Cecile Pearl Witherington Cornioley, CBE (24 June 1914 – 24 February 2008), code names Marie and Pauline, was an agent in France for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War.

SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.

[2][3] Witherington's network, comprising about 2,000 maquisard fighters after the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, was especially efficient in sabotaging railroads and telephone lines.

"[4]: 122, 436, 440  She was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire from the United Kingdom and the Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre from France.

[5] Pearl Winterington, a trained British courier, took over and ran an active maquis group of some two thousand men in Berry with gallantry and distinction after the Gestapo arrested her organiser.

138 Squadron RAF Halifax aircraft and parachuted into Vichy France on the night of 22/23 September 1943, landing near Tendu in Indre Department.

[7]: 187  The Stationer network covered a large area in central France and Witherington was effectively homeless, spending nights sleeping on trains as she traveled from one place to another delivering messages and undergoing frequent checks of her (false) identity cards by the Gestapo and French police.

[5][10] An exhausted Jacqueline Nearne returned to Great Britain in April 1944 and the Gestapo arrested Southgate on 1 May 1944 and deported him to Buchenwald concentration camp.

[5][4]: 122 With Southgate a prisoner of the Germans, Witherington formed and became leader of a new SOE network, Wrestler, under the new code-name "Pauline", in the Valençay–Issoudun–Châteauroux triangle.

Witherington worked closely with the adjoining SOE Shipwright network, headed by her former colleague Amédée Maingard.

Putting those lines out of operation hindered the German effort to transport men and material to the battle front in Normandy.

[4]: 122, 381, 389, 398 On the morning of 11 June 1944, German soldiers attacked Witherington at the Les Souches château, her headquarters near the village of Dun-le-Poëlier.

Her fiancé, Henri Cornioley, also hiding in a wheat field, counted 56 truckloads of Germans participating in the operation.

According to Witherington, the Germans didn't try to find the hidden maquis and the SOE agents, confining themselves to destroying the weapons they found in the chateau.

The number of maquis in her region quickly ballooned to as many as 3,500 as the Normandy invasion emboldened young men to join the resistance.

On 9–10 September, in a battle more than 19,000 German soldiers under the command of General Botho Elster were threatened by French maquis.

[3] After the war, Witherington was recommended for the Military Cross, but as a woman, she was ineligible[1][13] and instead was offered a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Civil Division.

In April 2006, age 92, after a six-decade wait, Witherington was awarded her parachute wings, which she considered a greater honour than either the MBE or the CBE.

[17] Author Carole Seymour-Jones wrote a biography, She Landed By Moonlight: The Story of Secret Agent Pearl Witherington: the 'real Charlotte Gray' (2013).