Monica Wichfeld: Irish Heroine of the Danish Resistance

A woman carrying a large, heavy bag walked quietly onto a pier where a rowboat was tied, awaiting her use. It was past midnight, but the moon was bright and lit her way as she rowed silently through the still waters of the lake. On these quiet, moonlit nights, this lake reminded her of her childhood, when she used to create magical imaginary worlds with her beloved brother Jack on the lake of their beautiful estate in Northern Ireland.

She still couldn't bear to speak Jack's name aloud, even though he had been killed many years before, during World War I. That war had been started in part, as the current one had, by the Germans, and she would never forgive them for the conflict that took her brother's life. That is why Monica Wichfeld was now risking her life and safety by rowing the two miles across the lake with a bag full of explosives to be used by the Danish Resistance.

Opening paragraphs from "Monica Wichfeld: Irish Heroine of the Danish Resistance" from Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

The Danish Rescue of the Jews: Ebba Lund

Many Danes were content with the polite German occupation, but others were deeply offended and joined Resistance organizations. Some of these organizaions were involved with explosives, weapons, and acts of sabotage and assassination. Others, like the ones Ebba Lund and her sister, Ulla, joined, published illegal underground newspapers. By 1942, two years after the invasion, there were 48 different underground papers in Denmark (and by the end of the war there were 166). "Frit Danmark" (Free Denmark), the paper for which Ebba Lund worked, was the most popular of all Denmark's underground presses because of its lively writing style and its inclusion of many different political opinions, both liberal and conservative. By the end of the war, over six million copies of "Frit Danmark" had been published.

The debate over the necessity for illegal groups and newspapers ended with the publication of another paper, the public one that Ebba had just read. It stated that because of the rise of sabotage activities, the Danish government had lost its ability to maintain order and was being shut down.

The Danish government had resigned the day before the edict, on August 28, rather than cooperate with the Germans any longer. The Danes were finally united and not a moment too son; shortly afterward plans for a roundup of all Danish Jews became known. The Germans ran Denmark now, and nothing was going to stop them in their question to destroy all of Europe's Jews.

Nothing except the Danes. They quickly took action. Sweden had promised to accept any and all Danish Jews who could be brought there. All over Denmark, rescue plans were set in motion. Ebba joined the sabotage-oriented Resistance group Holger Danske (named for a legendary Danish hero), which was planning to work its rescue operation out of Copenhagen . . .


Excerpt from "Ebba Lund: The Girl with the Red Cap" from Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

Muriel Phillips, U.S. Army Nurse: Normandy

US Army nurses in Chester, England, before D-Day. Muriel Phillips is in front, saluting the brass.


"For their next assignment, Muriel and her entire hospital unit . . . were going to cross the English Channel to nurse the wounded of the Normandy invasion (which had taken place several weeks earlier) and await orders for their final destination.

The nurses decided to sleep on the ship's deck as the rooms below were infested with bedbugs. Muriel could hear the German planes flying overhead as she lay in the darkness; she had learned the difference bretween the sound of a German plane and an Allied one. But because a blackout had been ordered on the ship, all the lights had been extinguished. Muriel and the other nurses were not visible to the enmy planes as their transport ship crossed silently thorugh the dark waters of the English Channel.

A trip across the Channel usually took only two or three hours, but all the debris in the water -- broken remnants of airplanes, pieces of ruined ships -- had slowed the trip down substantially so that it took them three days. Finally, the coast of Normandy came into view . . .

As their trucks approached the nearest village, Muriel and the others became silent. The sights -- and smells -- of war were everywhere. Homes and farms lay in ruins. Piles of rubble lay where buildlings had once stood. The smell of death and decay hung in the air . . ."

Excerpt from "Muriel Phillips: U.S. Army Nurse" from Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

Pearl Witherington: In France After D-Day

Pearl Witherington (far right), Henri Cornioley (third from left), and other French resisters who worked with them after D-Day. 

Courtesy of Herve Larroque.

The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France -- D-Day -- had finally come. Urgent orders had come from London to obstruct the roads to hinder German troops from getting to the Normandy coast, where the Allies had just landed. Pearl Witherington, an SOE agent, and the rural French maquis fighters she was working with had been very busy for two days following these orders, blocking the roads in their area with felled trees and large pieces of debris.

A young man who had just bicycled in from Paris, 80 miles northeast, was outside the gatehouse of the chateau property where Pearl and her team of maquis were living. Pearl questioned him about the condition of the roads to the north.

She was shocked by what he told her: the only obstructions he had seen were in their immediate area. None of the other networks had obeyed the order. The Germans, always trying to weed out bands of maquis, would certainly come looking for whoever had created these obstructions.

Two days later a low-flying reconnaissance plane (referred to by the maquis as the Snoop) flew over Pearl's area. Had the pilot seen them?

Apparently so . . .

Opening paragraphs of "Pearl Witherington: The Courier Who Became a Leader" from Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

Read Pearl's edited memoirs here. 

U.S. Army Nurses: Work, Play, and Song

U.S. Army nurse Muriel Phillips in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge with two "weapons" given her by concerned G.I. patients (a blackjack in her right hand, and a switchblade in her left pocket).

Excerpt from Muriel P. Engleman's memoir, "Mission Accomplished: Stop the Clock."

"For many of our GI patients, we were the first American women they had seen in months or years, and this was even more exciting for them than sleeping on a bed with a mattress and clean sheets (something they had not experienced since they left the States). I remember one patient who had grown so accustomed to sleeping in his foxhole that he could not adjust to the luxury of a bed. I would find him each morning, curled up on the cement floor next to his bed. The American soldiers were so grateful for our just being there, and they worried more about our safety than their own. As harrowing as our existence was, it was still a very satisfying one, because we were doing what we came overseas to do.

"And we still had our social life when off duty, whether it was visiting friends at another post or just being in our own Officers' Club tent, dancing to the jukebox, writing letters, playing cards, or singing. Old songs, new songs, parodies ridiculing army brass -- we sang wherever we were. Someone would raise his voice in song, and soon everyone had joined in . . ."

Excerpt from page 54 of Muriel P. Engelman's memoir, Mission Accomplished: Stop the Clock.

(Women Heroes of WWII contains a chapter on Muriel's wartime experiences and it she who is leading the army nurses seen marching across the cover of the book).

Nancy Wake: The White Mouse

A beautiful woman pedaled her bike furiously along the quiet French road. Her legs were numb with exhaustion. Her seat was very sore. Although she desperately wanted to stop and rest, she knew that if she did, she might not be able to make herself get back on the bike. And it was of the utmost importance that she continue. She was responsible for the arming and the welfare of 17 different maquis groups including 7,000 maquisards whose lives and work against the Nazis now depended solely on her bike ride. And so she pedaled on, blocking out the pain and wiping the sweat from her brow as best she could.

When she passed German soldiers on the road, she forced a sweet smile and waved. Little did the soldiers know that this pretty woman whose smiles and waves they returned was the same woman the Gestapo had named the White Mouse, who was near the top of its "most wanted" list and had an enormous price on her head. She had several code names as an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), such as Andree and Helene, but the name her parents had given her when she was born in New Zealand was Nancy Grace Augusta Wake.

Opening paragraphs from "Nancy Wake: The White Mouse" from Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.

Martha Gellhorn: War Correspondent

Martha Gellhorn in Spain during the 1930's.
JFK Memorial Library.

While in Spain, reporting the effects the Spanish Civil War had on civilians for Collier's weekly newsmagazine, Martha realized that Fascism had to be stopped in Spain or it would take another, larger war to do so. The Fascist Nationalists won the war.

On the evening of June 6, 1944, D-Day, Martha was walking through the docks of London. By this timne, she had been reporting on the world war for Collier's from England, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and the Far East. She no longer believed, as she once did,. that public opinion could be changed by journalism. After all, she and other jouirnalists had been reporting the dangerous rise of European Fascism for years, and it had only grown more powerful. What Martha wanted now was a front-row seat to the fall of Fascism, which she believed had just begun that morning on the shores of Normandy. She thought that being a journalist gave her that ticket.

But she was going to have to find her own ticket this time. Along with the troops that had crossed the English Channel from the very docks she was now strolling through, hundreds of writers, radio journalists, and war photographers had also crossed over into Normandy. Martha, by now a respected and renowned journalist, had not been allowed to travel with them for one simple reason: they were men, and she was a woman. Female reporters weren't allowed on the front lines of battle.

As Martha walked around the docks, she noticed a white ship that had red crosses painted on its side. It was a hospital ship that was going to cross the Channel to help the wounded . . .

Excerpt from "Martha Gellhorn: War Correspondent" from Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue.