I first heard of “Agent Rose” when she celebrated a birthday at her home in North Somerset, England, on February 3, 2009.
The title of the BBC News story then was “War heroine toasts 104th birthday.”
This morning, I read about her again. Sadly, the headline read, “Andrée Peel, Rescuer of Allied Airmen, Dies at 105.”
Andrée Peel was Agent Rose, a French resistance heroine who helped save more than 100 American and British airmen shot down by the Germans over European skies during World War II.
According to the BBC in 2009, “Agent Rose and her team used torches to guide allied planes to improvised landing strips and smuggled fugitive airmen onto submarines and gunboats.”
The heroine eventually was captured by the Gestapo, interrogated, tortured and imprisoned at the Ravensbrück and Buchenwald concentration camps.
In April 1945, she was “being lined up to be shot by a firing squad at Buchenwald” when the camp was liberated by the American army.
According to the New York Times, Andrée Virot, as her name was in 1940, first joined the resistance movement when German troops occupied Brest, Brittany, circulated an underground newspaper and provided intelligence to the Allies on German shipping and troop movements and on the results of Allied bombings.
However, she is best remembered and honored for her role in rescuing 102 Allied airmen, “by her account, in a network that set up safe houses for fliers on the run from the Germans and then took the men to isolated sections of the Brest beaches, where they boarded boats transporting them to England,” according to the New York Times.
For her heroic actions she was awarded, among others, the Croix de Guerre, two Légions d’Honneur, the American Medal of Freedom, and the (British) King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.
She also received a personal letter of appreciation from Prime Minister Winston Churchill for her actions.
When she celebrated her 105th birthday a few weeks ago, Agent Rose was proudly wearing those decorations on her blouse.
You can read more about this heroine here and here.
Image: Courtesy dailymail.co.uk
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.