Benjamin Hodkinson Cowburn MC*, Croix de Guerre, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1909–1994), code named Benoit and Germain, was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II.

The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany.

He later studied electrical engineering and worked for the American firm, Foster Wheeler, building distillation plants for oil refineries all over France.

In early 1944, in Algiers, he was in charge of training SOE agent Christine Granville to be deployed in France but the charismatic "diva" and Cowburn, the "great performer," did not get along.

Cowburn, code named Benoit, first parachuted into Vichy France near Châteauroux from a Whitley bomber on the night of 6/7 September 1941.

He got tangled up in the delicate dance between Vomécourt and double (and triple) agent Mathilde Carré ("The Cat") and attempted to return with them to Britain by boat.

Failing in that but feeling the necessity of returning to inform SOE headquarters in London of the treachery of Carré, he undertook a long difficult journey, crossing the Pyrenees on foot into Spain and arriving in Britain in March 1942.

On 12 June 1942, a Bristol Beaufighter piloted by Ken Gatward dropped a French flag on the Arc de Triomphe, flew down the length of the Champ-Èlysées at an altitude of 12 metres (39 ft), fired cannons at the German High Command headquarters, and returned to England safely.

They were dropped in Vichy France (still unoccupied by the Germans) 65 kilometres (40 miles) distant from their intended spot but met each other by pre-arrangement in Tarbes.

They traveled first to Lyon to meet with Virginia Hall, an SOE agent, and find a wireless operator, Denis Rake, and then onward to Paris in occupied France, crossing the border using Cowburn's under-the-tender technique.

Rake and Wilkinson, however, were captured by the Germans on 15 August and Cowburn was left to fend by himself, maintaining contact with SOE headquarters in London through Hall.

Cowburn and Yvonne Fontaine, the fourth member of the Tinker team, continued work with the Resistance until the liberation of the area from German control in late August 1944 and then returned to England.

[22] After World War II, Cowburn married a French woman who had been the secretary of Prime Minister Georges Bidault.