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The death of Queen Elizabeth II is a reminder that the World War II generation is aging. Like the queen, even the youngest veterans of the war are now nearing their 100th birthdays, and a steady stream of obituaries tells the story of a disappearing generation.
Here are the stories of a few veterans who died this year.
HENRIETTE HANOTTE:
Aug. 10, 1920- Feb. 19, 2022
Henriette Hanotte began her wartime career ferrying Allied airmen to safety almost by accident.
On May 23, 1940, as British forces retreated toward Dunkirk, two soldiers asked her parents for help crossing the Belgian frontier as they tried to make their way back to England. Hanotte, then 20, volunteered to take them to the French city of Lille, some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) away.
That chance encounter brought her to the attention of British operatives who later asked her to join a network of resistance fighters guiding downed Allied airmen across Belgium, France and Spain to safety in Gibraltar.
Hanotte was especially valuable to the operation, known as the Comet Line, because she grew up traveling between her home in Rumes, on the Belgian side of the border, and the nearby French town of Bachy, where she took music lessons. This gave her an intimate knowledge of the border and helped her guide her “packages” to safety.
“She knew the border like the back of her hand, the patrol schedule, customs officers, the little roads, the barking of dogs, the habits of the neighborhood,” according to a brochure about her exploits published by Rumes and Bachy.
Known by the code name Monique, she is believed to have helped 135 airmen to safety before she was forced to flee to England to avoid capture by the Gestapo. There she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a secret operative but was prevented from returning to Europe when she broke her leg in parachute training.
“I was trying to protect my family, and they were trying to protect me,” Hanotte told the Times of London last year on her 100th birthday. “It was our natural instinct to help.”
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FLIGHT LT. DOUGLAS NEWHAM:
Nov. 13, 1921-March 14, 2022
Douglas Newham survived 60 bombing raids as a Royal Air Force navigator from 1942 to 1945, but he was haunted for the rest of his long life by those who didn’t return.
