Eileen Mary “Didi” Nearne was born in London on March 15 1921 into a large Anglo-Spanish family which moved to France during the interwar years; she was thus brought up speaking French. When France fell the Nearnes fled through Spain, eventually arriving in England in mid-1942. Eileen Nearne and her older sister, Jacqueline, joined the FANY, but their language skills were highly prized and later they and their brother, Francis, were recruited by SOE.
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On July 21 1944, however, she was arrested. Despite prolonged and brutal interrogation she maintained her cover that she was a girl from the south looking for work who had been asked to send messages on behalf of a businessman. Didi Nearne was subjected to water torture, being held face down in a cold bath until she nearly drowned, but did not crack.
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Of her time as an agent, she told one interviewer: “It was a life in the shadows, but I think I was suited for it. I could be hard and secret, I could be lonely, I could be independent, but I wasn’t bored. I liked the work. After the war, I missed it.”