The Alliance network, one of the largest French intelligence networks working for MI6, was nicknamed "Noah's Ark" by the Gestapo because all its members used animal codenames. Founded by Georges Loustaunau-Lacau and later led by Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (the only woman to lead a major French Resistance network), Alliance provided some of the most valuable intelligence of the war.
Among its greatest coups was obtaining complete plans of German Atlantic Wall defenses and providing detailed intelligence about V-1 and V-2 rocket sites at Peenemünde, enabling the devastating Allied bombing raid in August 1943. Léon Faye, codenamed "Eagle," served as the network's military commander and was instrumental in coordinating intelligence operations across France.
The network paid a terrible price: of approximately 3,000 members, about 500 were arrested and hundreds were deported to concentration camps. Many were executed, including Faye, who was killed at the Struthof-Natzweiler camp. Fourcade survived and spent decades after the war fighting for recognition of her fallen agents.