Giliana Balmaceda

Giliana Balmaceda became Giliana Gerson (1910 - ) was a Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. She was the first female SOE agent to be sent to occupied France.[2]

Giliana Balmaceda
Giliana Balmaceda - date and photographer unknown
Born29 September 1910[1]
NationalityChile
Other namesGiliana Gerson
Occupationactress and spy
EmployerSpecial Operations Executive
Known forfirst SOE female agent into France
Spouse(s)Victor Gerson

Life

She was born in Chile in 1910.[3] She had worked as an actress in Paris, where she met Englishman, Victor Gerson, a dealer in fine rugs and carpets, whom she married.[2]

On 18 June 1940 at the signing of the armistice, the couple escaped to England, where both joined the Special Operations Executive.[4] Her husband, Victor Gerson, proposed setting up a line of helpers to simplify the exit and entrance of SOE agents, and Balmaceda volunteered to reconnoitre the possibility.[5] In May 1941 she was sent to occupied France and returned through Spain in late June 1941, and was the first female SOE agent to enter occupied France.[6] She proved adept at distinguishing between those who genuinely wanted to help escapees and those who claimed loyalty to the allies even though they were informing the counterintelligence police.[5] She spent three months, ostensibly on holiday, travelling freely on her Chilean passport in Lyons and Vichy, collecting a long list of intelligence and the names and addresses of those who were willing to help and who could be trusted.[7] She preferred to find older couples who were usually at home and who were willing to share a spare bedroom for the cause. She returned through Spain and then in to the British base at Gibraltar.[8] She had also collected a lot of information and copies of administrative documents used in occupied France, such as ration cards. These could be reproduced in London for use by agents on clandestine missions in France.[2]

On 21 April 1942, her husband, Victor Gerson landed by submarine at Antibes to organise the VIC Escape Line,[9] which provided an escape route from France via Spain back to England for downed airmen, SOE agents, and others.[10]

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References

  1. Catalogue description Gilliana (or Gigliana) Balmaceta (or Balmaceda) Provasoli GERSON - born 29.09.1910. 1939–1946.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  2. Spartacus Educational Publishers - Victor Gerson
  3. O'Connor, Bernard (2018-03-15). SOE Heroines: The Special Operations Executive's French Section and Free French Women Agents. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-7361-5.
  4. The National Archives : HS 9/575/2 - Gilliana (or Gigliana) Balmaceta
  5. Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II, William Stevenson, Simon and Schuster, 2011.
  6. SOE in France an account of the work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944, MRD Foot, HMSO, London, 1966.]
  7. Ruby, Marcel (1988). F Section SOE: The Story of the Buckmaster Network. Pen and Sword.
  8. Stevenson, William (2011-10-11). Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-62872-186-7.
  9. Duel of Wits, Peter Churchill, Hodder and Stoughton, 1953
  10. Nigel Perrin
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