Gertrude Mary Lindell, Comtesse de Milleville, code named Marie-Claire and Comtesse de Moncy, was an English woman, a front-line nurse in World War I and a member of the French Resistance in World War II.
26 Facts About Mary Lindell
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Mary Lindell founded and led an escape and evasion organization, the Marie-Claire Line, helping Allied airmen and soldiers escape from Nazi-occupied France.
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Outspoken, controversial, and imperious, Mary Lindell was called a "false heroine" by one critic, but she is credited with helping about 100 Allied airmen escape from France.
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Mary Lindell advocated successfully with her German captors for the release of 47 American and British women to the Swedish Red Cross in the closing days of World War II.
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Mary Lindell was awarded the Croix de Guerre twice, once for her work in World War I and once for World War II.
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Mary Lindell was born to a wealthy family in Surrey, England.
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Mary Lindell's father William was a solicitor and mother, Gertrude Colls, was of the Colls family, the daughter of a successful architect.
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Mary Lindell was decorated for her bravery and service by the French, receiving a Croix de Guerre in 1918.
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Mary Lindell married the Count Marie Joseph de Milleville, a member of the French aristocracy, and settled in Paris.
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Mary Lindell's husband was on a business trip to South America.
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In Paris, Mary Lindell decided that she and her three children would help the soldiers and airmen escape occupied France to unoccupied Vichy France.
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In London, Mary Lindell applied to return to France with MI9, the British escape and evasion organization.
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Mary Lindell was trained by MI9 in clandestine techniques and returned to France via Westland Lysander airplane in October 1942, landing near Ussel, Correze.
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On November 22,1943, Mary Lindell was arrested at the train station in Pau.
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Mary Lindell was wearing, as usual, her Red Cross uniform and was awaiting the arrival by train of four airmen whom she planned to send with a guide across the nearby Pyrenees to Spain.
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Mary Lindell attempted to escape by jumping off the train and was shot in the head by a German guard.
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Mary Lindell was an impossible character and disliked by everyone in normal circumstances.
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Two weeks after arriving at Ravensbruck, Mary Lindell was assigned to work in the camp hospital as a nurse.
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From her job at the hospital, Mary Lindell had the opportunity to meet or hear of many of the British and American women and made a list of those imprisoned at Ravensbruck.
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Mary Lindell presented him with her list of 47 prisoners of British and American citizenship or heritage and he acceded to her demand to allow them to leave the camp on the white buses.
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Mary Lindell committed suicide in prison on 8 April 1947.
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In 2015, Marie-Laure Le Foulon published an account of her research on Mary Lindell based on the work of Corinna von List and information provided by Anise Postel-Vienay, both members of the French Resistance.
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Mary Lindell was accused of being SS officer Percy Treite's lover.
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Mary Lindell was 33 years old in 1945; she was 49 years old.
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Hore commented that Mary Lindell resisted the German occupation of France for more than four years unlike many of her critics who joined the resistance only when it became clear that Germany was losing the war.
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Mary Lindell was featured in Women of Courage, a television series about four women who defied the Nazis, produced by Peter Morley, himself a German Jewish refugee.