The real Charlotte Gray finally gets her wings, 61 years late.
SHE was handed her CBE insignia personally by the Queen, she is a heroine in her adopted France, and her wartime exploits in the French Resistance are the basis for an acclaimed novel. But for 63 years a little bit of sex discrimination has rankled with Pearl Cornioley.
Amends were made yesterday when two British officers travelled to her retirement home at Châteauvieux in southwest France to present the 91-year-old widow with her parachute wings.
Mme Cornioley, born in Paris to British expatriate parents, was one of the real-life models for Charlotte Gray, the Sebastian Faulks novel that became a film. She was so adept at blowing up railway lines that the occupying Nazis put a price on her head of a million francs.
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She is modest about her war. “It was a complete accident that I ended up leading 1,500 Resistance fighters. I was not a military person — I was supposed to be a courier — but I ended up having to use whatever sense I had. But I certainly didn’t do this on my own.” Her valour was recognised and she was cited for the Military Cross. But the rules did not allow it; the MC was not for civilian women.
Hat tip to Rebecca Blood
Posted by Jill Fallon at April 21, 2006 12:37 PM | Permalink