LONDON -- Buried deep in Eileen Nearne's secret World War II file, released Friday by the National Archives, is the secrecy agreement she signed on September 4, 1942. It was a commitment she honored until her death last month at the age of 89.
Nearne was the spy who never came in from the cold. When she died alone, with precious little support or human contact, none of her neighbors knew she had been decorated for her bravery behind enemy lines in occupied France.
Her wartime role was not publicly acknowledged until local officials went into her apartment after her death and found a treasure trove of medals, records and memorabilia, including French currency used during the war.
Nearne's file, released after a freedom of information request, sheds new light on her wartime exploits, which were so extraordinary that advancing American forces refused to believe her when she rushed out of a church in Germany and claimed to be an undercover British agent who had escaped from a German concentration camp.
The Americans did not believe her story and kept her in captivity for a month, holding her with Nazi prisoners until an English officer came to fetch her, telling the Americans that Nearne's story, incredible though it seemed, was true, the file says.
It shows that Nearne - a young woman tortured by the Gestapo who never broke or spilled a secret - was consistently underestimated and belittled by her male superiors as she was trained for a perilous clandestine assignment as a wireless transmitter operator ...
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