Code Name Pauline

Pearl Cornioley, code name Pauline, has died at 93. Born in France to British parents she fled the Nazi occupation in 1940 to England. Bored with a clerical job she volunteered and was trained, in armed and hand-to-hand combat and parachuting into occupied France in September 1943.

Posing as a cosmetic saleswoman she served as an agent carrying coded messages organizing 1,500 resistance fighters who blew up facilities, and communications.

After the June 6, 1944 Normandy invasions her group conducted sabotage on the Paris-Bordeaux railway some 800 times and regularly attacked convoys on route to the invasion beaches stalling and stopping reinforcements and supplies.

Her face appeared on posters offering a 1,000,000 franc reward. She was never captured. After World War II she married another resistance fighter and lived in France. Her husband died in 1999.

She was awarded France’s Legion of Honor. Although recommended for Britain’s Military Cross it was denied because it had never been presented to a woman. In 2004 Queen Elizabeth II made her a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2006 Royal Air Force officers presented her, with what she said was her greatest honor, her parachute wings she had previously been forbidden to wear.

Living quietly and anonymously she was often referred to as one of the ally’s greatest agents. She is survived by a daughter. God bless Pearl Cornioley heroine extraordinaire.