7. Chased by Dogs
Odette and Peter Churchill were nearly undone in late 1942, when a French Resistance contact named Carte was tasked with finding an out of the way landing area near Arles, in southeastern France. It was supposed to be suitable for the night time landing of a modified Hudson bomber, that was to whisk Peter Churchill and four French generals back to Britain, for an SOE meeting. Unfortunately, Carte ineptly chose an airfield that was located about 1000 yards from a German antiaircraft battery.
Nothing doing, a new landing site was selected, this one an abandoned airfield near Bassillac, about 500 miles away. After dodging German and collaborationist Vichy police, Odette, Churchill, and their 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 nearly snapping at her heels, plunged into an icy stream, and battled the freezing current to the other side, where she finally shook off the pursuit.