Andree De Jongh, 90, Helped WWII Airmen Escape
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Countess Andree De Jongh, who set up an escape route that helped hundreds of British airmen escape the Nazi occupation in Belgium during World War II, died Saturday in Belgium. She was 90. De Jongh, a female nurse in a men’s world of war resistance, helped found the Comet Line escape route while still in her 20s. After her arrest in 1943, she survived German camps before being liberated at the end of the war.
“She was driven by humanitarian conscience,” historian Etienne Verhoeyen told VRT network. “She stood out because she could not be deterred and because she was a woman.”
The escape route, known as “Comete” in French, was set up in 1940 to send downed British airmen home and escape German imprisonment. The route went through Belgium, occupied France and over the Pyrenees into Spain’s Basque country.
“We accepted that we could be arrested. It was our job,” she said years ago. “We didn’t say ‘if we get arrested,’ we said ‘when we get arrested.'”
By the time she was arrested, she had already brought 118 people, including 80 downed pilots to safety. The Comet Line itself rescued over 700 pilots, according to verzet.org, a Web site for ex-resiststance fights.
She was made countess in 1985.
