I Did Nothing Civil

Like Celine in Invisible Women Episode 7, Pearl Cornioley was recruited and trained in guerrilla warfare by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and parachuted into France in 1943 as a courier.

She ended up a leader for the Maquis/French Resistance organising Allied drops of supplies/weapons and the training of 3,500 men and women. However, because she was a woman it seems, she gave fighting orders through a French colonel. Pearl Cornioley, SOE code names, Wrestler, Pauline and Marie, became known to the Nazis who offered a million francs for her capture. They never located her although her picture was posted widely. At the end of the war she was responsible for the surrender of 18,000 German soldiers.

Like many brave and stealth SOE women agents who made numerous war contributions, she did not receive the Military Cross because being a woman made her ineligible; she was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) which she rejected saying, that she had not done civil but rather military duties. At the age of 92 and 60 years post-war she was finally awarded her parachute wings (which the men received without question after their SOE training). France awarded her the military medal, Legion of Honour. For more on Pearl Cornioley click here.