Violette Szabo Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell Szabo , GC , ( 26 June 1921 – c . 5 February 1945 ) was a World War II French - British secret agent . Early life and marriage . Violette Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in Paris , on 26 June 1921 , the second child of a French mother and an English taxi - driver father , who had met during World War I . The family moved to London , and she attended school in Brixton until the age of 14 . At the start of World War II , she was working at the perfume counter of Le Bon Marché , a department store in Brixton . Violette met Étienne Szabo , a French officer of Hungarian descent , at the Bastille Day parade in London in 1940 . They married on 21 August 1940 after a whirlwind 42 - day romance . Violette was 19 , Étienne was 31 . Shortly after the birth of their only child , Tania , Étienne died from chest wounds at the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 . He had never seen his daughter . It was Étienne ' s death that made Violette , having already joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941 , decide to offer her services to the British Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) . Allied spy . Training and first mission . After an assessment for fluency in French and a series of interviews , some at Winterfold House the training school designated STS 4 she was inducted into SOE . She received intensive training in night and daylight navigation ; escape and evasion , both Allied and German weapons , unarmed combat , demolitions , explosives , communications and cryptography . In his book " " Das Reich " " Max Hastings comments that Szabo was adored by the men and women of SOE both for her courage and endless infectious cockney laughter . An ankle injury during parachute training delayed her deployment until 5 April 1944 , when she parachuted into German - occupied France , near Cherbourg . Under the code name " Louise " , which also happened to be her nickname , she and SOE colleague Philippe Liewer reorganised a Resistance network that had been broken up by the Germans . She led the new group in sabotaging road and railway bridges . Her wireless reports to SOE headquarters on the local factories producing war materials for the Germans were important in establishing Allied bombing targets . She returned to England by Lysander on 30 April 1944 , landing at RAF Tempsford , after an intense but successful first mission . Second mission . She flew to the outskirts of Limoges , France on 7 June 1944 ( immediately following D - Day ) from RAF Tempsford . Immediately on arrival , she coordinated the activities of the local Maquis ( led by Jacques Dufour ) in sabotaging communication lines during German attempts to stem the Normandy landings . She was a passenger in a car that raised the suspicions of German troops at an unexpected roadblock that had been set up to find Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe of the " Das Reich " Division , who had been captured by the local resistance . A brief gun battle ensued . Her Maquis minders escaped unscathed in the confusion . However , Szabo was captured when she ran out of ammunition , around midday on 10 June 1944 , near Salon - la - Tour . Her captors were most likely from the 1st Battalion of 3rd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Deutschland ( " Das Reich " Division ) . In R . J . Minney ' s biography she is described as putting up fierce resistance with her Sten gun , although German documents of the incident record no German injuries or casualties . A recent biography of Vera Atkins , the intelligence officer for the French section of SOE , notes that that there was a great deal of confusion about what happened to Szabo — the story was revised four times — and states that the Sten gun incident " was probably a fabrication . " Interrogation , torture and execution . She was transferred to the custody of the Sicherheitsdienst ( SD ) ( SS Security Service ) in Limoges , where she was interrogated for four days . From there , she was moved to Fresnes Prison in Paris and brought to Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch for interrogation and torture . In August 1944 , she was moved to Ravensbrück concentration camp , where over 92 , 000 women died . Although she endured hard labour and malnutrition , she managed to help save the life of Belgian resistance courier Hortense Clews . Violette Szabo was executed , aged 23 , by SS firing squad on or about 5 February 1945 . Her body was cremated in the camp ' s crematorium . Three other women members of the SOE were also executed at Ravensbrück : Denise Bloch , Cecily Lefort , and Lilian Rolfe . Of the SOE ' s 55 female agents , thirteen were killed in action or died in Nazi concentration camps . Awards and honours . Szabo was the second woman to be awarded the George Cross , bestowed posthumously on 17 December 1946 . The citation was published in the " London Gazette " and read : The Croix de Guerre was awarded by the French government in 1947 and the Médaille de la Résistance in 1973 . As one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France , Ensign Szabo is listed on the Valençay SOE Memorial . Museums and memorials . The Violette Szabo GC Museum is located in the cottage in Wormelow Tump , Herefordshire , that Violette ' s English cousins formerly owned , and that Violette would visit before the war to enjoy walks in the surrounding hills . She also stayed at the farm while she was recuperating from her ankle injury and between her two missions to France . Tania Szabo attended the museum ' s opening in 2000 , as did Virginia McKenna , Leo Marks and members of SOE . The Jersey War Tunnels has a permanent exhibition room dedicated to Violette Szabo . The Royal College of Music offers an annual award called the Violette Szabo GC Memorial Prize for pianists who accompany singers . There is a mural dedicated to Violette Szabo in Stockwell , South London , painted in 2001 : Stockwell War Memorial , Stockwell Road . Painted on the exterior of the entrance to a deep level shelter , this mural was executed by Brian Barnes ( with the assistance of children from Stockwell Park School ) . It features Stockwell ' s famous people such as Violette Szabo and Vincent Van Gogh . It also commemorates the local people who gave their life in the war . In 2008 , a bronze bust of Szabo by sculptor Karen Newman was unveiled at the Albert Embankment of the River Thames , opposite Lambeth Palace . At the entrance to Lambeth Town Hall there is a plaque commemorating Violette ' s residence in that borough . Book . Her daughter , Tania Szabo , wrote a reconstruction of her two 1944 missions into the most dangerous areas in France with flashbacks to her growing up . Author Jack Higgins wrote the foreword and US - French radio - operator , Jean - Claude Guiet , who had accompanied her on the mission in the Limousin , wrote the introduction . On 15 November 2007 , at the launch of the book , " Young Brave and Beautiful : The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabo " , at The Jersey War Tunnels , the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey said of her , " She ' s an inspiration to those young people today doing the same work with the risk of the same dangers " . Odette Churchill GC said , " She was the bravest of us all . " In popular culture . Her wartime activities in German - occupied France were dramatised in the film " Carve Her Name with Pride " , starring Virginia McKenna and based on the 1956 book of the same name by R . J . Minney . Whilst in the SOE , she met Leo Marks , codes officer of the SOE , who gave her what is now thought of as the definitive World War II poem code , " The Life That I Have " . The video game Velvet Assassin by Replay Studios is inspired by Szabo ' s life as an allied spy during the Second World War , with the protagonist sharing her first name . Howard Brenton ' s play " Hitler Dances " caused some controversy by depicting Szabo as more of a real and vulnerable woman , rather than the heroic , patriotic archetype of " Carve Her Name with Pride " .