Mary Katherine Herbert

Mary Katherine Herbert (1903 –1983), code name Claudine was the daughter of Brigadier General Edmund Herbert and typical of the British women recruited into the SOE. Mary had a university degree and spoke six languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. She worked at the British Embassy in Warsaw at the beginning of the war but then served as a translator and later joined the WAAFs. She was the first WAAF to volunteer for service with the SOE.

Mary was in the second group of SOE women to go through training.  She was taken by submarine and then by small boat to Cannes. She traveled to Bordeaux where she met her circuit leader, Claude de Baissac. Here she worked as a courier – once even having a solicitous Nazi officer carry her bag containing a wireless radio for her. She also had a relationship with the circuit leader and was pregnant by him when the circuit collapsed. Her lover and his sister, SOE agent Lise de Baissac, were evacuated to Britain via airplane, leaving Mary in France.

Mary’s daughter Claudine was born in December 1943 and Mary moved them into an apartment that had been rented by Lise de Baissac. Two months later, the Gestapo arrested her, believing she was Lise. Eventually, Claudine was placed in an orphanage. Mary maintained her cover and was later released. After much effort, she located her daughter and convinced the nuns to release her. Mary and Claudine then moved into a new home. In September or October 1944, the de Baissac siblings tracked down Mary and brought the pair back to Britain. Eventually, de Baissac and Mary married but never lived together.

They were later divorced, and Mary lived in Britain until her death in 1983.