WOMEN IN INTELLIGENCE

World War II

France

Aubrac, Lucie. Tr., Konrad Biever and Betsy Wing. Outwitting the Gestapo. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. 1994. [pb]

Surveillant 3.2/3: "Recreates Aubrac's last 9 months in Vichy France (1943-44), as she works with the Resistance.... First published in France in 1984 and basis for the French film Boulevard des hirondelles.... Many reviewers have deemed the translation so good, it reads as if it had been written in English."

Braddon, Russell. Nancy Wake: The Story of a Very Brave Woman. New York: Norton, 1957.

Nancy Wake-Fiocca ("Andreé") was an Australian national who was living in Marseilles when France fell in June 1940. She joined the Resistance and had to flee France when the escape organization with which she was working was rolled up in March 1943. She parachuted back into France as an SOE liaison with the Maquis in March 1944. Cookridge, Inside SOE, p. 355. See also Wake, The White Mouse (1985), and Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake (2002).

Carré, Mathilde. J'ai été la chatte. Paris: 1959.

Clark comment: Carré was a triple agent in World War II, working successively for the French underground, the German Abwehr, and SOE. She is best known in popular literature by one of her underground codenames, "Cat," thus the name of her memoirs.

From Public Record Office [http://www.pro.gov.uk/releases], "New Document Releases: Security Service Records Release 25-26 November 2002": "Carre was second-in-command of a large French resistance network known as the 'Interallie.' ... [B]y December 1941 the entire Interallie organization (some 100 agents) was in German hands. In February 1942 Carre came to Britiain with the leader of another resistance group, Lucas. She admitted to him that she had in fact been turned by the Germans, although on her arrival in the UK she re-converted.... However, there were grave doubts about her bona fides." When it was "discovered that she had betrayed a large number of resistors," she "was interned for duration of the war. She was returned to France in 1945, where she was tried and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to life and subsequently commuted again."

See also Young, The Cat With Two Faces (1957); and Paine, Mathilde Carré, Double Agent (1976).

Chevrillon, Claire. Tr., Jane Kielty Stott. Code Name Christiane Clouet: A Woman in the French Resistance. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1995.

According to Kruh, Cryptologia, 20.1, the author served in the Free French Intelligence Service, first, as a code clerk and, later, as head of the Code Service in Paris. She was arrested and imprisoned for four months in Paris' Fresnes prison.

Fitzsimons, Peter. Nancy Wake: The Inspiring Story of One of the War's Greatest Heroines. London: HarperCollins, 2002.

Nancy Wake-Fiocca ("Andreé") was an Australian national who was living in Marseilles when France fell in June 1940. She joined the Resistance and had to flee France when the escape organization with which she was working was rolled up in March 1943. She parachuted back into France as an SOE liaison with the Maquis in March 1944. Cookridge, Inside SOE, p. 355. Peake, Studies 46.4, says that this "is a fine example of the little known roles that women played in the clandestine service during the war." See also Wake, The White Mouse (1985), and Braddon, Nancy Wake (1957).

Fourcade, Marie-Madeleine. Noah's Ark: A Memoir of Struggle and Resistance. London: Allen & Unwin, 1973. New York: Dutton, 1974.

Constantinides: "Noah's Ark is the memoir of the leader and principal agent of one of the great espionage networks of World War II.... [I]t was the only network to cover all of France and the only one of its kind headed by a woman.... This is the saga, poetic and moving in its presentation, of the network's life."

Ignatius, David. "After Five Decades, a Spy Tells Her Tale." Washington Post, 28 Dec. 1998, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]

This is the story of Jeannie Rousseau (de Clarens) who was a member of Georges Lamarque's Resistance operation (with the code name "Amniarix"). She became "one of the most effective if unheralded spies of World War II. Her precise reports on the German's secret military plans, particularly the development of the V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets, helped persuade Prime Minister Winston Churchill to bomb the test site at Peenemunde.... Her exploits later landed her in three concentration camps [Ravensbruck, Torgau, and Konigsberg] which she survived without ever disclosing the great secret she had stolen from the Germans."

See R. James Woolsey, Doyle Larson, and Linda Zall, "Honoring Two World War II Heroes: Prestigious Intelligence Rewards," Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995), 27-36, for remarks at 27 October 1993 ceremony at CIA Headquarters honoring R.V. Jones and Jeannie de Clarens.

Katona, Edith Zukermanova, with Patrick Macnaghten. Codename Marianne: An Autobiography. London: Collins & Harvill, 1976. New York: McKay, 1976.

Constantinides suggests that this story of a Czech who served as an agent for French military intelligence against the Italians between 1938 and 1942 is of "little consequence."

King, Stella. "Jacqueline": Pioneer Heroine of the Resistance. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1990.

Surveillant 1.1: Yvonne Rudellat was the "first female field agent trained by ... [SOE] during WWII." She set up a resistance unit and sabotaged rail lines and trains. Rudellat was wounded and captured, sent to Ravensbruck and on to Bergen-Belsen where she died. The book "reads like a fast-paced spy novel."

Miller, Gene E. [SFC/USA] "MI Corps Hall of Fame: Virginia Hall." Military Intelligence 20, no. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1994): 44-45.

Adapted from Lawrence J. Cerri, Army Magazine (Feb. 1988). Using the pseudonym of Marcella Montagne, the "Incredible Limping Lady" served in France with SOE and the French underground and, later, in OSS' Operation Heckler preparatory to Operation Overlord. See also, Nouzille, L'espionne: Virginia Hall, une Americaine dans la guerre (2007); and Pearson, The Wolves at the Door (2005).

Paine, Lauran. Mathilde Carré, Double Agent. London: Hale, 1976.

Carré was actually a triple agent, working successively for the French underground, the German Abwehr, and SOE. She is best known in popular literature by one of her underground codenames, "Cat." See also, Carré, J'ai été la chatte (1959); and Young, The Cat With Two Faces (1957).

Rossiter, Margaret. Women in the Resistance. New York: Praeger, 1991.

The stories include that of OSS officer Virginia Hall.

Wake, Nancy. The White Mouse. Melbourne: Macmillan, 1985.

Nancy Wake-Fiocca ("Andreé") was an Australian national who was living in Marseilles when France fell in June 1940. She joined the Resistance and had to flee France when the escape organization with which she was working was rolled up in March 1943. She parachuted back into France as an SOE liaison with the Maquis in March 1944. Cookridge, Inside SOE, p. 355. See also, Braddon, The White Mouse (1957); and Fitzsimons, Nancy Wake (2002).

Weitz, Margaret Collins. Sisters in the Resistance: The Women's War to Free France. New YorK: John Wiley, 1995.

Surveillant 4.2 describes this work as an scholarly, oral history that tells the story of women's role in resisting the Nazi occupation of France. The lives of 70 surviving participants are reviewed.

Woolsey, R. James, Doyle Larson [MAJGEN/USAF (Retired)], and Linda Zall. "Honoring Two World War II Heroes: Prestigious Intelligence Rewards." Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995): 27-36.

Woolsey, Larson, and Zall remarks at 27 October 1993 ceremony at CIA Headquarters honoring R.V. Jones and Jeannie (Rousseau) de Clarens.

Young, George Gordon. The Cat With Two Faces: The Most Amazing Spy Story of the Second World War. New York: Coward-McCann, 1957. London: Putnam, 1957.

Constantinides: "The Cat" was Mathilde Carré, who as mistress of her Abwehr case officer, Hugo Bleicher, was involved in the destruction of the Inter-Allié Resistance network. See also, Carré, J'ai été la chatte (1959); and Paine, Mathilde Carré, Double Agent (1976).

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