Jezebel: Wwii

Profile In Courage

Sadie Stein — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EDT

Susan Travers may be the most amazing woman you've never heard of: an English socialite who became a Free French ambulance driver, she earned the Legion d'Honneur and become the only woman in the French Foreign Legion. [BBC] More »

Sweet Virginia

Sadie Stein — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:40:00 EDT

Virginia D'Albert Lake, who died in 1997, is a true D-Day hero: l'Americaine stayed on in France through the occupation, joined the resistance and helped to rescue more than 60 Allied airmen before her deportation to a concentration camp. [NPR] More »

Fly Girls: Female Flyers Qualify For Honors, Awesomeness, Immortality

Sadie Stein — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:00:00 EDT

With time running out, Women Airforce Service Pilots, ace pilots and swell dames, may finally get their due. More »

Doing The Whirly-Jig

Anna Holmes — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:10:00 EDT

[Minsk, May 9. Image via Getty]

"I Do Have To Watch Out For My Complexion, Though"

Sadie Stein — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:40:00 EDT

"Dick enlisted two months before Pearl Harbor - I wanted to be doing something necessary, too, so I found my job helping to build planes." [Vintage Ads] More »

Sexist Beer Ad Gets The Boot • "To Kill a Mockingbird" Named Most Inspirational Book

Katy Kelleher — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:20:00 EDT

• The advertising overlords have ruled that this ad for Courage beer suggesting that a man needs a drink to gather the "Dutch courage" to tell a woman her ass looks fat, is unacceptable. • More »

Despite Rough Childhood, Very Hungry Author Is Now Very Happy

Katy Kelleher — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:30:00 EDT

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In honor of the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Newsweek has a sweet piece on author Eric Carle and the inspiration behind his whimsical works. More »

Vogue Model/Photographer/Muse Suspected Of Spying In Wartime

TatianaTheAnonymousModel — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:00:00 EST

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Lee Miller — Surrealist muse, WWII photojournalist, Vogue staffer, gourmet cook — is pretty much the archetypal model-slash. But it was Miller's rumored communism that led the MI5 to spy on her for 20 years. More »

Badass British Broad Led Thousands Of French Fighters To Glory

Jessica G. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:30:00 EDT

The exploits of Pearl Cornioley, a British spy who led thousands of French Resistance fighters in guerrilla missions against the Germans, were just declassified by English intelligence, says today's International Herald Tribune. We wrote about her death earlier this month, and now that more information has come to light about her daring, it's clear she was a total badass. According to the IHT, Pearl, who went by the alias Genevieve Touzalin, concealed secret messages in the hem of her skirt when she was parachuted in from England. She started her spying career as a secretary for the Air Ministry, but she really wanted to get her hands dirty, so she used her French fluency (she was raised by British expats in France) to secure a position as a Special Operations Executive agent. At first, her superiors didn't think she was anything special, but her aim with a pistol was "Probably the best shot (male or female) we have had yet," according to recently-declassified documents. More »