When she got to London in 1944 she was debriefed and earmarked to join the “Retrievers”, a unit working to repatriate airmen left behind. As the Allies were advancing towards Berlin, her services were not needed.
A paratrooper, Pierre Ugeux, had been designated as her “minder”. They fell in love and later married, settling in Avignon in the south of France. The couple had three children: Guy, who went on to work in the car industry, Nicole and Brigitte. They also had an adopted son called Stefan, who predeceased them.
Pierre, who died in 2009, became an important figure in Belgium’s power industries. He also rose to become the head of CSI, the forerunner of the FIA as the governing body of Formula One motor racing in the Seventies. The couple would often stand lunch for the then impoverished team owner Bernie Ecclestone.
According to Pamela Pearch, a friend of Dumon, the former Resistance leader was just settling down to watch a motor race when she last spoke to her in October.
As for Dumon’s family, her mother was released after 13 months, but her father died in Silesia towards the end of the war. Her sister, Andrée, was freed in poor health, but had survived the Ravensbrück and Mauthausen concentration camps.
Micheline settled into married life and became an active fundraiser for the families of Comet Line agents who had died during the war. She was also a member of the RAF Escaping Society, and with her sister opened an extension to its museum in East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, in 1996.
Britain awarded her the George Medal. She also received the Golden Medal of Freedom from the US.
Interviewed late in her life, she still had a “straight-backed dignity — hair, greying; face, youthful . . . she talked of the most traumatic experiences in a soft, gentle voice”.
Aline Micheline Dumon, Resistance agent, was born on May 20, 1921. She died of undisclosed causes on November 16, 2017, aged 96