The Female Resistance Network of the Comet Line

The Comet Line (Reseau Comete) was a Belgian-French escape network that helped nearly 800 Allied airmen escape from occupied Europe to neutral Spain. It was founded and run almost entirely by young women. The leader, 24-year-old Belgian Andrée de Jongh, personally escorted the first 118 airmen across the Pyrenees on foot, crossing into Spain 24 times. She wore a red carnation in her lapel as her signature — the only thing the Germans identified her by. The network was so effective that the Germans called it the 'most dangerous escape route in Europe.' Andrée was arrested in January 1943. Even under torture by the Gestapo, she claimed (and never contradicted) that her father — a schoolteacher who was also involved — was the network's leader. The father played along, and both survived the war.