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With the hint of a smile, Simone Segouin stares nonchalantly into the camera with a submachine gun slung over her shoulder. It is a startling image of the young French freedom fighter – and it would soon become iconic. It comes from a colour film, shot by Hollywood director George Stevens in August 1944. It immortalises an 18-year-old Simone shortly after she helped capture 25 German soldiers in her home village of Thivars, south west of Paris. The defiant teenager gazes back at the lens, dressed in blue shorts, a black-and-white top with a red sash and a khaki cap,...

Roanoke lost one of its most decorated World War II veterans last weekend. Former fighter pilot William Overstreet Jr., famous for flying beneath the arches of the Eiffel Tower while chasing a German aircraft during the war, died Sunday afternoon. He was 92. Overstreet was awarded hundreds of medals for his service in the 357th squadron of the U.S. Army Air Forces, according to his obituary for Oakey’s Funeral Home. One of his greatest honors was receiving France’s Legion of Honor by the French ambassador to the U.S. in 2009 at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. At the ceremony,...

AFTER witnessing Hitler's early atrocities, Nancy Wake vowed to fight him any way she could. She fought so well, she ended up on top of the Gestapo's wanted list, saved thousands of Allied lives, played a crucial role in D-Day and received France's highest military honour. "Nobody can beat you Nancy, nobody," Sonya d'Artois told her old Resistance comrade when Wake was awarded Australia's highest civilian honour in 2004, six decades after the French recognised her. She was resourceful, cunning, feisty, brave and tough, once killing a German sentry with her bare hands. "She is the most feminine woman I...

THE most decorated woman of World War II, Nancy Wake had a five-million-franc price put on her head by the feared German secret police, the Gestapo, for helping the French Resistance. Branded the White Mouse by her hunters, she became the most wanted resistance fighter in France. ..... By 1940, Wake was running messages and smuggling food for the French resistance, the Maquis. She branched out into helping downed Allied airmen escape capture and returning them to Britain. It has been estimated that she helped more than 1000 airmen escape. ..... But in 1943, Gestapo agents were closing in. One...

Helene Deschamps Adams, a hero of the French Resistance who saved American fliers from capture and Jews from execution by the Nazis, and played a role in secret preparations for Allied invasions of France, died in Manhattan Saturday of heart failure.

When Glenn Ford died Thursday morning at the age of 90, major media recalled his long Hollywood career, recalling the 106 films in which he appeared, his many marriages and romances. Wrote the Associated Press, "He was a star to the end of his career." Glenn Ford was far more than that, yet none of the obituaries bothered to mention his extraordinary patriotism or his distinguished military career. Ford rose to the rank of Captain in the United States Navy after years of dedicated service that began with World War II and continued through the Vietnam War. He was undoubtedly...

The President needs to finally own up to the fact that this confrontation will degenerate into a Vietnam-like quagmire. The facts at this point are unmistakeable, and the body count is rising. Whether the bodies are sub-compacts, coupes or sedans, the number of cars killed rises nightly, as Mr Chirac seems to be out of touch with the wishes of the people. People around the world are revolted at the carnage. What will it take until the French finally understand that the war is lost, and pull out of France? As usual in cases like this the President has finally...

The final item in the Sept. 30, 1944 "Activity Report of Virginia Hall," American intelligence agent, was No. XV: "Were you decorated in the Field?" "No," she had typed, "nor any reason to be." The answer was typical of her matter-of-fact sense of duty. But William J. Donovan, known to a generation of spies as "Wild Bill," begged to differ. On May 12, 1945, Maj. Gen. Donovan, director of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, informed President Harry Truman that Hall was, for her extraordinary heroism, to receive the Distinguished Service Cross -- second only to the Medal of Honor....