British agent for French Resistance in World War II
Pearl Witherington
Nickname(s)
Marie, Pauline [1]
Born
(1914-06-24)24 June 1914 France
Died
24 February 2008(2008-02-24) (aged 93) France
Allegiance
United Kingdom
Service/branch
Special Operations Executive First Aid Nursing Yeomanry
Years of service
1940–1944
Unit
Stationer, Wrestler
Battles/wars
Second World War
Awards
Commander of the Order of the British Empire Legion of Honour (France)
Witherington mostly operated in Indre Department, 220 kilometres (140 mi) south of Paris.
Cecile Pearl Witherington Cornioley, CBE (24 June 1914 – 24 February 2008), code names Marie and Pauline, was an agent in France for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
Witherington was born in Paris to British parents. She parachuted into France in September 1943 as a courier for the SOE Stationer Network and, in May 1944, became head of the SOE Wrestler Network in the Indre region in central France. She was the only woman to lead an SOE network and associated resistance groups, called maquis, in France.[2][3]
Witherington's network, comprising about 2,000 maquisard fighters after the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, was especially efficient in sabotaging railroads and telephone lines. The official historian of the SOE, M.R.D. Foot, characterized the Wrestler network as "highly successful."[4]: 122, 436, 440 She was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire from the United Kingdom and the Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre from France.
^"Pearl Cornioley (Obituary)". The Daily Telegraph. 26 February 2008. Archived from the original on 27 February 2008.
^Olson, Lynne (2017). Last Hope Island : Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War. Random House. p. 272, 344. ISBN 9780812997354. OCLC 1022604505.
^Rossiter, Margaret L (1986). Women in the Resistance. Praeger Publishers. pp. 179–181. ISBN 9780030053382.
^Foot, M. R. D. (1966). SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. ISBN 0714655287.
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