The Black Campbell

Maybe she wasn’t based specifically on Doyle, or the hundreds of other women that served in OSS, SOE, and other agencies during the war, but it’s a worth title.

The young New Zealander Doyle joined Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps in 1941 following the death of her godmother’s father — whom she considered her grandfather — by Nazis. She was quickly recruited into the Special Operations Executive and her most famous exploit was parachuting in behind enemy lines prior to the Normandy invasion, where she posed as a French girl named Paulette. She bicycled around the combat zone selling soap to Germans and collecting intelligence on them. Her 135 messages helped craft the battle plan for D-Day. She frequently lived off the land. Her combat skills were on par with male agents. She was taught by a cat burglar to scale buildings.

She didn’t tell her kids about any of this until 1999 when a son discovered her story while researching D-Day. And just this November, after 70 years, she was awarded the Chevalier French Legion of Honour Medal, one of the highest military awards the French have.

Then there’s the rest of them…

You can read more about her here.