Roberta ‘’Betty’’(Laurie) Countess de Mauduit was born 24 September 1891 in Polwarth, a residential area in the south-west of Edinburgh, Scotland, daughter of Robert Laurie and Isabella (Millar) Laurie. She emigrated to the U.S. as a child and graduated high school in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

While at sea on her first of several voyages from the U.S. to France, she met the Comtesse de Mauduit, who introduced her to her son Henri, studying in Paris to be a colonial civil servant. Henri and Betty married in Paris on 19 January 1928. After several overseas postings, they first lived at his family home, the Chateau du Bourblanc in the village of Plourivo in Brittany, in 1935. After service in the Ivory Coast, they returned to Plourivo in October 1940, five months after the fall of France to German forces. Determined to support efforts to resist the occupation, Henri escaped to the UK and eventually joined Free French forces in 1941, agreeing that Betty would stay behind to look after Bourblanc, under the express instructions not to get involved in any Resistance activities. However, Betty couldn’t keep her promise long. She looked for opportunities to help downed British aircrews and found herself drawn into Resistance activities, certain that her U.S. citizenship and social status would give her sufficient protection.

Betty started cooperation with MI9 in April 1943 to support the Oaktree evasion line for Allied personnel who landed in France. Before her capture only a few months later, she sheltered about 50 Allied aircrew members transiting along Oaktree Line, including from U.S. B-17 aircraft #42-5717, #42-5232 (‘’Available Jones’’), #42-5378, #42-29627 (‘’Midnight’’), and #42-29767 (‘’Boot Hill’’). Five members of the latter crew managed to avoid capture when Gestapo searched the Chateau and arrested her 17 June 1943. She was detained, interrogated and tortured at various sites, including 13 months in Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and later nine months in Buchenwald, from which forces from the 3rd U.S. Army freed her in April 1945.

In Fall 1945, Betty visited American and gave lectures on her experiences, collecting funds to benefit various projects. She returned to Bourblanc, while her husband held various posts in Ivory Coast and Chad during 1945-1952. In their mid-60s, the couple separated and Henri left Bourblanc. Betty and Henri eventually divorced in 1974, shortly before their deaths. Betty died of a heart attack in Plourivo on August 1, 1975, and is now buried in the Cimetière Plourivo, Paimpol, Département des Côtes-d'Armor, Bretagne, France.

Sources of information: robertlyman.substack.com, www.facebook.com/ Mansfield, MA Historical Society, robertlyman.substack.com