While exploring my family tree, I discovered a fascinating connection through a somewhat remote link to the Martineau family. The Martineaus were Huguenot immigrants who first settled in East Anglia, specifically the city of Norwich, before their influence spread across Britain. Even today the presence of the Martineau family is recognised by one of the main thoroughfares in the city, alongside County Hall, is called Martineau Lane.
An American presidential cousin
One particular branch of the Martineau family led me to a young woman named Jean Martineau, born in 1917 in Chelsea, London. She was the daughter of Cyril Edgar Martineau, a wealthy stockbroker. Her mother was a first cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States.
During the Second World War, Jean trained and worked as a nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Shortly after the war ended, she married Peter Cazenove, a former wartime Spitfire fighter pilot.
Captured Spitfire pilot held in the infamous Stalag Luft III PoW camp
In March 1940, Flying Officer Peter Cazenove was flying air support over Calais to cover the retreating British Expeditionary Force when his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. He made a wheels-up landing on the beach and was quickly captured by German troops. After several earlier escape attempts, he was eventually transferred to Stalag Luft III — the notorious prisoner-of-war camp that later became famous for the Great Escape of March 1944.
At the camp, Cazenove contributed to the escape effort by working on the forgery of documents. His commanding officer was Squadron Leader Roger Bushell — better known as “Big X” — the mastermind behind the audacious plan involving three separate tunnels (Tom, Dick, and Harry). Bushell was famously portrayed by Richard Attenborough as Roger Bartlett in the 1963 film The Great Escape.
Cazenove was placed on the list of escapees, but as a notably tall and broad man, he was assigned near the back of the queue for fear he might get stuck in the narrow tunnel. The escape was discovered by the guards before his turn arrived. Of the 200 prisoners originally scheduled to break out, 76 managed to flee before the alarm was raised. Tragically, 50 of those recaptured were executed by the Gestapo on Hitler’s direct orders.
Becoming colonial farmers after the War
Peter and Jean Cazenove married in 1945 or early 1946. Jean even appeared on the front cover of Country Life magazine a few months after their wedding. In 1946, the couple sailed from Liverpool to Mombasa, intending to settle permanently in Kenya as farmers.
Their marriage later ended (details of the separation remain scarce in public records), and in 1955 Jean married again — this time to Nils (Krister) Aschan, a Swedish gentleman who worked as a hunter, plantation owner, and sawmill operator in Kenya. Peter Cazenove remarried in 1957 and died in 1980 in Angmering-on-Sea, West Sussex.
Jean outlived both husbands. After Nils Aschan’s death in 1984, she appears to have returned to England, settling in West Oxfordshire. She died there in 1990 as Ann Jean Aschan. Tracking her proved challenging: in the 1939 Register, her surname had been mistranscribed as “Martincap,” but the recorded date of birth allowed me to cross-reference death and probate records to confirm her identity.
Cazenove’s Spitfire resurrected from its watery grave
Cazenove’s original aircraft — a Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk I, serial number P9374 — had an extraordinary afterlife. After the forced landing on Calais beach in 1940, it lay buried in a sandbank for around 40 years, gradually stripped by souvenir hunters. In the 1980s, nearby dredging operations caused it to re-emerge. The wreckage was later recovered and, after passing through several owners, sent to the Aircraft Restoration Company at RAF Duxford.
There, it underwent a meticulous, multi-year restoration to full airworthy condition using as many original components as possible. The rebuilt Spitfire took its maiden post-restoration flight in 2011. In 2015, it was auctioned by Christie’s in London, selling for a record £3.1 million to an American buyer. Sadly, Peter Cazenove never lived to see his old aircraft take to the skies again.
This thread — linking a Huguenot-descended family, an American presidential cousin, a wartime nurse, a Battle of France Spitfire pilot, a Stalag Luft III forger, and a remarkable aircraft resurrection — is one of the more captivating stories I’ve uncovered in my family history.