Elaine Sophie Browne-Bartroli was born on 6 December 1917 in Marseille, France, the daughter of Eugene Henry Browne and Elsa Francesca Browne née Bartroli.
In addition to the information shown on her Wikipedia page we know that in the 1939 England and Wales register she was shown as a foreign correspondent residing at 30 Parkland Drive, Oadby, Leicestershire.
Having joined the Women's Transport Service (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) in February 1943 she was seconded to the Special Operations Executive (SOE), service number F/37, and following training she was parachuted into France on the night of 13/14 August 1943 where she worked as a courier providing the communications link between groups of saboteurs and intelligence gathering agents. She was captured in March 1944 and was executed, aged 26 years, on 13 September 1944 at the Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany, together with three other agents, Section Officer Yolande Elsa Maria Beekman, Ensign Madeleine Damerment and Section Officer Noor Inayat-Khan. Their bodies were all cremated.
In the United Kingdom she was posthumously awarded the 1939-1945 Star, the France and Germany Star, the War Medal 1939-1945 together with the King's Commendation for Brave Conduct and by France she was awarded the Croix de Guerre 1939-1945.
As she has no grave she is commemorated on Panel 26, Column 3 of the Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial at Brookwood Military Cemetery, Brookwood, Woking, Surrey, on a plaque to all four agents at the crematorium at Dachau Concentration Camp, on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website, on the Valençay SOE Memorial Roll of Honour, France, on the Memorial to the Women of SOE at Mill Lane, Tempsford, Lincolnshire and on a plaque at 8 Rue Merentie, Marseille, France.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
