Antonia Lyon-Smith

Lyon-Smith Née Smith, was the daughter of the Canadian housewife Phyllis Alleyne Lyon-Smith née Hellmuth and British Brigadier Tristram Lyon-Smith. On 16 May 1943, Brigadier Lyon-Smith, who fought in the North African campaign, was recommended for a Distinguished Service Order for outstanding courage in the field. It was awarded on 8 July 1943. Lyon-Smith received a second honour in the form of a military CBE on 11 October 1945 for outstanding powers of leadership as Commander Royal Artillery of 7th Armoured Division (CRA 7th Armoured Desert Rats). Her grandfather was Isaac Hellmuth. When she was six, Lyon-Smith travelled to Egypt with her parents, when her father was stationed there for two years at the British Army garrison in Heliopolis in Cairo. Two years later, her parents were posted to India and the family felt that the place was unsuitable for a child, so Lyon-Smith stayed with her cousins Marcel and Diane Provost, in Menglas, Concarneau in Brittany. The Provosts owned a fish canning business and also two houses, one in Paris and one in Concarneau. Two years later, her parents were posted back to Great Britain and Lyon-Smith joined them at the military base at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire when she was thirteen. ==Brittany==

With the start of World War II, Lyon-Smith's father's regiment was sent to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Lyon-Smith and her mother were forced to move out of the garrison. Lyon-Smith was sent to boarding school, while her mother stayed with friends. Later in the year, her mother gave Lyon-Smith the choice of spending the war in Brittany at her cousin's or go to stay at her grandmother's house on Lake Simcoe in Ontario for the duration of the war. Phyllis Lyon-Smith's reasoning was based on the belief that the Second World War would be similar to the first and that being in France meant her husband would not need to travel back to Great Britain to see them. She also believed that Brittany would be a safe place for her daughter. In November 1939, both Lyon-Smith and her mother travelled to Concarneau via Calais. After Phyllis received a telegram that her husband was back in Great Britain, she decided to move back. However, believing that Brittany was a safe location for her daughter and as she was under 16 was covered by the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, she left her daughter in the charge of her cousins, in June 1940. She also left her jewellery with Lyon-Smith. ==World War II==

On 21 June 1940, the German Army invaded Concarneau and Marcel and Diana's house was requisitioned. The German Army started the process of moving everybody over the age of sixteen away from the coast, so Lyon-Smith was sent to a convent in Châteauneuf. After an ear infection, Lyon-Smith was taken to hospital in Quimper. In December 1940 and while still in hospital, she was interned along with her nanny and other British subjects to a camp on the outskirts of Quimper, then taken by train and lorry, along with many hundreds of other people to the condemned internment Camp (Konzentrationslager) at Besançon (Frontstalag 142 or Caserne Vauban). At the end of 1940, 2,400 women, mostly British, were interned in the barracks, along with 1600 other nationalities, in a camp suitable for only 2000 people. In March 1941, Lyon-Smith was released after the Red Cross visited the camp. She moved to a pension in Neuilly and told to report to the local police station every morning. During the freezing winter of 1941-1942, Lyon-Smith caught pneumonia. While in Neuilly, Lyon-Smith enrolled in a school under a false name, at Cours Montaigne, where she sat the Pre-Baccalaureate and passed. Escape from Paris In July 1941, Lyon-Smith's cousin Diana was able to procure false identity papers, the ''carte d'identité under the name Maria Cormet'', Lyon-Smith initially denied being Lyon-Smith, stating that she was Savier, even though her school books had been seized and they were tagged with her real name. She eventually admitted to being Lyon-Smith, as her French was not good enough to maintain the pretense of being a French schoolgirl and was subject to continual interrogation over months. Shortly after her arrest, Lyon-Smith caught a skin disease on her back that was not amenable to normal treatment. Over several weeks, Lyon-Smith slowly formed a dependent relationship with interpreter Karl Gagel, who wanted to marry her. Gagel was always present at the interrogations to translate Müller. Lyon-Smith pretended it was a romantic relationship with Gagel, to ensure she received preferential treatment. Gagel persuaded Heinz Pannwitz, chief of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle to allow Lyon-Smith to attend the surgery of a doctor in the local neighbourhood for treatment. As the months passed, passing Christmas into the spring of 1944, Lyon-Smith's condition worsened, as the doctor's treatments failed. By March 1944, Lyon-Smith was seriously ill. On 13 March 1944, she was released on leave of parole, after managing to satisfy the Gestapo that she had no connection with the French Resistance. Lyon-Smith was instructed by Pannwitz to stay with Diane Provost. In April, Lyon-Smith received a phone call from Gagel, which scared her, but she agreed to meet him, and later agreed to meet him once or twice a week to avoid reprisals. At the end of July, Gagel informed Lyon-Smith during a phone call that the Gestapo was leaving Paris and that they should meet to say goodbye, threatening her with the knowledge that he had his service pistol with him. Liberation After the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 Lyon-Smith received a visit from her father, whose division was fighting to the north of Paris, and who arranged for her to fly home to Great Britain. Arriving in London, Lyon-Smith took a train up to Glasgow where she met her mother on the platform of Glasgow Central Station. Phyllis Lyon-Smith had lived in a hotel in Ayr for the duration of the war and worked as a member of the Royal Voluntary Service. After recovering, Lyon-Smith joined the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNV). ==After World War II==

On 15 July 1942, MI5 reported Lyon-Smith by opening a new named intelligence document held at Camp 020, possibly initiated by a word from Brigadier Tristram Lyon-Smith. it posits the fact that Lyon-Smith was not interned or jailed in a cell, but instead kept in nominal custody in the Sonderkommando offices in Paris. She was allowed a certain amount of freedom, doing little apart from making tea, listening to the radio or sewing. Certainly in her biography, Lyon-Smith does say she visited the opera to view Die Fledermaus. However, she did not mention Pannwitz in the biography nor present a visage of somebody who was free to walk about the Sonderkommando offices, nor agreeing to marry Gagel. Gagel made two attempts to contact Lyon-Smith after the war but was unsuccessful. On 20 June 1946, Lyon-Smith married David Ellis, a Lieutenant and the son of a Brigadier Richard Stanley Ellis CBE, MC at Symondsbury Church in Symondsbury. In 1947, Lyon-Smith's mother died. After the war, Lyon-Smith lived in Devon. The couple had a son, Roger Hunt. ==Death==

Hunt died on 9 October 2010. ==References==