She Risked Everything

During the war, Great Britain and the United States led a group of nations known as the Allies. They fought to defeat the Germans and free France.  

From airfields in Britain, the Allies sent wave after wave of planes to bomb German targets in France. But many Allied planes were shot out of the sky over France. Pilots and their crews often had to parachute into enemy territory, where they could get caught by the Germans.

One day, a local baker asked Virginia and Philippe to meet three American pilots he was hiding. The couple knew they had to help. They decided to join the Comet Line—a secret network of people and routes that helped Allied airmen avoid capture and safely return to Britain.

Virginia and Philippe’s home soon became a safe hiding place. The couple housed as many as 10 airmen at a time. In addition to feeding and clothing the men, they showed them how to blend in and not draw attention from the Germans. Then they would help arrange safe passage to the next stop on the Comet Line. In all, the couple helped 66 airmen.

Unfortunately, Virginia didn’t escape capture herself. On June 12, 1944, she was stopped by the Gestapo, the German secret police. She was instantly filled with terror: In her purse, she had a list of people who were part of the Comet Line. While the officers weren’t looking, she tore up the paper and swallowed it.  

Virginia was arrested and interrogated by the Germans. But she refused to tell them anything that might put the lives of Philippe or the escaping airmen at risk.

“I remember feeling quite weak in the knees, but I thought, ‘If they shoot me—they shoot me, but I won’t talk,’”she later wrote in her memoir about the war.

Virginia spent more than 10 months in prison camps in France and Germany. Prisoners were given barely any food and were forced to do hard labor, often in the freezing cold. Each day was a struggle to survive. At one point, Virginia weighed just 76 pounds.

“My friends were dying around me every day,” she recalled in a 1993 interview. “I couldn’t give up.”  

Virginia finally gained her freedom in April 1945. Within a few weeks, the war in Europe was over, and the Allies had won.

Virginia and Philippe soon reunited. They lived a quiet life together in France until Virginia’s death in 1997. Though Virginia never thought of herself as a hero, the airmen she helped disagreed.

“I understand the risk you took for all of my kind,” one of the airmen wrote to her in a letter after the war. “There is nothing great enough we could do to pay you for it.”

1. Why was the fall of 1943 a dangerous time to be living in France?

2. How were Virginia d’Albert-Lake and her husband involved in the Comet Line?

3. How did Virginia react to being interrogated by the Germans?