Tag: French Resistance

Posted on

The Naked Heroine

First of all, my apologies to Mr. Izbicki, author of The Naked Heroine (see recommended reading below). I racked my brain trying to come up with a catchy title for this blog and I always returned to the title of his 1963 book, The Naked Heroine. It’s sort of like one of my more popular blogs, Cyndi Lauper and the Naked Princess. (Click here to read the blog.) As you all know, sex sells.

One of my prior blogs was about Josephine Baker (An African American in Pre-WWII Paris, click here to read). Josephine was an entertainer and stripper in Paris during the interwar period (the years between the two World Wars) and she became an international celebrity in those twenty years. During the German occupation of France, Josephine worked for the French Resistance collecting sensitive Nazi information from the German officers with whom she hobnobbed. Today, you will meet a young lady like Josephine but who structured her career in somewhat the reverse order. Lydia was first a French résistant and then after the war, spent the rest of her life taking off her clothes at the Folies Bergère and other popular clubs around Europe.

Lydia de Korczak Lipski wears the Legion of Honor on her military uniform. Photo by anonymous (c. March 1960). Cleveland Plain Dealer. Author’s collection.
Lydia de Korczak Lipski wears the Legion of Honor on her military uniform. Photo by anonymous (c. March 1960). Cleveland Plain Dealer. Author’s collection.

Besides being strippers and résistants, Lydia and Josephine shared one other attribute: they were both highly decorated French war heroines. Read More The Naked Heroine

Posted on

The Last Train Out of Paris

Five years ago, I wrote a short blog entitled, The Last Train Out of Paris. I never heard from anyone about that blog until 19 June 2020 when Pat V. e-mailed me about her father, Squadron Leader (ret.) Stanley Booker, MBE. While my blog never mentioned any Allied airmen, it seems Stanley enjoyed reading it ⏤ he was one of 168 captured airmen on that last train out of Paris on 15 August 1944.

Flying Officer Stanley Booker. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.
Flying Officer Stanley Booker. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.
La Gare de Pantin. Original photo by anonymous. Photo scan by Poudou99 (postcard date prior to 1923). PD-Copyright Expired. Wikimedia Commons.
La Gare de Pantin. Original photo by anonymous. Photo scan by Poudou99 (postcard date prior to 1923). PD-Copyright Expired. Wikimedia Commons.
Deportees inside cattle car. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.
Deportees inside cattle car. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of Stanley Booker.

This has led to a lot of discussions over the past several months with Pat about her father’s war experiences. They live in the UK and Stanley is ninety-eight years young. The reason the story about these men didn’t make it into the original blog was, frankly, I didn’t know about it ⏤ well, now I do. One of Pat’s questions in her original e-mail was whether I knew about Jacques Désoubrie and who his German superior might have been. Her last words in the e-mail were “Can you help please?” I couldn’t resist and quickly entered yet another rabbit hole. Once I came up for air, I had Désoubrie’s story, an idea who he reported to, and I knew I had to repost the 2015 blog albeit in an expanded manner with an abbreviated story about Stanley’s experiences. Stanley wrote a privately published version of his wartime escapades and Pat is completing the book as well as expanding on his post-war exploits ⏤ Stanley’s interesting life didn’t just end with his eventual retirement from the Royal Air Force.

Stanley Booker (left) and Paul McCue (right). Paul, historian and author of “SAS Operation Bulbasket,” is visiting Stanley in his home. Photo by Carol Brown (August 2020). Courtesy of Paul McCue.
Stanley Booker (left) and Paul McCue (right). Paul, historian and author of “SAS Operation Bulbasket,” is visiting Stanley in his home. Photo by Carol Brown (August 2020). Courtesy of Paul McCue.

Read More The Last Train Out of Paris