Waking up on a 20-ton pile of "war supplies." September 23rd, 1943

The greeting party, when I landed, consisted of two men: Maurice Southgate and Auguste Chantraine, mayor of Tendu and counselor for the district.  They whistled to find me.  It was a dark night and they hadn’t really seen where I had landed.  I whistled back--a previously agreed-on code of two descending notes--and that’s how they found me. 

Although I already knew Maurice, we didn't talk about anything at all.  Maurice just asked me, "Did you see where your bags fell?"  I said, "Listen, it was enough working out how I was going to land myself, I've no idea, I didn't see them."  My bags had fallen in the water.  I only managed to retrieve them three weeks later.   

We went to Chantraine's farm.  Maurice accompanied me to a barn and pointing to a pile of hay said, "Right, you can rest up there."  I climbed the ladder and settled down on top, completely dressed.  I didn't sleep much.  When I came down, Maurice said, laughing, "You know, you were asleep on a pile of supplies in there."  They were war supplies of course.  There were at least 20 tons stacked under me...

The BBC video

http://youtu.be/KxLFSUv71wg

This short video was edited in such a way as to make it seem that Pearl joined the SOE as soon as she landed in London but it's otherwise very well done with narration by me and stunning visuals by British Pathé and Code Name Pauline.

Excerpt from "Parachuting into Occupied France"

Halifax bomber

            My third attempt at a parachute landing was successful. Just in time. It was the night of 22nd to 23rd of September 1943 and the last night of the moon. If I had not been able to jump then, I would have had to wait another month. Our pilots needed the moonlight to see the rivers which acted as landmarks. When they headed south of the Loire, they flew near Blois where there are three rivers, the Loir, Loire and Cher.

           The pilots flew that way frequently, so they knew the route very well, but they were just as frequently attacked by flak -- antiaircraft guns -- which tossed the plane. We were not hit that night because we were too high, but the plane was shaken by the explosions. At first I wondered what was happening but the dispatcher reassured me, "Don't worry," he said, "it's the flak; we're used to it."

           I was in a massive Halifax bomber, equipped to go as far as Poland. Usually, there were long seats running down the middle of the fuselage, opposite each other, where one could lie down. But this time the space was taken up by fuel tanks. It’s a long way to Poland and back!

           The crew had kindly found me a sleeping bag and I lay down in it, on the floor, waiting for the moment to jump. Although the noise was terrible because of the four engines, I managed to sleep. I hadn’t slept the night before, due to the previous unsuccessful landing.

             Around midnight, I began sitting for quite a long time on the edge of the opening I would have to jump through. It wasn’t very warm. The plane circled for a long time while I was waiting there, and I didn’t know why. But in a plane the size of a Halifax bomber, it isn’t easy to pinpoint four little electric torches [flashlights] on the ground. I thought that the torches were always held by hand, but this time, the reception committee had done something different. They had three small torches on the ground, with the fourth one a bit further along, staggered a little to indicate the direction of the wind. At the same time, the fourth torch gave the letter of the landing strip in Morse code. That was essential—if they had not given the right letter, I would have had to go back.

            I just waited for the red light to come on. It wasn’t like our training sessions, when the dispatcher would shout “Action station!” with me on the edge of the hole, in the middle of the fuselage, ready to jump, and then “Go!” He would shout very loudly so there was no hesitation, we just did it. This was different. There were two lights: the green one meant “get ready” and the red one “go.”

When the red light came on, well, off I went...

Excerpt from Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent.

 

French wine and a British bicycler

Pearl Witherington was born and raised in Paris by British parents but she remained a British citizen her entire life and in most ways, retained a very British personality. Below is an excerpt regarding a type of innocent but unwanted hospitality Pearl experienced from French farmers while visiting groups of French Resistance fighters where she assessed their munitions needs following D-Day. I couldn't find a home for it within the pages of Code Name Pauline but as it's very humorous I thought I'd post it here:

"When I arrived at a farm during my various cycling visits and asked for a glass of water, the farmers would always refuse and insist on pouring me a glass of wine.  The first time it happened I let myself be badgered into it but when I left the farm I could hardly peddle.  After that, every time I went to a farm and asked for a drink of water there was an argument.  They would always absolutely insist on giving me wine."

For more on Pearl's (and her French husband Henri's) insightful and humorous take on the cultural differences between the English and the French, see the appendix section of Code Name Pauline.

"The Gestapo was there." Excerpt from Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent

Henri could feel trouble brewing. He had arrived from Paris the evening before -- the night of April 30-May 1, 1944 -- to the Lhospitalier's house in rue de Rimard. We all sensed D-Day was about to happen.

That night Maurice went to meet John Farmer and Nancy Wake, a team parachuted to join the Auvergne Maquis. On his return from this meeting, where he had received information and money...he forgot to look behind him when he arrived at the Lhospitaliers, because he was very tired...

There was a front-wheel-drive Citroën, the car used mainly by the Gestapo, hidden further down the street...

The Gestapo was there.

When they saw the radio, the money, the list of landing spots for parachute drops, they must have thought there were other people in the network. They encircled the town the next day.

 

Excerpt from Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent.

"Courage was their common badge." Maurice Buckmaster on the abilities of female SOE agents.

Maurice Buckmaster, head of the Special Operations Executive's French Section, came under heated post-war criticism for allowing female agents to fight behind enemy lines in German-occupied France. He wrote two books about the SOE's F-Section, often getting his facts wrong but brilliantly painting SOE heroines in deservedly glowing terms. Below is an excerpt:

"It has been suggested that women agents should never have been sent, that they were forced to undertake missions to which both by temperament and by nature they were unsuited and in physique and spirit inadequate.  The dead cannot be revived by such accusations, they can only be dishonoured.  Those of us who know of the work done by women like Violette Szabo, Norah Inayat-Khan, Denise Bloch, among those who died, and by Lise de Baissac, the sisters, Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne, and Nancy Wake among those who survived, can only feel anger and contempt for those who try to denigrate Baker Street by questioning the ability of women to fight alongside men and who impugn the efficiency of Headquarters by doubting the readiness of brave women to face perils and, if necessary, to die for their countries.  These women did an invaluable job and one for which, whatever people may say, they were admirably suited.  Coolness and judgment were vital qualities; none lacked them.  Courage was their common badge."

Excerpt from They Fought Alone: The Story of British Agents in France by Maurice Buckmaster.

After D-Day, the Germans attack the Resistance during the Battle of Les Souches

A few days after D-day a man arrived at Les Souches by bicycle. The men at the guard post at the end of the lane, on the main road, stopped him and brought him to me. When I asked him where he had come from he said from Paris. I asked him if he had seen barricades en route, and when he said no, I was flabbergasted. It meant that none of the networks between Paris and Les Souches had obeyed London’s orders to block the roads. We were the only ones to have done so, by felling trees across the main road. I immediately thought, Heavens, we’re the bridge-head.

Sure enough, two or three days later we were attacked. The snooper plane had spotted the trees we had felled. For a time, the Germans used the snooper, a small plane they flew to examine the land if they didn’t know it very well. They must have concluded there were quite a number of us hiding in the Taille de Ruine woods. I have never understood why ours was the only team to have obeyed orders...

My lieutenant, Raymond Billard, or “Gaspard,” a discharged sailor and member of the Wrestler circuit, told me that the day after the snooper had flown over, he and four others were driving in a Citroën front-wheel drive from the château to Monsieur Sabassier’s house when they came face-to-face with the Germans. Both parties were very surprised to see each other! The Germans got out and machine-gunned them, but none of them were hurt.

When more German soldiers appeared, the lads on the main road blew the bugle—but obviously not loudly enough. It was our danger signal but I was the only person to hear it. I told Henri, “We’re under attack.” He replied, “No, it’s Sunday, we can’t be attacked on a Sunday.” Father Valuche was celebrating mass nearby in the château. Monsieur Sabassier and the rest of us tried to see who was coming, but it was a long way; we couldn’t see very well. Then Henri had an idea: “We’ll fire into the air and we’ll know straightaway if they’re Germans or other Maquis members.” Sure enough, we found out immediately.

I threw on my clothes, picked up my bag and the cocoa tin where the money was kept. As I climbed down the ladder from the attic, German bullets were whizzing past my ears. At the bottom, I jumped on my bike and cycled to the château’s outhouses where the weapons we had just received were stocked. They hadn’t even been cleaned yet and were still covered in protective grease. I hastily loaded the guns anyway and put detonators in the hand grenades. Then one of the chaps rushed up to me and told me to leave as quickly as possible: the Germans were approaching...

Excerpt from "The Battle of Les Souches" from Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent.

Excerpt from "Escape from Paris."
From Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent.

I went to Commes, near Port-en-Bessin [on the Normandy coast] with my mother and sisters. The Germans arrived soon afterward. We were completely panicked. I had an argument with my mother, because I didn’t want to leave before my instructions arrived. But the Germans got there first. The ambassador had instructed all his staff to leave Paris. The ambassador and his attachés managed to sail from Saint-Jean-de-Luz. I was a local employee, so I had nowhere to go in England. We were blocked, there was no petrol, no trains running, and we had no money. That was such an intense period in our lives that I still have difficulty talking about it. Even after all these years, it gets stuck in my throat.

http://secretfire.wordpress.com/pearl-cornioley/
This blog post, the result of an interview that took place nine months before Pearl's death, is a very good one but its chief appeal in my opinion is the actual clip of Pearl's voice.

A Dangerous Encounter . . . with the Resistance

One day Maurice said to me, “Some parachutists have just arrived; they have money for the network, go and collect it. Go to La Châtre, there’s no password, we don’t know anybody there and nobody knows you. Just in case there’s a problem, you can say that Robert sent you. Sort it out.”

I arrived at the address he had given me in La Châtre, it was a grocer’s shop and bistro. There was a lady behind the counter. I said,

“Good morning, is Monsieur Langlois in?”

“No, my husband’s away today.”

“I really need to see him. Money has arrived, on behalf of Robert I’ve come to collect it for our network.”

“Well he’s not here. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Can I come back later?”

“You can come back tomorrow.”

“No, I can’t come back tomorrow because I have to come by train from Montluçon.”  There were only three trains a week, so I couldn’t return until the day after.

Two days later, I returned to La Châtre from Montluçon. When I entered the bistro, I saw Madame Langlois’s expression and thought, “Oh dear, I’m in for trouble.” I sensed it immediately.  A man whom I had never seen before entered through a side door.

“Good morning, Madame.”

“Good morning, Monsieur.”

“I’m Robert, I don’t know you.”

“Indeed, well I don’t know you either.”

“Follow me.”

He led me up a spiral staircase into a room where I noticed a door ajar. He asked me to sit down and started interrogating me. We didn’t work for the same network, so he didn’t know any of the people I knew and vice versa. After a number of other questions I could not answer, I started to panic . . .

Excerpt from the English translation of Pearl Witherington's memoir, Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent. Pearl's wartime exploits -- including the incident described above -- are also included in the British section of Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

"Expecting a man, not a woman."

"There wasn’t much I could do during those three weeks while waiting for my luggage but during that time Maurice introduced me to the young courier for the Auvergne network. Something quite funny happened when we met. I’m sure Maurice did it on purpose. He must have told him, “Tomorrow morning we have a meeting with an agent who has just arrived.” We met in Clermont-Ferrand park. You should have seen his expression when he saw me! On the spur of the moment I didn’t understand why. Later, when I was wondering why he looked so surprised to see me there, the penny dropped -- he must have been expecting a man, not a woman!"

Excerpt from Code Name Pauline: The Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent. Pearl is also featured in the British section of Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.