Author Jean Overton Fuller tracked down Déricourt in the early 1950s and he told her that he had handed over copies of SOE agent's mail to the Germans, but was acting on the instructions of another British agency. The speculation developed that MI6 had planted Déricourt in SOE to keep tabs on its competitor. Later, the speculation expanded to the belief that MI6 employed Déricourt to deceive the Germans about Allied plans to invade France. One version of the speculation as expressed by some authors is that the British government told unwitting SOE agents to prepare for an allied invasion of France in September 1943 (the invasion did not occur until June 1944) with the knowledge that some SOE agents would be captured by the Germans. Under questioning some of the captured agents told the Germans that they believed an invasion was forthcoming in 1943. The objective of the deception, was to persuade the Germans to keep soldiers in France to defend against an invasion, rather than transferring them to the eastern front to fight against the Soviet Union which Britain feared was near collapse. Déricourt's role was to copy and give to the Germans the correspondence of SOE agents which hinted that an invasion was upcoming. He also gave them personal information about the agents and copies of their correspondence.