Unienville, Alix d', 1918-2015

Alix d'Unienville was a French-British agent in the Free French Section of the Special Operations Executive during World War II. D'Unienville was born in Mauritius to a wealthy French aristocratic family who moved back to France when she was six. After managing to escape to England in 1940, she was employed writing propaganda leaflets at the Free French headquarters at Carlton Gardens, London before the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action recruited her and directed her to the SOE for training.

Commissioned into the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, she began her SOE training in June 1943. On 31 March 1944, she parachuted into Loir-et-Cher from a Halifax aircraft with millions in francs for the Gaullist delegate-general to distribute. She worked in Paris and was successful until 6 June 1944 when she was arrested. She was in the last convoy to be sent from Romainville towards Germany, but she was able to escape when the prisoners were sent across a road bridge over the Marne because the rail bridge had been destroyed by Allied bombing. She was then able to hide in two villages before being liberated by the Americans, whereupon she was able to return to Paris.

After the war d'Unienville was employed as a war correspondent for US forces in south east Asia before she worked as an air hostess for Air France and became a writer of fiction and nonfiction.