Pauline parachuted in 1943:
the life of an SOE agent

Pearl Cornioley, née Witherington, voluntarily enlisted at the age of twenty-nine in an English secret service: the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), to come and help the resistance in France. She was parachuted into Indre in September 1943. After clandestine work that lasted until the landing, "Pauline" founded and led a maquis of 1,500 men.
This is a particularly vivid description of the Resistance, with a thousand daily details, without forgetting the highlights when death brushed against life.
A heroine of the shadows, Pearl Cornioley had never agreed to tell her life story, out of modesty and fear that her testimony would be romanticized. She took the step thinking of the young people of today who, too often, despair.
By entrusting them with this faithful and precise testimony, Lieutenant Pauline wanted to encourage them to believe in their destiny, as she believed in hers when she parachuted into the night.