Diana Rowden
| Diana Rowden | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Paulette |
| Born |
31 January 1915 London, England, UK |
| Died | 6 July 1944 (aged 29) Natzweiler-Struthof, France |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | WAAF, Special Operations Executive |
| Years of service | 1941-1944 |
| Rank | Section Officer/Field agent (Courier) |
| Commands held | Acrobat, Stockbroker |
| Awards |
MBE Légion d'honneur Croix de Guerre Mentioned in Despatches |
Diana Hope Rowden (31 January 1915 – 6 July 1944) was a Special Operations Executive (SOE) member who was executed in a Nazi concentration camp.
Born in England, Rowden was the daughter of British Army Major Aldred Clement Rowden and his wife, Muriel Christian Maitland-Makgill-Crichton, whom he married on 16 July 1913 at St Mark's, North Audley Street in London's fashionable Mayfair district. The marriage was not successful and her parents separated when she was still a young child, whereupon she moved with her mother and two younger brothers, Maurice Edward Alfred and Cecil William Aldred, to southern France. She attended schools in Sanremo and Cannes on the French Riviera, but her family soon returned to England, settling at Hadlow Down, near Mayfield, East Sussex, where she continued her education at Manor House School in Limpsfield, Surrey. In 1933, she returned to France and enrolled at the Sorbonne, before finding employment as a journalist in Paris.
When the Second World War began, she joined the French Red Cross, being assigned to the Anglo-American Ambulance Corps. The Allied collapse in May 1940 prevented her evacuation from France and she remained there until the summer of 1941 when she escaped to England via Spain and Portugal. In September 1941, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, working at the Department of the Chief of Air Staff as Assistant Section Officer for Intelligence duties, before being posted in July 1942 to Moreton-in-Marsh, where she was promoted to Section officer. During a brief hospitalisation in the West Country, Rowden met a convalescing pilot who had been working for the French Section of SOE. She first came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive when Harry Sporborg, a senior SOE staff member, saw her file and requested that she be appointed his secretary. Having already joined the WAAF, she began military training instead. Some months later, she happened to meet Squadron Leader William Simpson, who worked part-time for SOE and with whom she discussed her desire to return to France and take part in resistance work.
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