Peter Churchill

Peter Morland Churchill DSO Croix de Guerre (14 January 1909 – 1 May 1972) was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer in France during the Second World War.

He was a brother of Walter Churchill and Oliver Churchill, who was also an SOE officer during the Second World War.

Biography

Churchill's father was William Algernon Churchill (1865–1947), a British Consul who served in Mozambique, Amsterdam, Pará in Brazil, Stockholm, Milan, Palermo, and Algiers. His father was also an art connoisseur, and author of what is still the standard reference work on early European paper and papermaking, Watermarks in Paper, and his mother Violet (née Myers).

Peter was born in Amsterdam on 14 January 1909. He was educated at Malvern School from 1923-27, then spent 18 months at Chillon Castle, then to Geneva University, and from 1929-32 read Modern Languages at Caius College, Cambridge. In addition to his native English, he was bilingual in French and fluent in Spanish, Italian and German. He also excelled in sports – he had the reputation of being one of the finest ice-hockey blues the university had produced and was Captain of the Cambridge University Ice Hockey Club in 1932 and won 15 international caps, was proficient at exhibition diving, was a first-class skier, and played golf off a six handicap.