Yvonne Yvette Fontaine, known as Yvonne Fauge, code named Nenette and Mimi, was a member of the French Resistance and an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive organization during World War II.
13 Facts About Yvonne Fontaine
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Yvonne Fontaine was born in Longuyon on 8 August 1913.
3.
Yvonne Fontaine did not take part in any resistance activities until April 1943.
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Yvonne Fontaine was anti-German but criticized the De Gaullist resistance movement as too political, self-seeking, and talkative.
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Yvonne Fontaine gradually entered the French Resistance by helping downed airmen evade capture by the Germans.
6.
Yvonne Fontaine helped eighteen American airmen, shot down near Troyes, escape to Switzerland.
7.
Yvonne Fontaine was known to SOE by her married name of Yvonne Fauge.
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Vera Atkins 8.
Yvonne Fontaine made her way to Paris where she re-united with her friends Pierre Muslant, the organiser of the new Minister network, and Denis Barrett, the radio operator.
9.
Yvonne Fontaine organized groups to receive five air drops in April and May In April she met on their arrival by parachute a team of three American military officers who were to work with the French Resistance preparing for D-Day, the allied invasion of France which took place on 6 June 1944.
10.
Yvonne Fontaine was bitter about the capture of her colleagues, Mulsant and Barrett, and put her criticisms in a report to SOE.
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On her return to London, Yvonne Fontaine was housed in a hotel with two other female SOE agents who had grievances against the SOE: Anne-Marie Walters and Odette Wilen.
12.
SOE's spymaster, Vera Atkins, claimed that Yvonne Fontaine was recruited in the field and was never an official agent of the French section of SOE.
13.
Proposals that Yvonne Fontaine be awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Order of the British Empire were never approved.