Francis Suttill

Francis Alfred Suttill DSO (born, France, 17 March 1910 – executed 23 March 1945), code name Prosper, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in World War II. Suttill was the creator and organiser (leader) of the Physician or Prosper network (or circuit) based in Paris, France, from October 1942 until June 1943. The purpose of SOE in France was to recruit resistance groups and supply them with arms and material in order to carry out sabotage against Nazi Germany.

Under Suttill's leadership the Prosper network was SOE's most important network in France, notable for its rapid growth, wide circle of contacts and collaborators, and the geographical reach of its operations "from the Ardennes to the Atlantic." It has been suggested that the network was too large and diverse, and that security was lax.

In what has been called SOE's "catastrophe of 1943," Suttill was captured by the Germans on 24 June 1943 and later executed. By the end of August 1943, the Germans had captured many of the nearly 30 SOE agents associated with him and hundreds of local French people working with or cooperating with SOE. Many were killed, executed, or died in concentration camps.