WWII hero Pearl Cornioley dies at 93

A courageous Englishwoman who spent a year during the Second World War as a British secret agent behind enemy lines, but had to wait 60 years to be decorated for her courage because she was a woman, has died at the age of 93. When the Queen presented Pearl Cornioley with a CBE in 2004, she said: "We should have done this a long time ago." It was two more years before Pearl finally received her Parachute Wings for the jump she made from an RAF Halifax into France in September 1943.

Pearl Witherington, as she was then known, was a frustrated pen-pusher at the Air Ministry in wartime London when she decided to visit the Baker Street headquarters of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and demand a job. She was a fluent French speaker having been brought up in Paris by her expatriate parents.

She was taken on, and underwent seven weeks' training in armed combat and sabotage. "Having been in the Girl Guides proved very helpful," she later recalled. When she parachuted into France she landed near Chateauroux, in the southern Loire, where she joined the French Resistance group 'Stationer' as a courier carrying coded messages.

Among the Resistance fighters was a young Frenchman she already knew called Henri Cornioley. They had become close before the war in Paris but Henri's family - much wealthier than the Witheringtons - were opposed to the match. With no parents in the way, they were able to rekindle their relationship.

On May 1 1944 she assumed control of the Loire valley Resistance team after the leader of the 1,500-strong network, Maurice Southgate, was captured. Her first task was to hinder the Germans in the run-up to D-day, which she and her team achieved by blowing up railway lines and disrupting supply routes.

"Our second task was to stop them trying to get back to Germany," Pearl said years later. "Over 18,000 Germans gave themselves up on our territory." She was so effective that the Germans put a price of one million francs on her head.

In the summer of 1944, after escaping with their lives when the Germans attacked a chateau in which they were hiding, Pearl and Henri made it to England where they married. Pearl was recommended for a Military Cross but, as a woman, was deemed ineligible. She refused to accept a substitute civil MBE: "There was nothing civil about what I did, I didn't sit behind a desk all day".

After the war Pearl and Henri returned to Paris. In the late 1990s they moved to a country home for elderly people who have made a significant contribution to French national life. In 1997, Pearl published her autobiography, Pauline, named after her Resistance nom-de-guerre. Henri died in 1999.