Yvonne Rudellat was a French secret agent of the Special Operations Executive, during the Second World War. She was known as Jacqueline Gautier, a name given her by a fellow prisoner as Rudellat was suffering from amnesia as a result of her head injury.
Background
Yvonne Rudellat was born on January 11, 1897, in Maisons-Lafitte, near Paris, France. Her father was a horse-dealer for the French Army. Yvonne accompanied her father during business trips. She had nine siblings, but eight older children had died in infancy. It was difficult for Yvonne to live with her mother after father's death, she moved to London. Yvonne's mother followed her and they lived together in Pimlico.
Education
Rudellat had been recruited to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) for training. With Andree Borrel, Lise de Baissac, and other women agents, she underwent intensive training, learning about parachute drops and sabotage operations.
Career
On May 28, 1942, Yvonne joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE had been established in July 1940 to put operatives behind the enemy lines. Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Great Britain, wanted the SOE to "set Europe ablaze." The SOE collaborated with the French resistance movement in gathering intelligence and carrying out sabotage. Because she was French by birth and fluent in French, Rudellat had been recruited to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) for training. Rudellat was initially a courier in the Prosper Circuit of F (French) Section of SOE.
Rudellat was sent to the south of France by boat on July 30, 1942. She was the second agent to arrive in France. Lise de Baissac had been parachuted to France in April 1942. Rudellat’s activity centered around the Loire Valley area, where she led a Resistance group. She lived in a cottage, working and hiding as the occasion demanded. In March 1943, Yvonne’s group blew up the Chaigny power station, two trains in the Le Mans station, and some factories. Authorities were searching frantically for the leader of the operations and zeroed in on her in June 1943. On June 21, she came to a roadblock while attempting to escape the Gestapo dragnet. She did not stop, and in the car chase that followed, she was fired on and sustained a severe head injury. She was treated in a hospital in Blois and after interrogations by the Gestapo was sent to Fresnes prison. Rudellat was sent from Fresnes to Bergen-Belsen on April 21, 1945. It was impossible to keep records of all the dead, so Jacqueline's fate was not discovered until July 1946 when Vera Atkins, who was trying to find out what happened to missing SOE agents, traced her through a fellow Bergen-Belsen prisoner, who remembered her as Jacqueline Gautier.
Achievements
Membership
Yvonne Rudellat was a member of British First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and the Special Operations Executive held at Ravensbrück.
Personality
Yvonne Rudellat was described as being a very enthusiastic agent and cool under pressure.
Connections
Yvonne Cerneau met and married Alex Rudellat during a trip to London in 1920. They settled in England and had a daughter, Constance Jacqueline, in 1922. In 1929 they separated but remain friends and share their time with their daughter.