Vera Eugenie Glass was born on 17 Mar 1903 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Abandoned by her parents soon after birth, she was adopted by H. Eugene Leigh. She was executed on 6 Jul 1944 at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France.
CODE NAME:
Simone
After the fall of Paris, Vera left for Lyon to join her fiancé. She became involved in the French Resistance, helping to run an escape line for Allied servicemen trapped behind enemy lines. In 1942 she used the same escape route to cross the Pyrenees to Spain in the hope of reaching England, but found herself imprisoned for several months at the Miranda de Ebro internment camp near Bilbao. Eventually, with assistance from a British Embassy official, she was released from the camp and completed the journey to England via Gibraltar.
After offering her services for the war effort, Vera came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), who recruited her for F Section, and she became an Ensign in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). She excelled in her training and was known to be "the best shot in the party". Vera was dispatched on her first and only mission and returned to France on 14/15 May 1943. She arrived at a field in the Cher Valley, near Tours, one of four new arrivals that night who were received by F Section's air movements officer, Henri Dericourt. Her companions were Julienne Aisner, Sidney Jones and Marcel Clech. Aisner was to be a courier for Dericourt's Farrier circuit, while Jones (an arms instructor) and Clech (a wireless operator) were to join Vera in establishing a new sub-circuit known as Inventor, which was to work alongside the Prosper network.
After receiving further instructions at a safe house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Vera took an apartment in Paris and carried messages from Jones in and out of the city as far as the Ardennes. One day in the Gare Saint-Lazare, she met by chance her sister's husband, who ran a safe house for Allied airmen as part of an escape line. She increased her own risk by becoming involved with this operation, escorting some of the men through the Parisian streets to their next contacts. She also socialized openly with other agents, including Julienne Aisner.
On October 30, Vera was arrested at a café near the Place des Ternes and taken to Fresnes prison. The Germans already knew everything about her activities. On 13 May 1944, she was taken from Fresnes prison to 84 Avenue Foch, the Paris headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst. Others taken there at the same time included Andrée Borrel, Odette Sansom, Diana Rowden, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman, Sonya Olschanezky and Madeleine Damerment.
On 6 Jul 1944, Vera, Diana Rowden, Andrée Borrel and Sonya Olschanezky were taken to the concentration camp at Natzweiler-Struthof. Later that day they were injected with phenol and placed in the crematorium furnace. One of the women, possibly identified by Vera Atkins as Vera Leigh, may have resisted her murder. The same woman may have revived when placed in the oven, and was able to scratch the face of the executioner, Peter Straub, before dying.
After offering her services for the war effort, Vera came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), who recruited her for F Section, and she became an Ensign in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). She excelled in her training and was known to be "the best shot in the party". Vera was dispatched on her first and only mission and returned to France on 14/15 May 1943. She arrived at a field in the Cher Valley, near Tours, one of four new arrivals that night who were received by F Section's air movements officer, Henri Dericourt. Her companions were Julienne Aisner, Sidney Jones and Marcel Clech. Aisner was to be a courier for Dericourt's Farrier circuit, while Jones (an arms instructor) and Clech (a wireless operator) were to join Vera in establishing a new sub-circuit known as Inventor, which was to work alongside the Prosper network.
After receiving further instructions at a safe house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Vera took an apartment in Paris and carried messages from Jones in and out of the city as far as the Ardennes. One day in the Gare Saint-Lazare, she met by chance her sister's husband, who ran a safe house for Allied airmen as part of an escape line. She increased her own risk by becoming involved with this operation, escorting some of the men through the Parisian streets to their next contacts. She also socialized openly with other agents, including Julienne Aisner.
On October 30, Vera was arrested at a café near the Place des Ternes and taken to Fresnes prison. The Germans already knew everything about her activities. On 13 May 1944, she was taken from Fresnes prison to 84 Avenue Foch, the Paris headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst. Others taken there at the same time included Andrée Borrel, Odette Sansom, Diana Rowden, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman, Sonya Olschanezky and Madeleine Damerment.
On 6 Jul 1944, Vera, Diana Rowden, Andrée Borrel and Sonya Olschanezky were taken to the concentration camp at Natzweiler-Struthof. Later that day they were injected with phenol and placed in the crematorium furnace. One of the women, possibly identified by Vera Atkins as Vera Leigh, may have resisted her murder. The same woman may have revived when placed in the oven, and was able to scratch the face of the executioner, Peter Straub, before dying.
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