(1900-1989)
Leader of a French Resistance network during World War II. In the late 1930s, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was working as a general secretary for a magazine publishing company run by a World War I hero, Commandant Georges Loustaunau-Lacau. With Loustaunau-Lacau, Fourcade founded one of the first Resistance networks in France, Alliance, called Noah’s Ark by the Germans because each agent had an animal’s name. Fourcade was "Hedgehog."
In 1941, Loustaunau-Lacau, code-named Navarre, was arrested. Fourcade, code-named PoZ/ 55, then ran the organization. From Pau, she sent agents throughout the country. She organized intelligence networks throughout France, including the ports and major cities. Fourcade’s 3,000 agents sent information to the British concerning movements of coastal defense boats, supply ships, and submarines in the Atlantic. They even provided a map of the coastline indicating German deployments just before the 1944 D-Day invasion.
Impressed with the work of Fourcade and her agents, the British sent her a wireless operator in August 1941. Unfortunately, this particular operator turned out to be a double agent. Four-cade and a number of her agents were arrested. She was able to escape from the Gestapo and fled France for Switzerland with her two children. She resumed her Resistance work, however, rescuing downed British airmen and sending them back to England. Fearing Fourcade’s arrest and possible execution, in July 1943, the British MI6 organization decided that Fourcade should move to England. From a house in Chelsea, she was able to assist with the reorganization of the secret services in France, and her agents were able to obtain German military papers for the Allies. She returned to France (Provence) for a mission in August 1944.
In May 1945, she went to a number of detention camps looking for survivors of her network. She lost 438 of her 3,000 agents during the course of the war.
After the war, the French government awarded her the Legion of Honor, the Medal of the Resistance with Rosette, and the Croix de Guerre. The British Secret Service considered Fourcade’s Noah’s Ark to be the most effective independent information service in occupied France. They awarded her the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her contributions.
