Friday, April 10, 2009

Pearl Witherington hero of the French Reistance and SOE






The text below and linked is pretty self explanatory of this heroine of the war,of the SOE and the French Resistance. I will only recap some brief activities as further detailed below:




  • her work of great value to the allies

  • escaped to England in 41 and worked in the Air Ministry

  • of British parents in Paris

  • tried to get into SOE and could speak fluent French

  • accepted to SOE,was parachuted to France to help French Resistance codenamed Marie

  • was one of 39 women sent to France

  • she was in the Stationer network of Maurice Southgate and linked up with Henri Cornioley

  • squadron leader Southgate was captured and she was suddenly in charge of 1500 Resistance Fighters in the Wrestler Network

  • Pearl reorganized Wrestler to great effect

  • This unit operated in the Valencay-Issoudun-Chateauroux triangle

  • Added by Henri Cornioley, whom she later married

  • 18000 Germans were POW's to Wrestler see narrative below







Pearl Witherington was one of thirty nine women who parachuted into France
to work for the Special
Operations Executive
, the group tasked by Winston
Churchill
to 'set Europe ablaze'. Witherington, once in France, was in
constant danger, as was any member of SOE. However, the work Witherington did
was of great value to the Allies - so much value, that the Germans placed a huge
reward on her head.
Pearl Witherington was born on June 24th, 1914, to
English parents who were living in Paris. She was the eldest of four daughters.
Pearl did not start school until aged thirteen but she had to start work at an
early age to financially support her family as a result of her father’s
drinking. After the German invasion of Western
Europe
in the spring of 1940, it would have
been very likely that the family would have been held as internees.
As a result, Pearl organised the escape of her family to England in 1941. Once in England,
Pearl started to work in the Air Ministry. She found the work tedious and tried
to get into the Special Operations
Executive
. The fact that she could speak fluent French was a major benefit
and she was accepted for training.
After just three weeks training, Pearl
returned to France on September 22nd ,1943, posing as a representative for a
cosmetics company and with the codename 'Marie'. She was just one of thirty-nine
women who were parachuted into France to help the French
Resistance
. Once in France she was in the 'Stationer Network' led by Maurice
Southgate and linked up with Henri Cornioley. Witherington spent eight months
working primarily as a courier delivering coded messages to radio operators. Her
work, as with any SOE operative, could be very arduous and dangerous. On one
occasion she had to wade waist-deep with her bike slung across her back through
a freezing river as a bridge she needed to cross was unexpectedly being guarded.
Her fluency in French was also a great help in avoiding trouble.
Pearl’s
greatest challenge came when the leader of SOE in the area she operated in,
Squadron Leader Maurice Southgate, was captured. She suddenly found herself in
charge of 1,500 Resistance fighters, known as the ‘Wrestler’ network. This unit
operated in the Valencay-Issoudun-Chateauroux triangle
Added by Henri
Cornioley, whom she later married, Pearl reorganised ‘Wrestler’ to great effect.
In the lead up to D-Day in an
effort to disrupt the Germans as much as was physically possible, ‘Wrestler’
blew up 800 stretches of railway lines and supply routes and as the Allies
advanced out of Normandy, 18,000 Germans gave themselves up as
POW's to
‘Wrestler’
. The Nazis put a one million franc bounty on her (about £500,000 in
today’s money) such was her success.
Pearl Witherington and Henri Cornioley
both escaped to London in September
1944 and married the
following month
. Witherington's name was put forward for a Military Cross but
women were not eligible for the medal and she never received it.
Henri
Cornioley died in 1999 while Pearl is still alive having just been awarded her
parachute wings in April 2006. In World War Two, parachute
wings were given after four training jumps and one operational one. However,
women completed three training jumps before being parachuted into France to
complete work for the SOE.
Therefore, Pearl Witherington did four jumps and not the five required. Aged 91,
she was awarded her wings by Squadron Leader Rhys Cowsill at her home near
Tours
.


Noor Inayat Khan Hero of WWII and the resistance SOE Operative General Collin Gubbins Colonel Maurice Buckmaster Prosper Network Francis Suttill

I have no photo of this hero but her bio is quite "telling" that is her activities as an SOE Operative. The dramas were assigned to her. Extreme danger mixed with the idealism never to divulge or cooperate with the SS is quite evident. Some SOE operatives such as Szabo were immortalized in film. Not so with Noor Inayat Khan whose work was classified for nearly or over 60 years. Why so long a secretive work? The records office in Kew have only recently released her files 60 years after hr death. She and others were posthumously awarded the George Cross along with Szabo. Imagine her upbringinjg as a pacifist,harpist and writer (Twenty Jataka Tales). When the war broke out she was about to found a children's newspaper.She was a pacifist volunteering for the WAAF . Incongrous? How do you explain her actions to get involved in the war? The SOE in Baker Street in London picked up that she was fluent in French from her time in Paris which she left when the Germans invaded and she emigrated to France. Perhaps she saw the need of a "righteous war" as a necessity to have Pacifist ideals to survive? Only a surmise. She was already a trained wireless operator and to that extent dedicated to the war effort.Note why her training did not go well, yet Buckmaster saw her vital attributes and she became a "field agent".






Her false papers named her ‘Jeanne Marie Renier’ and her code name was Madeleine. She worked as a spy not afforded any protection under the Geneva Convention. She must have known that in advance and that foreknowledge indicates her passiion for involvement in the war effort. She landed in the Loire and reconoitred in Paris as a radio operator for the Prosper Network led by Francis Suttill. Henri Dericourt the Gestapo double agent betrayed this network. Almost all of Prosper was arrested by the Gestapo.




She somehow stayed ahead of her captors and became the most important link in France, but Renee Garry eventually berayed her to the SD. she was never tortured but was interrogated and refused to talk because she did not trust her interrogators. The Gestapo used Noor's own radio to send messages hoping for return "compromised" messages.




Noor never betrayed anyone under interrogation and attempted escape in November 43.




Unsuccessful, she was taken to Nazi Germany's Pforzheim prison. She was kept in chains and isolated from other prisoners whom she however was able to inform she was "Nora Baker".




Four SOE women were sent to Dachau Noor and 3 others. At Dachau a plaque was placed for these 4 women.




Post war records indicate that while at Dachau she was severely beaten by an SS guard named Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert who then shot her in the back of the neck. In May 46 he was executed for his crimes.
























http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/noor_inayat_khan.htm



Noor Inayat Khan was a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) founded in World War Two to support the work of the French Resistance and to help fulfil Winston Churchill’s desire to ‘set Europe ablaze’. Some
operatives for the SOE found posthumous post-war fame as a result of films made
about the work that they did. Such films have helped to cement their place in
history. For example, the work done
Violette Szabo was made into a film. Some put in an equal great
deal of work for SOE but have faded from history because their work was not
similarly recorded for posterity. In Noor’s case, this was probably the result
of her work being kept classified
– the National Records Office in Kew have only
recently released her files nigh on sixty years after her death. Noor Inayat
Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre with Gold
Star for her work.

Noor was born into an aristocratic Indian
family on January 1st 1914. Her British mother married a descendant of Tipu
Sultan, the last Moghal Emperor of Southern India.
Noor was born in Moscow in
1914 but the family left for England and then France. Living in Paris, Noor was
brought up as a pacifist, Noor studied child psychology at the Sorbonne and
wrote poems and spent much of her time playing music.

When World
War Two broke out in 1939, Noor was already achieving her first success. As a harpist
she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the
children's page of ‘Le Figaro’ and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise. A
London publisher bought out her ‘Twenty Jataka Tales’, which was published in
the UK, USA and France. Noor was also in the process of founding a children's
newspaper when war broke out.

When the Germans invaded France in the spring of 1940, Noor and her family travelled from Paris to Bordeaux to
get a ship to Great Britain. They were aided in this by the fact that her
brother had a British passport. They got the last ship to leave Bordeaux and
landed in Falmouth, Cornwall, on June 20th, 1940. Noor had been brought up as a
pacifist but she volunteered for the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) where
she took the name Nora Baker. On her application form for the WAAF Noor stated
that she was fluent in French and this was picked up by the SOE based at Baker
Street in London.

The overall head of SOE was General Sir Colin
Gubbins. Colonel Maurice Buckmaster was in command of the French Section (F
Section) with Vera Atkins responsible for the female recruits in that section. A
shortage of men with the necessary skills led to Churchill ordering that women
could be used in France within the SOE networks. Noor fitted the skills
requirement with ease – fluent in French and an already trained wireless
operator as a result of her time in the WAAF. SOE was to send 37 women to
France
.

Noor was recruited into the Special Operations Executive
in
1942. Her three months training did not always go well and she
was described by her training team as “clumsy”, “pretty scared of weapons”, “not
over-burdened with brains” and with “an unstable and temperamental personality”.
Buckmaster referred to these comments as “nonsense” and he saw that her most
vital attributes were her fluency in French and her expertise as a wireless
operator. At the end of her training Noor was “an agent in the field”.
Officially Noor was an Assistant Section Officer and seconded in the First Aid
Women’s Yeomanry (FANY) with an annual pay of £350.
In reality she was ‘Jeanne
Marie Renier’ on her false papers with the call sign ‘nurse’ and the code-name
‘Madeleine’. Working as a spy, Noor was not afforded any protection under the Geneva Convention.

Noor took off by Lysander from Tangmere late on June 16th 1943 and
landed in a remote field in the Loire on June 17th. 'Madeleine' was to serve as
a radio operator for SOE in the Paris area working for the ‘Prosper’ network led
by Francis Suttill.
This was a highly dangerous job with a life expectancy of
just six weeks. Her position had already been compromised however as the man who
greeted her in the Loire – Henri Dericourt – was a double agent working for the
Gestapo. Within a few months of her arrival, almost all the members of ‘Prosper’
were arrested in the most devastating coup the Gestapo made in occupied France.
However, Noor always managed to somehow keep one step ahead of those
chasing her. Her radio went wherever she went – a heavy 33lb B Mark II
set
.
Overnight, the ‘poste-Madeleine’ became the
most important link in France
, being almost the only radio-link between France
and England. For four months Noor carried out this extremely dangerous work –
“the principal and most dangerous post in France” (General Sir Colin Gubbins,
Head of SOE). She had been trained to use a pistol during her training but she
had not taken the weapon with her because of her pacifist beliefs.
Therefore, if
caught she would have had nothing to fight back with. Even Gestapo records made
it clear that they knew Noor existed but they simply could catch her.

Noor was eventually betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) by one
of her own. It is said that jealousy prompted RenĂ©e Garry to expose ‘Madeleine’
and she was rewarded with 100,000 French francs by the Gestapo – far less than
the Gestapo had been willing to pay for her betrayal. Ironically, the Gestapo
caught Noor just 200 meters from their headquarters at 84, Avenue Foch in Paris.
Placed in a top floor room and demanding a bath, Noor attempted to use this
privacy to escape - but was caught. She was never tortured by the SD but
throughout she daily interrogations Noor refused to talk claiming that she did
not trust her interrogators.

The Gestapo used Noor’s own radio to
send messages to Buckmaster in what they called a ‘radio game’. Against her
training, Noor had kept copies of the messages that she had sent. These proved
very useful to the SD who could mimic her use of her radio. They tried all they
could to get SOE to send important and compromising information to them with SOE
assuming they were sending it to ‘Madeleine’. Because radio messages were coming
through on Noor’s wireless, Buckmaster believed that she was still free. On
October 2nd 1943, Buckmaster decided to ignore a signal sent through that
‘Madeleine’ was in hospital – code for her being either captured or in great
danger
.

Post-war Gestapo reports clearly show that Noor never
betrayed anyone under interrogation. “Madeleine after her capture showed great
courage and we got no information whatsoever out of her. We could never rely on
anything she said.”

In November 1943, Noor attempted
another escape. This also failed but the Gestapo finally ordered that this
highly prized prisoner should be taken out of Paris and imprisoned in Nazi
Germany.

From November 1943 to September 1944,
Noor was kept in the women’s section of Pforzheim prison. She was classed as
highly important and was kept in chains and isolated from all other prisoners.
However, she did manage to inform those other prisoners there that she was Nora
Baker.

The records indicate that four SOE women were then sent to
Dachau (Noor from Pforzheim and three others from a prison at Karlsrule) on
September 11th, 1944. On September 12th, 1944, it is known that four SOE women
were shot at Dachau – though their executions were never witnessed by any other
prisoner.

The SS kept no records of SOE prisoners held at Dachau
or what happened to them. However, post-war investigations indicated that Noor
was severely beaten by a SS guard called Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert who then shot
her in the back of the neck. In May 1946, Ruppert was executed for his crimes.

At Dachau a plaque has the name of the four SOE women shot
there:
Noorunisa Inayat Khan Eliane
PlewmanMadeleine Damerment Yolante Beekman Noor was
posthumously awarded the MBE, the George Cross (one of only three awarded to
women in World War Two) and the Croix de Guerre


Wing Commander Yeo Thomas

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/wing-commader%20yeo-thomas.htm



Wing commander Yeo Thomas WWII hero and hero of the resistance




He was known as White Rabbit (Code name) to the French resistance and joined SOE in February of 42. Parachuted into Normandy, he travelled to Paris to organize various rwesistance movements through out France, a hazrdous (needless to say) undertaking requiring necessary guts, idealism, and daring upon which those that performed these tasked thrived. In April he returned and was given a vital task to find out why so many of the resistance were being arrested in Paris.He was able to successfully solidify security within and between resistance units.He approached CVhurchill to ensufre better armaments for these units.In February 44 he was parachuted back to France to assess damage done by the arrest of two reistsance leaders During this time he was captured and tortured by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald from which he escaped in November 44. By Spring 45, he reached the safety of the advancing allies. His pattern of life and activity demonstrates his superb courage with cunning and heroism to resist a merciless Nazi foe knowing the hazards and risks to be encountered when caught and still maintained vigilance, as many did in that era.The trimes called for such as these and they rose to the occasion as they always do in such times.







Wing-Commander Yeo-Thomas joined the Special
Operations Executive
in February 1942. Yeo-Thomas was
known to the French
Resistance
as 'Shelley' or as the 'White Rabbit'.
In February 1943, Yeo-Thomas was
parachuted into Normandy. From here, he travelled to Paris where he had been
given the task of organising the various resistance movements that were found
throughout France. In April 1943, he returned to France where he was given the
vital task of trying to work out why so many members of the French
Resistance
were being arrested in Paris. His influence and guidance ensured
that the various
resistance
movements
used much greater security not only within each unit but between
the various factions.
On one of his inspections of the resistance,
Yeo-Thomas was appalled at how badly they were equipped with weapons. In an
interview with Winston
Churchill
, he claimed that the resistance would only operate better, if they
had access to better armaments. In February 1944, Yeo-Thomas was
parachuted back into France to assess the damage done by the arrest of two
leading resistance leaders. During this work, he was captured and tortured by
the Gestapo. Yeo-Thomas was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp where, in
November 1944, he escaped. By the spring of 1945, Yeo-Thomas had
reached the safety of the advancing Allies in France.
History Learning Site
> World War
Two
> Resistance
Movements
> Special
Operations Executive
> Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas







Violette SZABO





This story appeared on the same link as the SOE story.





Violette Szabo joined the Special
Operations Executive
in 1943. Violette Szabo's
code-name was 'Corrinne'. Her first SOE mission was in April 1944 and in July 1944, Szabo was landed
by Lysander to
spy on the closed zone around the Atlantic Wall. Szabo returned to Britain via
Lysander in June 1944.
Violette Szabo was born in June 1921 to an English
father and a French mother. She spent her early childhood in Paris but later
moved to London where she went to school at the Brixton Secondary School. She
left school at the age of 14 and started to work as a hairdresser's assistant.
After this job, she worked at the Oxford Street branch of Woolworth's as a sales
assistant.
She married a captain in the Free French Army in 1940 but he was
killed in action in the North Africa
campaign. Szabo received a letter from a 'Mr. E Potter' inviting her for an
interview. At the interview, Potter suggested that her ability to speak French
and her general knowledge of France would be of great advantage to his
department. Szabo readily agreed to help. There were those in SOE who did not
believe that she had the correct temperament to succeed. They were also
concerned that her French accent was too English to fool the Germans. However,
she was accepted for training and after passing this, she was parachuted into
France in April 1944. Szabo had been given the task of helping the French
Resistance
try to re-constitute a group in Rouen. This required her
traveling from Rouen to Paris on a regular basis - but within six weeks she had
succeeded in her mission and she returned to London.
On June 7th, 1944, Szabo
was parachuted in Limoges. Her task was to co-ordinate the work of the French
Resistance
in the Limoges area in the initial days after D-Day. She was
captured by the SS 'Das Reich' Panzer Division and handed over to the Gestapo in
Paris for interrogation. From Paris, Violette Szabo was sent to Ravensbruck
concentration camp where she was executed in January 1945. She was
posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.

Captain Harry Rees

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/captain_harry_rees.htm



Another hero, Captain Rees helped to decimate the Peugeot works probably commandeered by the Nazis as a weapons factory, a French facotry taken over by force? More of this later.








Rees was parachuted in southern France in April 1943 with the specific
task of building up the resistance
movement
in the Jura region of France. Rees was involved in the blowing up
of the Peugeot works in France - having been given the permission to do this by
Rudolphe Peugeot during a personnel interview. The Peugeot works were considered to be the third most important target in France and raids by Bomber
Command
had failed to destroy this factory. In November 1943, Rees was
wounded in a fire fight with a Gestapo official. Sympathetic French people hid
him until he could return to London, via Spain. Rees arrived in London in July 1944.