![]() She was trained not only to jump behind enemy lines, but also to spy on, sabotage, and kill Axis troops occupying her home country.īorrel parachuted into France in September of 1942, becoming the first female combat agent to do so. In the spring of 1942, the SOE recruited her. She then moved to London, eager to continue fighting for the liberation of France. ![]() When she herself got ratted out, she escaped to Lisbon, Portugal. She aided at least 65 Allied evaders (mainly British Royal Air Force airmen shot down over enemy territory) on their journeys out of France to Spain through the Pyrenees. The German military defeated France in June 1940, but many French citizens took up arms in a resistance to Adolf Hitler and his troops.Īfter a stint treating people wounded by the German Army, she joined a group of French Resistance operatives organizing and operating one of the country's largest underground escape networks, the Pat O'Leary line. ![]() In her book, D-Day Girls : THE SPIES WHO ARMED THE RESISTANCE, SABOTAGED THE NAZIS, AND HELPED WIN WORLD WAR II, Rose chronicles three of these agents' contributions to the Allied victory in Normandy and the liberation of Western Europe. No, there were female special forces agents on the ground and working to keep the Allies from being blown back into the water. "People tend to think women were 'just' secretarial couriers and messengers. "Women are the hidden figures of D-Day," says Rose, who started researching the history of women in combat and was surprised to learn that their roles dated back to World War II. They are among the 39 female agents who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's secret World War II intelligence agency created in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze." ![]() As the June 6 anniversary of the largest amphibious assault in military history approaches, journalist Sarah Rose illuminated several less widely known combat heroes who fought for the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe in Operation Overlord: Andrée Borrel, Lise de Baissac, and Odette Sansom. It has been 79 years since upward of 150,000 Allied troops began storming the beaches of Normandy by air, land, and sea. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. ![]()
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