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BETTY BOOTHROYD鈥橲 SEARCH FOR WW2 HEROINES

Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, has traced six of the small, surviving group of women who were decorated with the George Medal during the Second World War.

When she began her search five months ago, she said: 鈥淭he sacrifice and endurance of our wartime heroines in uniform and on the home front must never be forgotten. Our mothers and grandmothers were a remarkable generation of women. This year, we shall pay tribute to them at long last.鈥�

Surviving GM heroines, along with former SOE agents who were parachuted into occupied France, are being invited as special guests to the unveiling of a national monument to the Women of World War Two in Whitehall on 9 July by Her Majesty The Queen. The 拢1m monument will stand in the centre of Whitehall, near the entrance to Downing Street. The money was raised by a fund, of which Baroness Boothroyd is patron.

The first heroine to be traced was Nancy Wake, known to the Gestapo as 鈥渢he White Mouse鈥�, because of her skills at evading capture when she worked with the French resistance. After escaping to England and being trained as a SOE agent, she parachuted into the Auvergne to lead 7,000 underground fighters against the Germans in 1944. Now 92, she is the most highly decorated woman of the war still living.

She was awarded the GM, the Croix de Guerre three times, the Resistance Medal, the American Medal of Freedom and was made an officer of the Legion of Honour. A New Zealander by birth, she returned to Australia, where she grew up, but came back to England and lives at the Royal Star and Garter 91热爆 in Surrey. Last year, she received the Order of Australia.
None of the women George Cross holders is still alive from the war years but nearly 40 women civilians won the George Medal.

Others traced are:
Gillian ("Bobby") Wilton-Clarke of Lampeter, mid-Wales, who won her GM for delivering petrol to fire pumps while the docks were being bombed in London on the night of 20-21 September 1940. Now 85, she says: 鈥淚 cannot think how we got away with it.鈥�
Ruby Ashdown, 86, who volunteered for nursing in a London hospital and stayed with a trapped patient for five hours when her hospital was bombed in 1940.
Rose Taylor, from West Sussex, who went to the rescue of a young child in a bombed farmhouse while the bombs were still dropping.
Betty Popkiss, who is returning to England from South Africa for the first time in over 60 years, to attend the unveiling. She won her GM in Coventry for rescuing survivors and giving them first aid treatment as a cadet in the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Sonia Howard, in Dorset, who treated air raid victims alone until help arrived after a raid on Caterham, Surrey.

Lady Boothroyd also traced Mrs Sheila Fox, who won her GM on the beachhead at Anzio in the Italian campaign, treating wounded soldiers while they were still under attack. Sadly, Mrs Fix died earlier this year.
Many relatives and friends of those named on Lady Boothroyd's first "Hunt the Heroines" list in January have contacted her to say they have died but are glad that their courage is being remembered.

Details of the unveiling can be found on: www.womenswarmemorial.org

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