www.voicesofwar.co.uk
in whom she had condence.”
Unsurprisingly, Pearl successfully completed her training, to the
extent that she was described as “probably the best shot (male or
female) we have yet had” and was parachuted into France on the
night 22/23rd September 1943, landing near Tendu in the Indre
region. The ight was rough and on landing she lost both of her
suitcases which made life very difcult from the outset. A later
debrieng recorded “Informant never received sufcient clothes.
Shoes were the greatest worry. Very.”
1
She was to remain in France for over a year, an extremely long
time for an agent as they were often discovered and arrested, as
many of her network were to be. Her initial assignment was to join
the STATIONER network of Maurice Southgate. The other courier
for the network was Jacqueline Nearne, with two couriers being
necessary due to the large area the network covered across central
France.
Her cover was a travelling cosmetics saleswoman, which meant
that she could travel around in her role as courier without raising
too much suspicion. The downside of this was that she had no
stable base and had to use the long train journeys to rest and catch
up on sleep. Pearl was actively sought by the Gestapo and had a
million Franc reward on her head, so in reality getting any rest was
difcult and unsafe. Despite this, she managed to successfully
evade detection.
In April 1944, Jacqueline Nearne was sent back to the UK, having
been in the eld for many months and near also exhaustion. Pearl
1 Article taken from the Guardian dated 1st April 2008.