Wartime files reveal slur on top woman agent

Published on Monday 31 March 2008 20:39

AN OUTSTANDING female wartime agent who ended up in charge of 3,000 Resistance fighters in France was assessed as "not the personality to act as a leader" before being parachuted into the country, it was revealed yesterday.

Pearl Cornioley, later commended for her "colossal bravery" and "outstanding powers of leadership", was described in one British training report before she left for France as not leadership material and best employed as a "subordinate".

But another training assessment of the wartime agent described her as "probably the best shot – male or female – we have yet had" and it was noted that "this student, though a woman, has definitely got leader's qualities. Cool and resourceful and extremely determined."

The series of documents on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) wartime agent, who was born in Paris, the eldest of four daughters of an expatriate English couple, was made public yesterday at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London.

She was parachuted into France in September 1943 to work as a courier to the Resistance group known as the "Stationer".

In May 1944 she assumed control of 1,500 Resistance members, and on D-Day was appointed to the complete command of 3,000 members of the Maquis, the rural French Resistance.

Mrs Cornioley, who died in France in February aged 93, was also awarded the Lgion d'Honneur and made a CBE by the Queen in 2004.