The amazing story of Brian Stonehouse

Brian Julian Stonehouse's incredible life as an artist started before he joined the Special Executive Operations in World War II to be a wireless operator and later was caught yet survived numerous German camps but returning home.

Born in Torquay on August 8, 1918 Brian moved to Wimereux in Pas-do-Calais France to attend its local school. On return to England he went to Ipswich Art School where by the time of his majority he was an exceptional artist. Having joined the Territorial Army before the outbreak of the Second World War, now he was conscripted to the Royal Artillery where fluent in French he became an obvious choice as interpreter. With French troops evacuating Norway to Scotland Brian became resident in Glasgow before being commissioned to the Officer Cadet Training Unit to be a radio operator. Eventually he was picked out by the Special Operations Executive to work in France.

Parachuted to Tours’ in 1941 the “safe house” in Lyon was home to other agents including Blanche Charlet - their dedicated courier. Careless transmissions (too long on air) were soon tracked by Vichy Police which saw Brian and Blanche arrested in October that year. Blanche escaped and safely returned to London although Brian was not so lucky. Vichy Regional Direction finders had found the transmissions from Chateau Hurlevent and with Brian immediately handed over to German agents he was put in solitary confinement and later commented "he retained his sanity by reading bits of torn up newspapers provided as lavatory paper".

Before going to Fresnes prison in Paris Brian was interrogated at Castres Prison by the Gestapo interrogator Arnold Schneider who said "he would be shot as a spy" yet continued interrogating. Two years later he was in Mauthausen camp before being made a "slave labourer" at the Luftwaffe factory Vienna. On return to Mauthausen in 1944 his final move came to Natzweiler-Struthof camp in Alsace where he met Albert Guerisse. Guerisse and Stonehouse later testified to the Nazi War Crime Trials as witnessing four women being shot. Brian would constantly sketch scenes and faces at camps until noted , when the guards insisted on being sketched. This likely saved him from undertaking much heavy work. The camp Commandant was even sketched before he witnessed four females arrive - Andree Borrel, Vera Leigh, Sonya Olschanezky and fellow Torquinian Diana Rowden. All were soon shot and disposed of in the crematorium.

Final interrment came at Dachau and then the American's arrived on April 29, 1945. Now Brian witnessed fellow prisoners kill their captors until he and friend Bob Sheppard intervened and saved one guard. That guard stood trial at Frankfurt. The day before VE Day May 7,1945 Brian code name Celestin was finally reunited with Vera Atkins - aide to his SOE Commander. In debriefing him she noted his thinness yet exceptional bright dark brown eyes. By April 1946 with a military MBE Captain Stonehouse returned to Frankfurt to assist the Allied Control Commission and now confronted Shneider that first interrogator - who remarked "he would be shot". His fellow interrogators produced a tommy gun "egging him on" to shoot the tormentor, but he said only “I’m free, and he’s locked up”. Stonehouse became the only person to confirm the death of fellow Torquinian Diana Rowden.

Having survived four concentration camps in 1995 he recalled "entombment meant you had to remain a human being. That was how you won. They wanted to make us into beasts". Finally in 2002 Blanche confirmed it was "Celestin" that had burned vital papers and hid their apparatus - which was later discovered. Captain Stonehouse MBE died at age 80 in 1998 and later his brother and sister Dale and Margot would donate family items to the Holocaust Exhibition confirming “Brian always said he wanted people to know about the horrors of concentration camps so that it did not happen again”.

IAN'S COMMENT. An amazing artist from Torbay with an extra-ordinary will to survive multiple concentration camps and torture after being captured as an SOE agent.

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