8. Hunted by German Dogs
In late 1942, Odette was almost captured when a French Resistance contact, tasked with finding an out-of-the-way landing area, screwed up. The site was supposed to be suitable for the nighttime landing of a modified Hudson bomber, which was to airlift an SOE operative and four French generals back to Britain. Ineptly, the contact selected an airfield located about a thousand yards from a German antiaircraft battery.
A new landing site was selected, this one an abandoned airfield about 500 miles away. After dodging Germans and collaborationist Vichy police, Odette and her party made it to the airfield, only to discover that the control tower and a nearby barracks were occupied by German troops. It was a trap, and the party was forced to scatter, with Germans hot on their tail. Odette crashed into bushes, with German dogs snapping at her heels. She plunged into an icy stream, and battled the freezing current to the other side, before she finally shook off her pursuers.