THE REAL CHARLOTTES

What was it really like to leave your country with a new name, a new identity, cloaked in secrecy and fear? To spend your days and nights with strangers whose true names you would never know, fighting an ever–present enemy with little more than your wits, your bravery, and your undying hope that good would triumph in the end?

How did it feel to know that every knock at the door might be the Gestapo or the French Militia, eager to drag your strong, young body to the torture chamber and from there to certain death? And how do you keep going, tired and scared, when all the while your capture would require you to commit suicide rather than risk disclosing the whereabouts of the people upon whom the safety and freedom of France depended?

The story of Charlotte Gray pays homage to the many young women who, like their fictional counterpart, were dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi–occupied France during the latter years of the Second World War. Their stories are tales of astonishing bravery, often as not ending in tragedy.

Some have become famous thanks to novelists, biographers and filmmakers, like Violette Szabo whose incredible story was captured in the book, Carve Her Name With Pride by R.J. Minney, later made into a film of the same name. Others remain comparatively unknown, their courageous deeds languishing in forgotten files and yellowing newspaper clippings. Their legacies must not be forgotten.

In this section of the Charlotte Gray website, we pay homage to these brave women who “stood their soft, slender bodies before you and your future like protective steel shields throughout the Fascist terrors.”

DISCOVER THE REAL CHARLOTTES

Read about and view photo galleries of some of the “Real Charlottes,” the heroines of the S.O.E. “F” Section, beginning with the story of Lilian Vera Rolfe. »