BELGIAN HEROINE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26078, 15 February 1946, Page 5

BELGIAN HEROINE

SAVED ALLIED SERVICEMEN OUTSTANDING GALLANTRY SHOWN (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 13. A slight, curly-haired, pretty Belgian, Mademoiselle Endree Delongh, aged 25 drove to Buckingham Palace and received from his Majesty the award of the Geoi-ge Medal “for outstandinggallantry and tenacious devotion to 'the Allied cause.” The citation revealed a remarkable story of Mile. Dejongh s planning and leadership of the undercover organisation known as the “Comet line,” which was the saviour of many Allied servicemen stranded in German occupied Europe. The citation said: “From 1941 until her arrest in January, 1943, she organised the despatch of these servicement from Belgium to the Pyrenees. The work was not a haphazard undertaking but a masterpiece of careful planning. She crossed the Pyrenees in all weathers —mid-winter snow and ice, and summer heat and rain.” The citation recounts how Mile. Dejongh swam the Somme 20 times on one trip helping non-swimmers across the river. She constantly evaded frontier patrols and refused to abandon her self-imposed task, although her arrest appeared daily to be imminent. Once when the Gestapo appeared at the front door, she escaped through the garden. She was finally arrested on the Spanish frontier on January 13, 1943, and was sent to a concentration camp. , , ~ In addition to the George Medal, the Air Ministry presented Mile. Dejongh with a mounted bomber’s clock inscribed: “In token of the deep and lasting gratitude of the R.A.F.” The Secretary of State for Air, Viscount Stansgate, said Mile. Dejongh’s efforts were- “ almost unsurpassed in mankin s history.” , , After receiving the George Medal, Mile. Dejongh talked with their Majesties in their private apartments and told her story.