A WWII nurse parachuted into France as a special spy agent for the Allies

Andrée Borrel was a nurse assisting the wounded soldiers fighting for her home country of France during World War II. That enough would have been a valuable service in the fight against the Nazi invasion. However, her service as a nurse would come to an end and she was forced to flee her country. But she would return, parachuting in as a spy for the Allied Forces.

At the start of WWII, Borrel volunteered as a nurse for the Red Cross, working in various hospitals throughout southern France. While working at Hôpital de Beaucaire, she was recruited into the Pat O’Leary Line, an underground movement that helped downed Allied soldiers, Jews, and resistance fighters make their way out of Nazi-occupied France to safer haven in England.

After the organization was compromised by a traitor within the ranks, she was forced to flee, traveling Pyrenees into Spain and then flying to England from a plane in Portugal.Shortly after touching down in England, she was quickly recruited and cleared by MI5, Britain’s intelligence agency. Borrel’s work with the French resistance and native fluency in French got her a spot with the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She was taught hand-to-hand combat and Morse Code among other skills, excelling in her classes. Her SOE training report stated:

“She is thoroughly tough and self-reliant with no nerves. Has plenty of common sense and is well able to look after herself in any circumstances and she is absolutely reliable. Has lost her attitude of over-confidence and has benefited enormously from the course and developed a thoroughly level-headed approach towards problems. A very pleasant personality and she should eventually develop into a first-class agent.”

Her training complete, Borrel and her fellow agent Lise de Bassaic parachuted and dropped down near the River Loire in France in the dead of night on September 24, 1942. This made Borrel and de Bassaic the first two women paratroopers in history. Given Borrel’s familiarity with Paris, she was assigned there to act as a courier between resistance groups for the Prosper Network with the codename “Denise.” With de Bassaic, she posed as an agricultural equipment saleswoman to form relationships with a string of farms that could help the resistance as airfields and safehouses. She also helped provide intelligence to the Allied Forces and participated as a saboteur on various missions.

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She eventually rose to second-in-command in the Prosper Network and was respected by her peers, man and woman alike. One of her fellow agents recounted a story in which she told him that if given the chance she would jam a pencil into a Nazi’s ear to stab his brain and kill him. He believed her fully.

As the Prosper Network expanded and succeeded in missions, it got the attention of the Gestapo. Borrel was eventually caught and arrested in June 1943 when a double-agent leaked intelligence to the Germans. Upon interrogation, Borrel refused to talk and held her captors in contempt.

After being held in Fresnes Prison, Borrel and four other female SOE agents were transferred to Germany on May 13, 1944 and put into separate cells. On July 6, 1944, she and three other women were escorted to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. That day, each one was injected with phenol after being told that it was a typhus shot, and had their body placed into the crematorium to burn. Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp would be liberated five months later. Borrel was only 24 years old when she was executed.

Andrée Borrel did so much at such a young age, and her sacrifice allowed so many to outlive her to see old age. It is thanks to her heroism among so many other unsung heroes of the time that we are able to live how we currently do today.