About Lise de Baissac
Lise Marie Jeanette de Baissac MBE CdeG (11 May 1905 – 29 March 2004), code names Odile and Marguerite, was a Mauritian agent in the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in France during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. De Baissac was one of the first SOE female agents to be parachuted into occupied France in September 1942. During her two missions to France she often worked with her brother Claude who headed the Scientist network of SOE. The two were most useful shortly before and after the D-Day invasion of France by the allies. The de Baissacs armed and organized French Resistance forces to hinder the German response to the invasion and to assist the allies. Lise de Baissac had frequent encounters with German soldiers in the heavily militarized region in which she worked, but she eluded capture. She was awarded several gallantry awards after the war. Borrel was the first to drop, with de Baissac following, landing in Bois-Renard in the village of Saint-Laurent-Nouan. De Baissac reproduced in Poitiers what Virginia Hall had created in Lyon.
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