Born: 8 November 1909, France
Died: 20 July 1989
Country most active: France
Also known as: Hedgehog
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Women in the French Resistance: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, one of the most famous female resistants and the only woman to be made chef de résistance. She led one of the largest resistance networks, Alliance, which supplied more crucial intelligence to British and American Allied forces than any other. She was captured by the Nazis twice and managed to escape both times. She and her husband, a Free French fighter, Hubert Fourcade, helped return General de Gaulle to power in 1958. She published her memoirs, Noah’s Ark and was chairwoman of the Resistance Action Committee.
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
French intelligence agent Marie-Madeleine Fourcade worked with MI6 during World War II. When she was sent a new British contact, Arthur Bradley Davies (AKA “Bla”) in 1941, she was suspicious of him from the start, but her concerns went unheeded by the men in London. Years later, it was revealed that Davies had been working with the Germans the entire time. He had been a member of the Union of British Fascists, but the agency had not properly vetted him before sending him to Fourcade. When MI6 finally admitted the mistake and gave Fourcade’s group approval to interrogate and execute Bla, he confirmed that he had told the Germans everything he knew about the French resistance.