Michelle Dumon

Micheline Aline "Michou" Dumon (20 May 1921 – 16 November 2017) was a member of the Belgian Resistance during World War II with the Comet line (Réseau Comète). She went by the codenames "Michou" and "Lily", Aline Dumon, and her last name often appears misspelled Dumont in various historical references.[1] She was awarded the British George Medal and helped hundreds of agents effect an escape from France.[2] A member of the Comet line, an organization run by civilians to help Allied soldiers and airmen to return to Britain,[3] she aided in the flight of over 250 people to Spain.[4]

The Gestapo discovered the Comet Line in November 1942 and arrested and deported her entire family. Her father died, and her sister Renée was detained in various concentration camps, including Mauthausen and Ravensbrück. Micheline took over for her family members, and in 1944 discovered who had betrayed the Comet line: Jacques Desoubrie. During an accidental encounter in Brussels he suspected that she knew his secret; he followed her but she managed to escape, and the next day used the line to escape. She ended up in England, where she met her future husband Pierre Ugeux, a paratrooper and French Major in the Special Operations Executive (SOE)[5], Pierre Ugeux, who had been her SOE handler during the resistance and later highly active in motorsports. They married in 1945 and moved to France after the war.[6][7]

Honors

References

  1. ↑ Last Best Hope: A True Story of Escape, Evasion, and Remembrance. 2006.
  2. ↑ "Micheline Dumon Obituary". The Times. 24 November 2017. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  3. ↑ Eisner, Peter (23 April 2010). "Robert Grimes dies at 87; WWII pilot evaded Nazi capture". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Little “Michou”
  5. ↑ "Micheline Dumon". The Guardian. 12 November 2017.
  6. ↑ The Royal Air Forces Escaping Society (1994)
  7. ↑ The story of Lily…”Michou”
  8. ↑ "Micheline Dumont-Ugeux, daring Belgian resistance fighter in WWII, dies at 96". Washington Post. 17 December 2017.
  9. ↑ THE GEORGE MEDAL AWARDED TO BELGIANS by PETER VERSTRAETEN AND WILLY LIPPENS
  10. ↑ George Watt. Escape from Hitler's Europe: An American Airman behind Enemy Lines. p. 139.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.