Gilberte Lenaerts has died at the age of 92, a heroine on the Belgian Resistance she operated in both Belgium and Holland. She started out by providing assistance and papers to Belgian Jews being hunted by the Nazis and soon graduated to intelligence work and assisting escaped and evading Allied aircrew. With the Allied advance into Belgium she undertook line crossing missions which aided the Allies in securing the port of Antwerp - vital to the shortening of Allied supply lines. She then undertook a mission in Holland aiding Allied paratroopers to cross the Rhine, later working in the Ardennes with the American 1st Army. She later married Major Roger Brunsdon of GHQ Liaison Regt - Phantom. Her awards included a British OBE, Knight of the Order of Leopold, Belgian Croix de Guerre, Silver Cross of the Secret Army, Belgian Medal of Merit and Belgian Cross of Honour.
================================================== Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts - Belgian Resistance heroine who helped to save the lives of Jews and stranded Allied troops and was pivotal in Antwerp's liberation -------------------------------------------------- Times, The (London, England)-December 17, 2012 As a 20-year-old woman, Gilberte Lenaerts was driven from her home by the German onslaught through Belgium in May 1940. She sought refuge in France with her parents and two younger sisters, but when the Wehrmacht reached there the family returned to their home near Antwerp to find it a billet for German troops. Furious at the manner in which neutral Belgium had been violated and become a client kingdom of the Third Reich, she was outraged when her father, tortured to reveal the location of the Jewish diamond merchants' stock, was sent home white-haired and a broken man. She joined the Belgian Resistance and from a modest beginning delivering false documents to fugitives she became a national heroine. Through her uncle Jules Vandrèche she was introduced to Urbain Reniers, an engineer officer with the Armée Secrète, one of the two leading Resistance groups in Belgium. Eventually he would make use of her daring and swift perception to help to prevent the Germans from damaging the port of Antwerp. But that was three years ahead; in the meantime he had other plans for her. Under the codename Papillon, Lenaerts was engaged in delivering false papers to Jews avoiding transportation and young Belgians at risk of conscription for forced labour in Germany. From this she graduated to the collection of intelligence for transmission to London and then to finding shelter for Allied airmen shot down over Belgium and helping them on their way to safety. As the route for many Allied bombing missions over Germany took them over Belgian territory, a number of escape lines for airmen shot down and evading capture originated there. From late 1941 until the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, Lenaerts's primary work was with an escape line for Allied airmen. Recalling these years after the war, she would remark how, as a naturally gregarious young woman, she endured extreme loneliness from having only two contacts in the escape line - one who delivered the airmen into her care and the one to whom she passed them in their next move towards freedom. Similarly, she found the strain of hiding a group of three or four evaders and the concern for their safety physically tiring to the point of exhaustion. The rapid Allied advance through Belgium as far as Brussels in August 1944 brought Lenaerts a new and yet more dangerous assignment. As the escape line was nearing the end of its usefulness, she was recalled to duty with the Belgian Resistance. The supply line for the 21st Army Group stretched from distant Normandy and Cherbourg to Brussels, so it was too extended to sustain any substantial further advance unless the port of Antwerp could be captured relatively undamaged. This was the reason for Urbain Reniers to call again for Lenaerts. Intelligence on the enemy deployment between Brussels and Antwerp and details of German plans to put Antwerp's port facilities beyond Allied use were both of critical importance. There was a communist Resistance group in the city rivalled by a right-wing body, but agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) with them had persuaded the two groups to act in the common cause. Reniers chose Lenaerts to carry this information and an account of German dispositions to headquarters 21st Army Group in Brussels. Carrying this information, she cycled through territory thick with the enemy. From the moment of receipt of the intelligence the capture of Antwerp intact was assured. As the British 30th Corps swept forward, the Corps Commander - Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, declared: "This is not my victory; it belongs to the Belgian Resistance. Without them, I could not have advanced so fast." But more was required of Lenaerts. When the 11th Armoured Division liberated Antwerp on September 4, 1944, the Albert Canal had still to be crossed and the northern part of Antwerp Province cleared of the enemy. A plan of how best to achieve this with the limited British forces available depended on information about German strengths and dispositions in the area. Accompanied by three Resistance fighters from her home town of Lier, near Antwerp, Lenaerts re-entered enemy territory to seek this information. She returned with it and her three companions, allowing the advance to continue. Even then further demands were made on her. Her reputation for daring had come to the notice of the Dutch Resistance, and the British 1st Airborne Division's failure to capture the bridges over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, in the second half of September, had left many paratroops stranded on the German bank. Lenaerts was asked to join a Dutch Resistance group ferrying about 100 men across the Rhine to safety. She spoke Dutch fluently and gave what help she could, spending most of one night up to her waist in mud on the river bank. After this hazardous mission and an attachment to the American 1st Army during the German Ardennes offensive of December 1944-January 1945 - again in an intelligence-gathering role - Lenaerts was commissioned into the British civil affairs organisation for the final months of the war in Europe. It was during this time that she met her future husband, Major Roger Brunsdon, serving with the GHQ Liaison Regiment, known as Phantom. Gilberte Marie Lenaerts was the eldest daughter of Jean Lenaerts, a diamond merchant, and Yvonne Catoor. She grew up with a facility for languages and a love for all things British, particularly English humour. In addition to being appointed OBE for her services to the British Army, she subsequently became a Knight of the Order of Leopold and of the Order of the Crown. She received the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Secret Army Silver Cross, the Medal of Merit for Fidelity to King Leopold III, the Cross of Honour for services to the Federation of Belgian Veterans in Great Britain and many other honours and distinctions. For many years until shortly before her death Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts was the leading light in the Amicale des Anciens Combattants on the parade taking place annually on the Sunday closest to the Belgian national day of July 21. The King and Queen of the Belgians sent a wreath for her funeral service. Her husband, Roger Brunsdon, predeceased her. She is survived by a son and daughter. Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts, OBE, heroine of the Belgian Resistance, was born on November 3, 1920. She died on Remembrance Sunday 2012, aged 92 She cycled through land thick with the enemy with vital intelligence R CLOUGH British and American ships unload food supplies in the port of Antwerp in July 1945, right; Gilberte Lenaerts, above, and her comrades in the Belgian Resistance, had prevented the Germans from damaging the docks during the liberation of the city the previous year Edition: 01 - eireSection: NewsPage: 43 Record Number: 67261996(c) Times Newspapers Limited 2012 Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts - Belgian Resistance heroine who helped to save the lives of Jews and stranded Allied troops and was pivotal in Antwerp's liberation
================================================== Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts - Belgian Resistance heroine who helped to save the lives of Jews and stranded Allied troops and was pivotal in Antwerp's liberation -------------------------------------------------- Times, The (London, England)-December 17, 2012 As a 20-year-old woman, Gilberte Lenaerts was driven from her home by the German onslaught through Belgium in May 1940. She sought refuge in France with her parents and two younger sisters, but when the Wehrmacht reached there the family returned to their home near Antwerp to find it a billet for German troops. Furious at the manner in which neutral Belgium had been violated and become a client kingdom of the Third Reich, she was outraged when her father, tortured to reveal the location of the Jewish diamond merchants' stock, was sent home white-haired and a broken man. She joined the Belgian Resistance and from a modest beginning delivering false documents to fugitives she became a national heroine. Through her uncle Jules Vandrèche she was introduced to Urbain Reniers, an engineer officer with the Armée Secrète, one of the two leading Resistance groups in Belgium. Eventually he would make use of her daring and swift perception to help to prevent the Germans from damaging the port of Antwerp. But that was three years ahead; in the meantime he had other plans for her. Under the codename Papillon, Lenaerts was engaged in delivering false papers to Jews avoiding transportation and young Belgians at risk of conscription for forced labour in Germany. From this she graduated to the collection of intelligence for transmission to London and then to finding shelter for Allied airmen shot down over Belgium and helping them on their way to safety. As the route for many Allied bombing missions over Germany took them over Belgian territory, a number of escape lines for airmen shot down and evading capture originated there. From late 1941 until the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, Lenaerts's primary work was with an escape line for Allied airmen. Recalling these years after the war, she would remark how, as a naturally gregarious young woman, she endured extreme loneliness from having only two contacts in the escape line - one who delivered the airmen into her care and the one to whom she passed them in their next move towards freedom. Similarly, she found the strain of hiding a group of three or four evaders and the concern for their safety physically tiring to the point of exhaustion. The rapid Allied advance through Belgium as far as Brussels in August 1944 brought Lenaerts a new and yet more dangerous assignment. As the escape line was nearing the end of its usefulness, she was recalled to duty with the Belgian Resistance. The supply line for the 21st Army Group stretched from distant Normandy and Cherbourg to Brussels, so it was too extended to sustain any substantial further advance unless the port of Antwerp could be captured relatively undamaged. This was the reason for Urbain Reniers to call again for Lenaerts. Intelligence on the enemy deployment between Brussels and Antwerp and details of German plans to put Antwerp's port facilities beyond Allied use were both of critical importance. There was a communist Resistance group in the city rivalled by a right-wing body, but agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) with them had persuaded the two groups to act in the common cause. Reniers chose Lenaerts to carry this information and an account of German dispositions to headquarters 21st Army Group in Brussels. Carrying this information, she cycled through territory thick with the enemy. From the moment of receipt of the intelligence the capture of Antwerp intact was assured. As the British 30th Corps swept forward, the Corps Commander - Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, declared: "This is not my victory; it belongs to the Belgian Resistance. Without them, I could not have advanced so fast." But more was required of Lenaerts. When the 11th Armoured Division liberated Antwerp on September 4, 1944, the Albert Canal had still to be crossed and the northern part of Antwerp Province cleared of the enemy. A plan of how best to achieve this with the limited British forces available depended on information about German strengths and dispositions in the area. Accompanied by three Resistance fighters from her home town of Lier, near Antwerp, Lenaerts re-entered enemy territory to seek this information. She returned with it and her three companions, allowing the advance to continue. Even then further demands were made on her. Her reputation for daring had come to the notice of the Dutch Resistance, and the British 1st Airborne Division's failure to capture the bridges over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, in the second half of September, had left many paratroops stranded on the German bank. Lenaerts was asked to join a Dutch Resistance group ferrying about 100 men across the Rhine to safety. She spoke Dutch fluently and gave what help she could, spending most of one night up to her waist in mud on the river bank. After this hazardous mission and an attachment to the American 1st Army during the German Ardennes offensive of December 1944-January 1945 - again in an intelligence-gathering role - Lenaerts was commissioned into the British civil affairs organisation for the final months of the war in Europe. It was during this time that she met her future husband, Major Roger Brunsdon, serving with the GHQ Liaison Regiment, known as Phantom. Gilberte Marie Lenaerts was the eldest daughter of Jean Lenaerts, a diamond merchant, and Yvonne Catoor. She grew up with a facility for languages and a love for all things British, particularly English humour. In addition to being appointed OBE for her services to the British Army, she subsequently became a Knight of the Order of Leopold and of the Order of the Crown. She received the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Secret Army Silver Cross, the Medal of Merit for Fidelity to King Leopold III, the Cross of Honour for services to the Federation of Belgian Veterans in Great Britain and many other honours and distinctions. For many years until shortly before her death Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts was the leading light in the Amicale des Anciens Combattants on the parade taking place annually on the Sunday closest to the Belgian national day of July 21. The King and Queen of the Belgians sent a wreath for her funeral service. Her husband, Roger Brunsdon, predeceased her. She is survived by a son and daughter. Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts, OBE, heroine of the Belgian Resistance, was born on November 3, 1920. She died on Remembrance Sunday 2012, aged 92 She cycled through land thick with the enemy with vital intelligence R CLOUGH British and American ships unload food supplies in the port of Antwerp in July 1945, right; Gilberte Lenaerts, above, and her comrades in the Belgian Resistance, had prevented the Germans from damaging the docks during the liberation of the city the previous year Edition: 01 - eireSection: NewsPage: 43 Record Number: 67261996(c) Times Newspapers Limited 2012 Gilberte Brunsdon-Lenaerts - Belgian Resistance heroine who helped to save the lives of Jews and stranded Allied troops and was pivotal in Antwerp's liberation
