Hélène Mallebrancke

Hélène Mallebrancke (3 March 1902 – 30 August 1940) was the first female Belgian civil engineer to graduate from the University of Ghent, and one of the earliest women engineers in Belgium. She was involved in the Belgian Resistance during the Second World War, keeping the Allied telecommunications networks in the Ghent region operational against huge odds. She was decorated posthumously by both the French government and the Belgian authorities.

Early life Hélène Mallebrancke was born on 3 March 1902 at Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, to Georges Mallebrancke, an engineer and Caroline Spijers She then entered the State University of Ghent, where she graduated in 1924 as a civil engineer. Her father, Georges Mallebrancke, died on 27 November 1924. The following year she earned a diploma as electrical engineer with distinction.

Career In 1926, she joined the Belgian public telephone service, known from 1930 as the Régie des Télégraphes et Téléphones. By May 1940, she had become the chief engineer and was in charge of the Ghent region.

World War Two During the invasion of Belgium, although knowing that she had been seriously ill since the beginning of the year, she continued to work day and night in order to keep telecommunications operational in the Ghent region in support of the Allies of World War II.

Exhausted, she was admitted to the Marie-Médiatrice Institute in Ghent, where she died on 30 August 1940 at the age of thirty-eight.

When he learned of her death, Charles Huntziger, then Minister of War in the Government of Vichy France sent her mother the Croix de Guerre with palms