Giliana Balmaceda

Giliana Balmaceda was a Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War. She was the first female SOE agent to be sent to occupied France.

She was born in Chile and worked as an actress in Paris, where she met Englishman, Victor Gerson, a dealer in fine rugs and carpets, whom she married.

On 18 June 1940 at the signing of the armistice, the couple escaped to England, where both joined the Special Operations Executive. Her husband, Victor Gerson, proposed setting up a line of helpers to simplify the exit and entrance of SOE agents, and Balmaceda volunteered to reconnoitre the possibility. In May 1941 she was sent to occupied France and returned through Spain in late June 1941, and was the first female SOE agent to enter occupied France. She proved adept at distinguishing between those who genuinely wanted to help escapees and those who professed to rebel against the Germans while secretly informing their counterintelligence police. She spent three months, ostensibly on holiday, travelling freely on her Chilean passport in Lyons and Vichy, returning with a large haul of intelligence and the names and addresses of those who were willing to help and who could be trusted. She had collected a lot of information and administrative documents used in occupied France, such as ration cards, which could be reproduced in London for use by agents on clandestine missions in France.

On 21 April 1942, her husband, Victor Gerson landed by submarine at Antibes to organise the VIC Escape Line, which provided an escape route from France via Spain back to England for downed airmen, SOE agents, and others.