THIS DAY in 2007, Andrée de Jongh died.

Let me tell you about this amazing woman.

In WWII, codenamed Dédée, and aged just 21, she created the famous Comet Evasion Line to get Allied soldiers and airmen back to England.
She set up safehouses along the route from Belgium to Spain, procured clothes and false IDs, and ran the entire operation.

She personally made about 24 round trips before 'handing off' to other trusted couriers.

Arrested by the Nazis in January 1943, she did not break.
Her deputy - aged just 18 - carried on her work, and De Jongh was eventually sent to Ravensbrück and then Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

She survived the Concentration Camps, survived the war, to work in hospitals in Africa, dying in 2007.
The British Colonel in Madrid who received her 'charges' would later call her a "pure heroine of legend."
During her work, the British supplied funds to support the Comet Line.

Much of this was unused, and at the end of the war De Jongh tried to return it.

Her offer was declined.

She used it instead to set up school scholarships.
Her story became the inspiration for the 1977 BBC Drama series 'Secret Army', with actress Jan Francis playing 'Yvette' - directly based on Andree De Jongh - even wearing De Jongh's trademark beret and mackintosh.
'Secret Army' in turn, was of course parodied in BBC's 1982 comedy 'Allo, Allo'.

They kept the beret and mackintosh for Kirsten Cooke's character 'Michelle'.
But behind it all is the real story of quiet courage of a 21-year-old from Belgium.

21 years old.

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More from @jdpoc

5 Sep
THIS DAY in 1914, began the six-day Battle of the Marne.

It resulted in an Allied victory against the German armies which stopped the German advance - leading to a stalemate that would result in the trench warfare that followed.

1/4. Image
The Marne was pre-steel helmets.

Images of the time look like they could have come from the US Civil War 50 years previously.

2/4. Image
The Marne was so close to Paris that it's the only battle in history in which troops arrived by taxi.

600 Paris cabs were ordered to gather at Les Invalides, to ferry soldiers to the front.

3/4. Image
Read 4 tweets
5 Sep
09-04, THIS DAY n 1957, 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford strode through screaming white students and parents to try to enter High School in #Arkansas, one of the 'Little Rock Nine'.

1/5. ImageImage
A mob of 400 screaming and jeering white parents and children, with the active collusion of the #Arkansas National Guard (under the Governor's orders), stopped her and the others entering.

2/5. Image
On 23rd September, they finally entered the school, protected by elements of the 101st Airborne Division.

3/5. Image
Read 5 tweets
12 Jul
Yhread : On simple technical solutions to fighting online racism and other forms of hatred.
Last night after the England gane, and the resultant avalanche of racist vitriol aimed at a handful of players, we put out an alert / appeal on Twitter:

Well, after last night's post we've had a busy day.

Yes, we were - still are - covering other soc med platforms, and other players.

We have automated scripts for this.
The flood on the accounts of Rashford, Saka and Sterling tailed off from 2.00am onwards.
Read 26 tweets
11 Jul
Enter "to:@MarcusRashford" in your Twitter sarch box, and REPORT EVERY SINGLE RACIST TWEET.

(He seems to be getting the most of it)

At the same time, screenshot everyone you can ID.

Email them to farrightwatch@gmail.com.

If we can ID theim and their employers ... we will.
@MarcusRashford How we do this (for the technically curious)

We create custom search pages on the socmed platforms, and run 'wget' in bash/*nix on these every 10 seconds and/or refresh, then pipe (||) from stdout to 'sed' to wash non-ascii ...
@MarcusRashford ... then to 'grep' to extract unique data only, then 'grep' again, looped for each of a set of keywords, || to an action file for tomorrow.

Easy peasy.
Read 7 tweets
10 Jul
.@MattJukesMPS : See thread.

Explain again how you are 'under-resourced' and 'misunderstood' and 'always using proportional force' ?

(Your boos Cressida Dick appears not to be on Twitter. One can guess why.)
@MattJukesMPS .@MattJukesMPS @metpoliceuk

NOW do you understand what people mean when they carry these signs ?

And you want MORE POWERS ?
@MattJukesMPS Part of the Raid Force is the TSG - Territorial Support Group. Their jobs is :

.. Securing the capital against terrorism.
.. Responding to disorder anywhere within London.
.. Reducing priority crime through borough support.

This is NONE OF THOSE THREE.
Read 4 tweets
10 Jul
Geared-up police forcing entry with all their toys. Armed Siege ? No. Drugs Bust ? No. Terror Cell ? Weapons Factory ? No.
It's a Collective Art Studio run by a Charity and police are busting in to remove a perfectly legal but "satirical and subversive" abstract sculpture on the roof connected with Extinction Rebellion.
Here's the video. See how many go in. I count 41.

For a sculpture.

Yup - The Tories are authorising police to tear down sculptures.

Workshop ransacked, three arrested then released with no charge.
Read 15 tweets

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