Simone Segouin had only been 15 years old when the Germans invaded France, and for the next three years of her life, she helped her father shelter and feed the resistance fighters. She became acquainted with Roland Boursier who taught her how to handle rifles, explosives, and guerilla tactics. He gave her fake documents and a codename, Nicole Minet.
At the age of 18, she became a reconaissance agent for the French resistance by stealing a bike from the Nazis in Chartres, and pedaling around the area uninhibited. Later, having become an expert in the use of weapons and tactics, she led more daring operations against the Germans, capturing troops, setting traps, and sabotaging German equipment.
It soon escalated to bigger and riskier operations which included blowing up bridges and derailing German trains. Leading up to the liberation of France in 1944, she continued to fight with her comrades with a submachine gun slung on her shoulder until the joint forces of the French army, the US infantry, and the French resistance were able to retake Paris.
She became a second lieutenant and received the Croix de Guerre for her service in the resistance. She and Boursier had six children together although they didn't marry. After the war, she became a pediatric nurse in Chartres, and lived to be 97 before passing away this year on February 21st in Courville-sur-Eure.
(Image credit: US National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons)