Corie Johnson — Author

Corie Johnson is the author of a forthcoming book about the three female agents who won the George Cross, Violette Szabo, Odette Hallowes and Noor Inayat Khan. Corie would like to contact family and relatives of these women before publication of the book in early 2004.

Corie can be contacted here: coriejoh@direcway.com

The context of the the book is described below:

" The George Cross is awarded for an act of the greatest heroism, or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger. Only four women have ever been directly awarded the George Cross. Three of the four George Cross awards to women were for service in the resistance, in enemy occupied territory, during World War Two. This is their story.

The women of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) were by most all accounts, exemplary in courage, character and integrity. Under the most extreme conditions these women seemed to experience a clarity of thought and action which most of us hope we will achieve in a life time.

Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan (code name Madeleine) were awarded the George Cross posthumously after being executed by the Nazi regime at Ravensbruck and Dachau (concentration camps). Odette Brailly (Sansom, Churchill, Hallowes) was tortured by the Gestapo, sent to Ravensbruck Concentration camp and survived to receive the George Cross and to testify at the Natzweiler Trials. All three women were with the S.O.E. French Section.

These women were my childhood heroes. They were able, at a very young age, to see the inherent evil of the Nazi regime and recognize that this was a fight for the soul of every person to live in freedom. They represent the very best in each of us. In many ways they saved my life, during a rugged childhood from which there was no escape, except through the fantasy of living as they had done. They continue to teach me much about honor, integrity and living each moment of life. Two paid the highest price in giving their lives that we might live in freedom.

Odette did not harbor bitterness or hatred for her captors. Her belief was that to do so would be to perpetuate the very foundation of hatred and malice on which the Nazi empire was founded. She also felt we had exterminated the "parasite" but not the "host." In essence she believed that the Nazi regime could only live in a climate which supports hatred, bigotry and malice. Her statement which follows, outlines a theme prevalent in her interviews when she had returned home from the war.

"I am a very ordinary woman to whom a chance was given to see human beings at their best and at their worst. I knew kindness as well as cruelty, understanding as well as brutality. I completely believe in the potential nobility of the human spirit."

It is my hope that in honoring these woman that as a people we will attempt to emulate their strengths, again and again and again. They, like many before them, literally gave their lives rather than live under the narrow, oppression which threatened the entire world.

We have an opportunity to grow, honor and rise above our differences with kindness and compassion, quite unlike that ever presented to any generation before us. We have only to weed the darkness from our own souls to do as these women did and touch the face of God."

Corie Johnson. Author of ''At The Next Full Moon"