Madeleine Victorine Bayard, daughter of (father unknown) and Suzanne Bayard, was born on 21 Feb 1911 in Paris, France and died at sea after the sinking of the HMS Fidelity 1 Jan 1943.
ALSO KNOWN AS:
Madeleine Barclay
Madeleine served on the French merchant vessel Le Rhin. After the fall of France, in 1940, the ship escaped to Britain and was accepted for service with SOE, re-commissioned as HMS Fidelity, with its French crew inducted into the Royal Navy.
She was commissioned into the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and became a First Officer (equivalent to a Lieutenant commander). After attending the WRNS Officers' Training Course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in January 1941, she rejoined her ship on operations for SOE. At the time, it was extremely rare for a "Wren", whether rating or officer, to serve afloat.
In November 1942, the Allies landed in French North Africa and the Germans occupied Vichy France as a precaution. It was no longer appropriate to continue the operations to this part of France. However, a new role was considered for Fidelity in the Far East. Large enough to carry her own torpedo-boats (MTBs) and spotter aircraft, she was ideal as an offshore base to mount Commando operations on Japanese-held coasts in South-East Asia. A company (in reality, more a Troop) of 40(RM) Commando was embarked and Fidelity set off on her new mission, joining a convoy for the dangerous initial part of the voyage through the North Atlantic.
Off the Azores, Fidelity was damaged by an attack from U-615, then sunk by U-435 around 1 Jan 1943. There were reports of survivors of the sinking, but Fidelity had herself been rescuing other survivors and was far behind the convoy. A detached Motor Torpedo Boat reached safety, but otherwise all hands were lost, Including Madeleine.
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