Cecile Margot Lefort served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and in France for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
Cecile Lefort
Women's Auxiliary Air Force
The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs, was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.
Poster
The first WAAF nursing orderlies selected to fly on air-ambulance duties to France, 1944
WAAF Recruitment poster
The Operations Room at RAF Fighter Command's No. 10 Group Headquarters, Rudloe Manor (RAF Box), Wiltshire, showing WAAF plotters and duty officers at work, 1943