Blanche Charlet

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Blanche Charlet
Nickname	Agent Japonica & Ventriloquist
Allegiance	United Kingdom, France
Service/branch	Special Operations Executive, French Resistance
Years of service	1942-1944
Rank	Field agent and guerrilla commander
Commands held	Japonica, Ventriloquist

Blanche Charlet was a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II and worked as a courier for the French Section.

Charlet took over the work carried out by fellow SOE agent Virginia Hall and worked with Brian Stonehouse.

On October 24, 1942 German D/F (detector) vans picked up Stonehouse's radio signals while he was transmitting to London. They tracked him down to his safe house and arrested him. Before the Germans left, Charlet arrived for a pre-arranged meeting with Stonehouse and she too was arrested.

In November 1942 she was interned in Castres Prison for her SOE activities. In September 1943 she found a sympathetic wardress and got hold of pistols and spare keys and took part in a mass break-out with French resistante Suzanne Charisse. Blanche and Suzanne reached open country and, helped by a local farmer, took refuge in a Benedictine monastary. There they sheltered in a guest house for two months before the monks took them to the escape line in the Pyrénées, but as it was winter heavy snow stopped them from crossing to Spain.^[1]

In April 1944 a message from Blanche reached the SOE Headquarters in Baker Street and a pick-up was arranged from Brittany. From there she crossed the channel back to Britain.

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