Haim Victor Gerson DSO, LdH (b. 1898—d. ?), code name Rene, was a Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. He organised the Vic escape line in France. Escape lines helped allied soldiers and airmen, SOE agents, and other people in danger to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe, usually by crossing the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. Early years Haim Victor Gerson was born in August 1898 in Southport, Lancashire, the son of a fabric merchant. World War I He joined the British army at the declaration of war and was sent to the Western Front In France and took part in the Battle of the Somme. After the war, he went to Paris where he was a dealer in fine rugs and carpets. He married and had a son, however in the 1930s his wife died and his son was killed in a traffic accident. He then married Giliana Balmaceda, a Chilean-born actress. World War II On 18 June 1940 four days before the signing of the armistice between Germany and a defeated France, the couple escaped to England where both joined the Special Operations Executive. In May 1941 Balmaceda was the first female SOE agent to be sent to France. She went to Vichy France, the southern, unoccupied part of France, and collected information and administrative documents used in France, such as ration cards, which could be reproduced in England for use by agents on clandestine missions in France. First mission On the night of the 6/7 September 1941 Gerson was parachuted from a Whitley bomber, along with five other agents and landed near the Le Cerisier farm of Auguste Chantraine, Mayor of Tendu. He travelled to Lyon and Marseille, where he assessed the possibility of organising subversive networks in cities. In October, he avoided arrest in Marseille as he was wary of the voice that gave him an appointment by phone, did not go there. He quickly left France and returned to London where he reported on his conclusions on the French willingness to resist the German occupation. Second mission He was sent back in the field to set up a safe escape route through France into Spain. In Operation DELAY II Peter Churchill’s mission was to land four SOE agents on the French Riviera by submarine. On 26 February 1942 Churchill flew from Bristol to Gibraltar with two radio operators, Isidore Newman «Julien» for the