This is the story of Marie Marvingt (1875 – 1963), an amazing French woman who served in the forward trenches disguised as a man during the Summer of 1917:
“I was on sentry duty behind the machine gun in this observation post…. Day succeeded day – always the same. I no longer knew what day it was. Many soldiers had disappeared since my arrival… My lieutenant came at intervals to see what was happening to his young soldier… After a day of rain I was groping my way back to the second line when, putting my foot on a slight elevation, I sank halfway up my legs in a swollen human body… And finally, when it seemed that I could stand the noise and the loneliness no longer, we returned to the second line, to a dugout where there were four berths. After a quick meal washed down with heavy Pinard wine, four of us pulled off our boots and stretched out.”
– from Amazon:
Marie Marvingt, Fiancee of Danger: First Female Bomber Pilot, World-Class Athlete and Inventor of the Air Ambulance
