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Kathleen Moore
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SOE war hero, art dealer.
Born at Strathcona, Alberta on 2 January 1914, daughter of Katherine Helen Chapman (1879-1930) and journalist Harold Henry Moore, after high school she attended the University of Manitoba where she studied French and was friends with Frank Pickersgill. On graduation, she received a scholarship to study at The Sorbonne in Paris. After finishing there, she stayed in Paris to work at the British embassy. She was evacuated to England when Germany invaded France in May 1940.
In England, she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She worked in RF, the SOE section that worked with the Free French Forces supporting General Charles de Gaulle. She briefed agents about the conditions on the ground in France before they departed on their missions. In 1943, she was reassigned to Air Liaison (AL) Section, which she eventually led. She was the only woman to hold such a senior position in the SOE.
As head of AL, she coordinated the SOE’s requirements for deliveries of operatives, weapons, and supplies to resistance organisations in Europe with the RAF Special Duties squadrons based at RAF Station Tempsford.
She met Charles Gimpel (1913-1973), a Free French cavalry officer, resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor, when she was working for the SOE at 1 Dorset Square in London. In 1946, they married and had two sons, René Gimpel and Charles Gimpel. They, along with Charles' brother Peter, operated the art gallery Gimpel Fils in London. The gallery was one of the first to feature Inuit art in a London exhibition in 1953.
She died at Chelsea, London, England on 19 March 2009.
“Fearless secret service agent aided scores of Resisters,” The Globe and Mail, 4 April 2009. [Internet Archive, 9 April 2009]
We thank James Arnett and Gordon Goldsborough for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Robert Nash.
Page revised: 22 May 2024
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