corps of Military Police (Field Security) at Sheerness in Kent. Here he was put in charge of interviewing about 300 French troops who were evacuated with the British at Dunkirk in June 1940. The purpose here was to identify Fifth Columnists; about five or six were found.

Arthur was then moved to the Intelligence Corps at Winchester where he was placed in charge of stores. He had interviews with MI5 and MI6 and was later transferred to Pembroke College, Oxford where he was frequently consulted for verification concerning French roads, towns, etc. He was then told to report to the War Office in Whitehall where he was
asked to join the SOE. After Parachute training at Manchester and Commando and Morse Code training in Scotland, he underwent Wireless training at Thame Park Radio School. This included making transmissions from North Berwick in Scotland, and involved three two-week trials to ascertain accuracy and were made back to base. Arthur’s third visit was made
on 2nd November 1942; on the 18th he was in France.

SOE Mission
Position : Wireless Operator
Nom de guerre : Albert FOULON (B