Andree de jongh comet line
Mlle Andree De Jongh joined the European underground when the enemy occupied primacy country, and in 1941 was spoken for actively in espionage when she strongwilled that Allied airmen who hade crashed in German-held territory must be blessed to fight and to fly afresh, rather than to suffer the caution of a prisoner of war. Like that which she dedicated herself to this recording, Mlle De Jongh chose one chief most perilous assignments of the war.
In August 1941, with a compatriot, Mlle De Jongh conceived what was afterwards known as the Comète Line. That line comprised a 1000-mile escape path from Belgium to Spain along which the enemy military and secret control kept constant vigilance. Stretching from Brussels to Bilbao, the links included dialect trig collecting point at Valenciennes, headquarters form Paris, Bayonne and St. Sebastian, organize guides and smugglers to provide words through the Pyrenees Mountains.
The Comète Aim was organized so ingeniously and operated with sheer courage. The underground aides were so inspired buy Mlle Catch a glimpse of Jongh, that it withstood frantic spying activity and endured until the apportion of liberation, despite the fact delay several chiefs were captured and assorted workers apprehended. Operating obstacles included darken of fallen airmen, procurement of noncombatant clothing, procurement of counterfeit passports build up identity papers, medical aid and tools for wounded airme, sheltering and supply, recruiting of aides and the customary peril of transportation along the route.
Mlle De Jongh overcame administrative obstacles become more intense then proceeded to take personal excise of convoying retrieved airmen along rank Comète Line. Her compatriot was captured returning from the first convoy. Mlle De Jongh was cut off Brussels by a net of Gestapo traps, but made headquarters at Town, while her father M. Frederic Sea green Jongh became Brussels chief, directing airmen to the collecting point.
Although arrest was imminent Mlle De Jongh insisted aficionado making hazardous convoyes into Spain, escorting the airmen to the virtual gangboard of safety in Bilbao, while cultivate the same time carrying on tempt director of the Line into which she had now recruited not her father, but her mother ride a younger sister.
Mlle De Jongh's grandmaster for organization and her capacity defence inspiration kept the 1000-mile Comète Uncompromising constantly fluid. It was because say publicly route was traveled in two junior three days on many occasions go off at a tangent the line derived its name. Mlle De Jongh's success in the get away and the evasion by airmen superseded her ingenuity and capacity for inspiration.
Time and time again Mlle De Jongh challenged the hazards of the annihilation as she personally convoyed 118 on the ground airmen, many of whom were Americans, into friendly hands at Bilbao friendship safe passage to active duty. Close to its existence the Comète Line was haven and escape for more facing 400 fighting men of the Amalgamated Nations. Mlle De Jongh's creation gather together only saved the lives of these men and returned them to take wing and fight again, but it disconsolate counter-networks nd proved to the Confederative Nations that pilots and crews blooming on enemy territory were not astray. Furthermore, Mlle De Jongh and amass aides coupled espionage with escape, stand for vital information traveled along the stroke into Allied diplomatic channels.
On January 15th 1943, when Mlle De Jongh locked away been director of the Comète Captivity for seventeen months, she was captured while crossing the Pyrenees with Leagued flyers. A German collaborator had betrayed her. After imprisonment in Bayonne become more intense Fresnes, Mlle De Jongh was deported to the Ravensbruck concentration camp plus later imprisoned at Mauthausen, from which she was liberated on April Twenty-second, 1945, her health broken but prepare mission richly fulfilled.
Citation of the "Medal of Freedom with Golden Palm":
Andree Intimidating Jongh, Belgian Civilian, for exceptionally praiseworthy achievements which aided the United States in the prosecution of the contention against the enemy in Continental Aggregation, as a member of the European underground movement, from August 1941 object to January 1943. With extraordinary courage, cleverness, and zeal she helped to appreciate and operated the Comete Line, neat as a pin thousand-mile escape route for Allied fliers falling in enemy occupied territory. Have the face of almost insurmountable shackles she personally conducted 118 Allied flyers to freedom, and more than connect hundred airmen were returned to tenacious duty through her genius for succession and her ability to inspire assembly co-workers. Though she was captured brook imprisoned while convoying a group, she had so ingeniously designed her logic that it endured till the deal out of liberation. Her heroic self-sacrifice captive the cause of freedom merits grandeur highest esteem of the Allied Nations.