At first, some within the ranks of the SOE, including the F Section, balked at the idea of including women. But because men in Nazi-occupied countries were expected to be employed in German munitions factories, male SOE agents posing as regular citizens would immediately come under suspicion. Women were ideal candidates for the SOE roles of couriers and radio operators because they could move about more freely than their male counterparts without arousing as much suspicion.
Although many of the SOE women nominally joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) as a cover for their actual role in the SOE, Pearl, along with 14 others of the 39 female F Section agents, remained technically part of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Pearl had already been working for the WAAF in a clerical position. During her SOE training, Pearl was given an honorary commission in the WAAF and given the rank of a second lieutenant. It was hoped (in vain, it turned out) that, if captured, the enemy would treat these “officers” as POWs according to the Geneva convention.
SOE superiors were very selective in choosing their agents, knowing not only that if they sent the wrong type of person into an occupied country they would be sending that agent to certain death but also that the wrong candidate would endanger the lives of everyone he or she worked with. The candidates underwent weeks of training together in country houses in the north of England and Scotland, during which time they were closely scrutinized for personal traits that would either help or hinder their work and that of their fellow agents.
Pearl made a very positive impression on most of her SOE instructors. Although one of them suggested that she would succeed only under the guidance of a strong leader, the others were more complimentary. One of them said that Pearl, “though a woman, has definitely got leaders’ qualities” and that she was “cool and resourceful and extremely determined.” Her field craft instructor said that Pearl had “plenty of intelligence and makes use of it,” while her weapons trainer said that Pearl was “probably the best shot (male or female) we have yet had.” He also noted that Pearl had a “sound knowledge of weapons and stripping,” something that would serve her well during her second wave of Resistance work. Another instructor noted that Pearl was “very capable, completely brave and would far prefer to participate in an active, rather than passive, role.”
I knew that I could help in the war effort, even if I didn’t know exactly how things were going to work out. But I thought that I could be much more useful in France, pushing the Germans out, than in England doing paperwork. I applied to the Inter-Services Research Bureau via the head of the air attachés, who was a friend and my former boss at the British embassy in Paris. It wasn’t easy. The regular army, led by professional officers, didn’t like the Inter-Services Research Bureau at all—to them that bureau was just a bunch of amateurs. My former boss said to me one day, “You are not going to work with those people!” And he stopped me from entering the bureau. I thought, What a nerve! I had already decided that it was what I wanted to do.
I explained my problem to a friend from the embassy in Paris who I had met again in London. She said, “Don’t worry.” I knew that she worked for the Foreign Office, but I didn’t know that she was the minister’s secretary! I had the feeling that she had something to do with the service in which I was interested, but I didn’t know its real name. In fact, the Inter-Services Research Bureau was the Special Operations Executive, the SOE, whose name we only learned many years after the war. A meeting was arranged for me with Colonel [Maurice] Buckmaster, who was head of the French section of the SOE. That’s how the ball started rolling.
The French section of the SOE recruited in England by first identifying people who spoke French. To start with they didn’t tell them why they were being interviewed—I found that out during my training. Whereas I knew perfectly well what I wanted to do. During our attempts to escape France I was slightly exposed to some resistance movements in Marseille.
Maurice Southgate was an old school friend, British-born but French educated, like me, and had attended the same Paris British School as I had. He had become an interior designer who had trained at the École Boulle. When, in 1939, Maurice Southgate came to the British embassy in Paris to join the RAF, we bumped into each other at the entrance. We had not seen each other for a very long time.
We agreed to meet later, but he was taken on as a sergeant interpreter with the RAF in Rheims. We completely lost contact until we met again in London in 1941, when I started at the Air Ministry. He had already been there almost a year. One day I said to him, “You know, I intend to go back to France to help the resistance. Would you like to do that?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“I can help you if you like.”
“Give me 24 hours to think about it, I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
His wife was in France, he was in England, and I knew he was bored. The next day he agreed. He started his training before me. When the time came for him to leave for France, I asked him to contact Henri, to tell him that I would join him. I would have liked Henri to come to England so that we could train together and both go to France as a team. I had sent him a coded message, advising him to “go on a cure of oranges”—in other words, to go to Spain in order to come to England—but he didn’t understand. But as soon as I was sure that Henri had received Maurice’s message, I volunteered.
We started with three weeks paramilitary training handling arms, explosives, learning how to fall on landing, and so on. There were 17 of us, including 3 women.
Then I spent seven weeks shut up in one of the special SOE schools. Training focused on the life of a secret agent and the necessary skills for surviving in France. We started the day with physical training at 7 AM and worked until late in the evening. When they had finished with me I was exhausted!
As an exercise, I was sent to Birmingham [a city about 120 miles from London] with a false identity card to try to recruit other “resistant fighters.” I had trouble knowing where I was because there, like everywhere in England, all the sign posts had been taken down to prevent any German parachutists finding their way. From the second night on, I had to find a room on my own. I asked a milkman on his daily round if he knew of a good place; he knew his way ‘round all the houses and knew everyone.
Our training was very good on the whole. We were also sent to Manchester, in the north of England, to learn how to parachute. One of the boys said to me, “You’ll see, it’s an extraordinary experience. You feel the whole world belongs to you.” But it’s not true! I was quickly back on the ground and the second time I fell more heavily than the first, as if I had fallen 10 feet.
When we started our training, everyone learned Morse code. I was desperate because I couldn’t do it. I thought, If I can’t do it, they won’t send me! When I was a Girl Guide [English Girl Scouts], we had learned semaphore [a visual code method of communication] with flags and I saw the letters instead of hearing them.
Finally one day, I was so worried I went to see the commandant of the school. I said, “It’s impossible, it’s hellish this Morse, I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.”
“Well,” he replied, “you don’t need to worry about it. Why get in a state about it? If you can’t, you can’t.”
What a relief! I was convinced that I had to learn it in case the radio operator I worked with was caught or couldn’t do his work. I thought I absolutely had to be able to replace him, but it wasn’t like that at all. The school simply wanted to know if we were capable of doing the Morse code, and if so, we carried on in that line.
We were also taught unarmed combat. When they said, “If you’re attacked you’ve got to do such and such a thing,” I thought, Right, if I’m attacked, I’ll try. In other words, I took in everything they said without questioning it; not once did I think it was daft or pointless.
But I never would have been able to use a weapon against someone in cold blood. I think that’s a feminine issue. I think women are made to give life, not to take it. But I might have defended myself with an arm [weapon] if I had been obliged to. Our training was very good on the whole, and I took it all in because I was convinced it would help me in the job I had to do, but I never was in a critical situation where I needed to fight, one on one. But several times since the war, I’ve wondered what would happen if some poor chap tried to attack me in the street. I’m sure I would knock him out—I wouldn’t be able to stop myself!
During our training we were told that if we were arrested and interrogated to try to resist for 48 hours to give the others a chance to escape. You don’t know how you might react under torture. If someone starts pulling off your toenails or you are plunged in and out of a bath, you can’t say, “I won’t talk”; it’s impossible to predict your reaction. Yet some people did resist. Some died because of it.
Secrecy was the key word during our training. Even my family didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone. I didn’t know what my best friends were doing. To find something out during the war you had to belong to that particular department, but even then you were not completely in the know. Even the army didn’t realize that we were civilians in uniform. During training I was given a uniform and the rank of second lieutenant. Right, I thought, I am a second lieutenant. In fact, it was only an honorary commission. It was a sort of military cover that, it was hoped, would give some protection if we were captured, but in fact I was still a civilian. To become an officer in England during the war, you had to spend at least six months in the ranks. Time was too short for the agents to actually become part of the military.
One thing that made me wretched was wondering what would happen to Mummy if I didn’t come back. I asked to see Vera Atkins, the intelligence officer under Colonel Buckmaster, to find out what would happen in that event. She said I had to ask the colonel. So I did, but to no avail. He said, “What would your mother do if a bomb fell on you in London?” His reply didn’t satisfy me, so I went to the RAF to see my former boss from the British embassy, Douglas Colyer. He promised he would do whatever was necessary.