£260k for war heroine’s medal

A GEORGE Cross medal awarded to a female British secret agent for her bravery in the Second World War sold for a record £260,000 yesterday.

The medal, posthumously awarded to Violette Szabo who was murdered by the Nazis at the age of just 23, was bought by former Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, who owns the world’s largest collection of Victoria and George Crosses.

Only four women have received the George Cross and one of the others, fellow secret agent Odette Sansom, described Mrs Szabo as ‘the bravest of us all’. Mrs Szabo joined the secret service after her husband was killed in battle and went on perilous missions into Nazi-occupied France. On her final trip, she sacrificed herself for a colleague by providing covering fire so he could escape. She was captured by the Nazis and tortured before being shot at a concentration camp in 1945.

The medal, which was in a lot with several others she was awarded, was sold by her daughter Tania at London auction house Dix Noonan Webb. The previous record amount paid for a George Cross was £93,000.

SAS’s finest hour – Page 30