She Landed by Moonlight, by Carole Seymour-Jones – review

The subtitle of Carole Seymour-Jones’s quietly moving biography of the brilliant SOE agent Pearl Witherington is ‘the real Charlotte Gray’. As quickly becomes evident, the real thing was more than a shade superior.

Like the fictional Gray, Witherington had determined to serve behind enemy lines in France with the dual aims of fighting the Nazi occupation of her adopted country, and being reunited with the man she loved, in Witherington’s case her fiancé, the escaped French POW Henri Cornioley. Unlike Gray, however, Witherington would quickly achieve both her public and private missions, meeting up with Henri within just days of her arrival. ‘Her story is a true romance,’ one wing commander later wrote, but as Seymour-Jones’s book makes clear, it was much more than that.

Witherington’s aims may have been in part romantic, but her modus operandi was entirely practical; she threw herself into her work for the SOE-backed resistance with steely determination and excellent results. The poverty of her childhood in Paris, when at times she had to steal food for her family, had taught her how to survive. It also taught her the value of self-discipline; she did not drink, wear make-up or go back on her word.

Although slim and engaging, there was no glamour to her — so it is ironic that her cover story had her as a travelling sales rep for a beauty company. As a courier, Witherington regularly moved information, wireless batteries and money between resistance cells, sometimes flashing a smile (and once her suspenders) to potentially difficult German soldiers. After her identity papers were discovered by the Gestapo, who put a million-franc bounty on her head, she relied solely on a broad-brimmed hat to shade her face. She was, SOE reported, ‘very brave, completely capable’.