North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Pippa, ‘Scientist’, Soldier, Spy
‘‘An outstanding example for young people today, and especially for young women’’
Seventy three years ago, a 23-yearold Pippa Doyle parachuted into a field in occupied northern France as a covert, special agent during World War II.
On Thursday, she received the French Brevet Militaire de Parachutiste [French parachute wings] for her service at a specially-convened award ceremony in Devonport.
Doyle, now 96, said receiving ‘‘her wings’’ was very special to her. She recounted her landing in Normandy, France at the ceremony.
‘‘We were on our third tour waiting for a signal for me to land. None came. So we had to look for a field that had stock in it,’’ Doyle said.
Stock meant the field was safe as an empty paddock could be mined.
‘‘So we found a field that looked like it had a goat, and so that’s where I went in.
‘‘That goat turned into a cow. And I’m terrified of horns. So, that was my landing in France.’’
French Ambassador Florence Jeanblanc-Risler, who presented the medal, said Doyle’s service with the Resistance ‘‘Scientist’’ network, was critical to the Normandy landings and the subsequent liberation of Europe.
Doyle, though a young woman at the time, played on her diminutive size and biked around northern France posing as a teenage French girl.
She sold soap to German soldiers and gathered information that she radioed back to the Allies, all the while pursued by Nazis who tracked her signals.
Her codes were hidden on a piece of silk kept in her hair.
For her wartime service, Doyle has already received a number of awards including the Le´gion d’Honneur in 2014. She has also received an MBE, the French Resistance Medal and the Croix de Guerre amongst others.
Doyle, otherwise known as Phyllis Latour Doyle, was born April 8, 1921, in South Africa.
She was recruited by operatives from Britain’s Special Operations Executive at the age of 20, after joining the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in England as a flight mechanic.
Doyle stayed undercover in France till October 9, 1944.
After the war, Doyle lived in Kenya, then Fiji, then Australia before moving to Auckland, New Zealand in 1959 to raise her two sons. She now lives in west Auckland.