Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare and well documented French Resistance group of three awarded to Miss Ruth Salwey, ‘the daughter of a Commander R.N.’ who was interned at the time of the German invasion of France - a story retold in her published work, Twenty-Seven Steps of Humiliation: and her subsequent part in rescuing Allied soldiers and airmen, and Jewish families, is described at length in an accompanying statement of services - gallant work that led to her arrest and incarceration in the notorious Fresnes Prison

British Red Cross Society Medal 1914-18; France, War Commemorative Medal 1939-45, clasp, Liberation; France, Croix de Combattant Volontaire de la Resistance 1939-45, together with British Red Cross Society ‘For Service’ Badge, gilt and enamel, the reverse officially numbered ‘25210’, good very fine (4) £700-900

Ruth Blanche Salwey was born in Greenwich in June 1889, the daughter of Edward Salwey, who was then attending the Royal Naval College in the rank of Lieutenant - her father, an extraordinary man noted for his fearless, almost reckless courage, and overwhelming sense of humour, would later share in her wartime experiences in Occupied France, and was the subject of a biography, Beloved Commander, published by Ruth in 1962.

Accompanying documentation charts much of Ruth’s life and times, including the fact that she served with the British Red Cross in London from September 1917 until February 1923, but above all it confirms much about her subsequent resistance activities in Paris and its environs. Having settled there with her parents between the Wars, she, and them, were arrested and interned in December 1940, and remained incarcerated at Besancon until March 1941, when they were unexpectedly released.

As stated, a full account of this harrowing time may be found in Twenty-Seven Steps to Humiliation, and had the Germans any idea of Salwey’s activities in June-December 1940, she would never have been released - indeed she may have been executed - for she had harboured for much of that period two Senagalese troops who had survived a massacre at Beauvais, up until false papers were obtained for their onward journey. In her own words, a number of Senagalese troops ‘had been put up against a wall and then machine-gunning began ... these two were in the middle of the group ... they were covered in the blood of their comrades and stayed where they had fallen for 12 hours’.

Seemingly all the more determined to undertake resistance work after her release from Besancon in early 1941, Salwey was engaged in offering sanctuary to downed Allied airmen and Jewish refugees, obtaining false papers and coupons to assist them on their way. Invariably for wartime Paris, word eventually reached the Germans of her activities, and she was arrested in May 1943 and sent to the notorious Fresnes Prison - the scene of unending brutality, torture and death for so many resistants and S.O.E. agents, and where she encountered a British Officer who the Gestapo had ‘beaten black and blue all over’. For her own part, Salwey held firm and - miraculously in the circumstances - was released after eight days of interrogation, owing to lack of evidence. Her O.C.M. comrade, Louis Lemoign was less fortunate, dying after being ‘tortured and put many times in the bath.’

Remarkably, Ruth Salwey quickly returned to her resistance work, gathering valuable intelligence which was passed onto London, and harbouring further Allied airmen, ‘who were gathered together by our group in order to repatriate them’. And her resistance group at this time was the O.C.M’s Albine Group.

Sold with a large quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s V.A.D. Committee certificate of discharge, dated 13 February 1913; membership cards for the French O.C.M. and a Carte de Combattant Volontaire de la Resistance, this latter with portrait photograph and dated 29 March 1956, when the relevant medal was issued; a Free French armband in red, white and blue, with the Cross of Lorraine in black, officially stamped and inscribed ‘Groupe Albine, 9 Aout 1944’; a hand-made paper ‘Liberation’ banner; the first page of a letter addressed to a Mr. Baker, dated 18 January 1944, in which the correspondent refers to having received a letter from Ruth Salwey posted in England, an act made possible by her having ‘risked a great deal in sending it by a Frenchman flying in disguise to England’; a hand written statement in French, probably taken by Ruth Salwey, and signed by Brigadier Marcel Picq, Chef du O.C.M. (19th Arr.), Paris, dated in February 1944; a Carte D’Identite in the name of Odette Marie Delaunay, with photograph, dated 21 April 1942); a contemporary copy of a Nazi movement order for Hilda Christie, dated at Besancon on 5 February 1941, she being ‘an old friend who had come out from London to stay with us in Paris when France fell’; and a quantity of more recent but official documentation, including Salwey’s British Passport (expiry date 1976), National Identity Card and medical cards, and copies of her published works, Twenty-Seven Steps to Humiliation and Beloved Commander, and a pamphlet Captive: A Book of Verse.