Ginette Jullian

Jullian lived in Algeria as a child, married at age sixteen, and was later divorced. In 1940, after the German invasion, she fled France for England. In 1943, she failed a training course to be a pilot with the British Air Transport Auxiliary,[2] but later joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and trained for the Special Operations Executive, learning parachuting, security, and wireless operation. On 7 June 1944, the day after D-day, she parachuted into France near the village of Saint-Viâtre, Loir-et-Cher, with her colleague Gérard Dedieu. They arrived with the SOE networks in chaos. Jullian's wireless was confiscated by a French Resistance leader and many members of the resistance had been captured by the Germans or were in hiding. In late June, Dedieu and Jullian finally found a safe house in Chartres and obtained a wireless set and began operations, arranging for 450 CLE Canisters of arms and supplies to be air-dropped to the resistance fighters. After Chartres was liberated by the American army on 15 August, she worked with the Americans as a wireless operator, accompanying the army to Dijon which was liberated on 11 September. She returned to Britain on 22 September 1944.[3]

Dedieu described Jullian as "very brave and never lost her nerve even when the SS arrived to search the house from which she was transmitting."[4] SOE leader Maurice Buckmaster described her as "exceptionally courageous" and recommended her for the Order of the British Empire.[5] Jullian married French Admiral Philippe de Scitivaux in August 1945. She had a son from her previous marriage. She died in a scuba diving accident in Tahiti on 4 August 1962.[6]

She is remembered on the Tempsford Memorial in Tempsford, Bedfordshire, England, which was unveiled in 2013 and commemorates the women who flew into occupied Europe from the nearby RAF Tempsford.[7]