When I was 23 years old, I was fretting over when my boyfriend was going to pop the question and whether or not I could adapt and overcome his propensity to leave his dirty clothes all over the bedroom and if my French final was going to kick my ass.
When Eileen Nearne was 23, she parachuted into Nazi occupied France with her sister (that's some serious sisterly bonding right there) in order to operate a secret radio link to Paris that was used to organize weapons drops to the French Resistance.
"I wasn't nervous. In my mind, I was never going to be arrested. But of course I was careful. There were Gestapo in plain clothes everywhere. I always looked at my reflection in the shop windows to see if I was being followed."
She was eventually found out and captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, tortured and beaten, and then put to work after her captors were unable to break her cover. Months after her capture, she managed to escape and hook up with American forces, who automatically labeled her a Nazi sympathizer. Since she'd easily told the Nazis to fuck off, a few days of flipping Americans the bird while they verified her story wasn't much of a hardship.
After the war ended, she returned to civilian life in England. Eileen spent the rest of her life pretty much alone, just her and her cats, finding peace-time living difficult to adjust to. She shunned any attempts at making her a celebrity, but you just know that she was sitting in her living room, peacefully knitting or crocheting or whatever the hell it is old ladies do, just waiting for another war to break out so she could stick it the bad guys again. "It was a life in the shadows, but I was suited for it. I could be hard and secret. I could be lonely. I could be independent. But I wasn't bored. I liked the work. After the war, I missed it."
Eileen passed away September 2nd at the age of 89.
Salute to you, Eileen, and your "Kiss my ass, Nazis!" attitude. May you find peace.
Wow - what an amazing woman. Can you imagine doing that stuff at such an early age? I can only hope I'd be that brave in a situation half as serious. Thanks for passing along her story, Amy!