Valentine Blanche Charlet MBE (1898–1985), code named Christiane, served in France as an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers. SOE agents in France allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Charlet was a courier. She was arrested and imprisoned by the Germans occupying France but escaped and returned safely to England. Background Charlet was born in London of Belgian parents on 23 May 1898. As an adult she managed an art gallery in Brussels. When Nazi Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940, she fled to England. She joined the Women's Transport Service. Her fluency in French brought her to the attention of the SOE. Her English was only "passable." She never married. SOE Forty-four years old when she joined the SOE, Charlet was one of oldest of the agents who worked for SOE's F (French) Section. She was described as small, dark-haired, attractive, and lively. She trained with the first group of SOE F Section female agents, Andrée Borrel, Yvonne Rudellat, and Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne, and herself. Because of her age she was not given parachute training, but instead landed by a felucca converted to military use on the French Riviera in Vichy France on 1 September 1942. Until 11 November 1942, Vichy France was not occupied by Nazi Germany, but collaborated with the Germans. SOE agents were in danger of arrest from both the French police and the Germans. After landing, Charlet traveled to Cannes, but her contact there had been arrested. Knowing nobody else, she proceeded northward to Lyon to meet another contact, Virginia Hall, who she was scheduled to replace. Instead, Hall directed her to the Ventriloquist Network headed by Philippe de Vomécourt. Charlet's first task was to find a safe house from which wireless operator Brian Stonehouse could transmit and receive messages. She found a house to rent in Feyzin, a southern suburb of Lyon and thereafter served as a courier between Vomécourt and Stonehouse. Charlet and Stonehouse were arrested on 24 October 1942 while he was sending a wireless message to SOE headquarters in London. Charlet blamed herself for Stonehouse's arrest as she had seen German wireless detector vans in the area, but failed to tell Stonehouse. While in