19. A Heroine’s First Victory
As a courier, Simone Segoun needed a bicycle to get about, but she did not have one. So her first mission as a member of the French Resistance was to steal a bike from the Germans. She pulled it off, and the bicycle was repainted and became her personal reconnaissance vehicle. It allowed her to deliver messages and stake out targets. After she demonstrated that she could handle herself in dangerous situations, Simone was allowed to take part in hazardous combat missions. She began to blow up bridges, derail trains, and put an end to or capture Nazis.
Simone Segouin took out her first German on July 14th, 1944. Around 5AM, she waited in ambush in a roadside ditch, and when two enemy soldiers rode by in bicycles, she opened up with her submachine gun and took out both. She then went on the road, searched the bodies, collected their papers and weapons, then made her way alone through the woods, to deliver the haul to her Resistance hideout. She confessed that she had enjoyed ending the detested occupiers. That did not surprise her comrades in the least.
