Peggy Langley was a link in the Comet Line, one of the most important of the resistance organisations which helped downed airmen escape from Occupied Europe. She helped gather airmen from the Belgian countryside and bring them to Brussels where they were passed on down the line to eventual safety. Her obituary in The Guardian describes how in 1942 she was apprehended herself in a close-run incident; she was interrogated by a '"fat, evil, rat-faced SS officer". She had taken the precaution of arming herself with photos showing her posing with German soldiers, and this helped to win over her captors, as did her perfect German.'

This near-fatal miss ended her work with the Comet line. She herself was evacuated out of the country through France and over the Pyrenees to Seville where she was reputedly transported to Gibraltar in a boat carrying oranges. Her son, Roddy, wrote an article for Escape Lines describing her experience:

'She left for Paris, continuing along the same route the airmen took with Comete to St Jean de Luz, a small fishing port in the shadow of the Pyrenees. It was here that Comete had secured the services of a tough Basque smuggler called Florentino Goicoechea, who was to become their most trusted and resourceful Pyrenees guide. (After the war, when he was awarded the King’s Medal for Freedom at Buckingham Palace, King George VI asked him what he did for a living, “I’m in the import-export business”, Florentino replied). Overnight, without any lights or hiking equipment, only espadrilles on their feet, Florentino took my mother and her companions up and down the French side of the Pyrenees, guided them to wade across the freezing cold River Bidassoa into Spain, up another steep climb before descending to a safe farmhouse were they collapsed, exhausted.'

Peggy married the man she met on the hardstanding at RAF Hendon on her arrival in England: James Maydon "Jimmy" Langley who worked for MI-9 and had lost an arm at Dunkirk. After the war, they ran a bookshop in Suffolk. She was awarded the MBE, the Belgian Croix de Guerre and the Netherlands Resistance Cross, but most importantly, she helped to save many lives.

Peggy is buried near the door of St Andrew's in the little village of Alderton. Her grave carries the motto 'Pugna Quin Percutias' which translates as 'fight without arms', the motto of the Comet line. It shows a small plane going down in flames.

Note from Belgian researcher Ed Reniere (April 2019) : Although she never helped any USAAF airman to evade (her activity in Belgium and France ceased soon after the first 8th AF operations over Belgium and The Netherlands), she would certainly have been of great help to any of them were they to parachute into occupied Holland, Belgium or France.

She was also awarded the US Medal of Freedom after the war.

See her page at http://www.evasioncomete.be/fvanliema.html