Gilberte Champion

Gilberte Louise Champion (née Gueunier) (17 April 1913 Paris – 18 November 2020 Sucy-en-Brie) was a Postes, télégraphes et téléphones (PTT) worker and a radio operator in the French resistance during World War II for the Jade-Fitzroy network under the auspices of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

Through her family connexions, she was an early recruit to the Jade-Fitzroy network, started by royalist right-winger Claude Lamirault after he sought help from the SIS in London.

Her husband became a deputy of Pierre Hentic, Lamirault's communist co-leader and former Chasseurs Alpins colleague, who took charge of all network air and sea operations in 1943.

[1][2][3][4][5] Concerned at the operational instructions given to her, she told Lamirault to pay more attention to basic security procedures; she wondered if she might be better off working for the Jade-Amicol network, another SIS-led group, as she'd spoken to one of its leaders, Philip Keun.

She was moved to Fresnes Prison temporarily; there, a young cellmate who was released succeeded in getting out a note Champion had written on a handkerchief secreted in her overcoat.

It reached Wilfred Dunderdale of the SIS, who read about the details of her arrest, communication compromises in Jade-Fitzroy, the state of Gestapo staff and saving other agents; he changed his plans accordingly.