30 Facts About Yvonne Rudellat

Yvonne Rudellat worked as a courier for the Prosper or Physician network from August 1942 until June 1943, when she was captured by the Germans and imprisoned.

Yvonne Rudellat died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a few days after the liberation of the camp by the allies.

Yvonne Rudellat was "fast becoming a demolition expert" at the time of her capture.

Yvonne Rudellat was born Yvonne Claire Cerneau on 11 January 1897 at Maisons-Lafitte, near Paris, France.

Yvonne Rudellat's father was a horse-dealer for the French Army and, when her domineering mother would allow it, Yvonne accompanied him on buying trips.

At least partly to get away from her mother, Yvonne married 32-year-old Alex Rudellat on 16 October 1920.

Unfortunately for Yvonne Rudellat, Alex, following Italian tradition, invited his widowed mother-in-law to stay with them, which she did for a number of years before returning to France.

Yvonne Rudellat moved out and went into property management in her own right, but in 1938 she got into financial difficulties, sold out and moved back in with Alex, but in separate rooms, in the basement of 146 Warwick Way.

Yvonne Rudellat used to frequent a patisserie run by a long-term friend who was an ardent Gaullist in Baker Street.

The patisserie was frequented by personnel from nearby SOE headquarters and Yvonne Rudellat developed the ambition that she should parachute into France to "do something for France".

Yvonne Rudellat felt that she had nothing left to live for and decided to take her own life by jumping into the River Thames.

Yvonne Rudellat enrolled at a Pitman's training school to improve her typing skills and through the school soon got a job as a secretary at Ebury Court, a small hotel and drinking club in Ebury Street.

Yvonne Rudellat came to the notice of Captain Selwyn Jepson, recruitment officer for the French Section of SOE.

Yvonne Rudellat passed this and was accepted into SOE on 15 May 1942.

Yvonne Rudellat was then sent to Garramor, an SOE training establishment in a large house a little south of Morar in the West Highlands.

Yvonne Rudellat then went to Boarmans, one of ten houses on the Beaulieu Estate in Hampshire that had been taken over by SOE.

Yvonne Rudellat passed out on 21 June 1942; confusingly her report is in the name of Mademoiselle [sic] Rudellat.

Yvonne Rudellat instead arrived in France by boat on the night of 30 July 1942.

Yvonne Rudellat's cover name was Jacqueline Gautier: Jacqueline after her daughter, Gautier because it was a common French surname and would attract little attention.

Yvonne Rudellat's cover story was that she was from Brest but had been bombed out.

Yvonne Rudellat's cover name for the journey was Soaptree, so she was temporarily known as Jacqueline Viallet, viallet being the French for soaptree.

Yvonne Rudellat was involved in the management of drop zones for agents and supplies and in the distribution of the latter around the area, using a bicycle.

Yvonne Rudellat decided to leave the bullet in her head.

Yvonne Rudellat was buried in a mass grave with 5000 others.

Yvonne Rudellat was recommended for the Military Cross, probably at the instigation of Suttill when he visited London in April 1943.

Yvonne Rudellat is the only female officially recorded as having merited it during World War II, but she was ineligible as at that time it was not awarded to women.

Yvonne Rudellat was later made an MBE, honorary because she was not a British citizen.

Yvonne Rudellat is commemorated by an obelisk at Romorantin-Lanthenay, where she is one of four members of SOE to be listed.

Yvonne Rudellat is commemorated on a plaque at the Valencay SOE Memorial, along with 91 men and 13 female SOE agents who were killed or died while working for SOE in France.

Yvonne Rudellat is commemorated in column 3 of panel 26 of the Brookwood Memorial as one of 3,500 "to whom war denied a known and honoured grave".