The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers.
On her arrival in England, Nearne applied to the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) but was turned down as she had no experience of driving in the dark and on the left hand side of the road.
She was given a commission with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANYs) and trained to be an SOE agent in the same class as Lise de Baissac, Mary Herbert, and Odette Sansom.
A wireless operator and second in command, Amédée Maingard, joined them in April 1943 and in September 1943, Pearl Witherington arrived by parachute to became Southgate's second courier.
Shortly after Nearne's arrival in France, she stayed for a week in a hotel in Châteauroux and French police checked her documents twice.
Instead she rented apartments in Clermont-Ferrand, La Souterraine, and Paris or spent nights at the homes of Resistance contacts.
[10] Despite the exhaustion of being an agent for so long, Nearne resisted leaving, but on 9 April 1944, a Westland Lysander airplane landed at a clandestine airfield where she was present.
The Germans posted a photograph of Nearne on notice boards offering a reward "for the capture dead or alive of an individual known as Jacqueline or Josette.
Jacqueline Nearne's sister Eileen survived imprisonment in a German prison camp, but she had severe psychological and physical problems when she returned to England.
[14] In 1946, Nearne played "Cat", a character based on herself, in the RAF's Film Unit production of Now It Can Be Told which was released to theatres in 1948 as School for Danger, a drama-documentary about the wartime training and deployment of SOE operatives.
Her portrait, painted by SOE agent Brian Stonehouse, is displayed on the wall of the Special Forces Club in London.