A WOMAN who risked her life for British airmen shot down over Belgium joined hundreds of escapees and their rescuers at a North Yorkshire reunion.

Among those attending was Marjorie Norfolk, whose husband, Sqn Ldr Bill Norfolk, owed his life to the bravery of the woman, then only 17, who smuggled him out of her country.

More than 250 others, either British servicemen or nationals of Nazi-occupied countries who risked their lives to help the Allies, were at Eden Camp, near Malton, for the Evaders and Escapees weekend.

Sqn Ldr Norfolk's saviour, Andree Antoine-Dumont, now 77, was awarded the OBE for her actions - but she spent three years in Nazi prisons and a concentration camp, where her father died.

The frail Belgian, who travelled from Brussels for the event, said: "I spent 1941 and 1942 helping servicemen, bringing them food and clothing and getting them on the line to freedom."

She smuggled Sqn Ldr Norfolk from Brussels to Paris on a train filled with German soldiers, using identity papers forged by her father, and linked him up with others who led him across the Pyrenees.

She said: "When I was caught I was interrogated many times and spent my early 20s in prison, but I never regretted what I had done. I did something I wished to do, and being in prison was the way I had to pay for it. I always knew that what I did was putting me in real danger, but I did it with pleasure. I felt it was my duty, to do something for freedom and to help the airmen who were risking their lives for us."

Sqn Ldr Norfolk, whose remarkable story is recorded permanently at the museum, died three years ago.

But his widow travelled from Grimsby for the reunion.

Said Mrs Norfolk: "What Andree did was wonderful. Bill owed his life to her and people like her. It is very emotional to come here and I have had to fight back the tears today, but I needed to be here to see these people again, all these people who have been through so much."

Reg Lewis, from Essex, a member of the RAF's Escapees Society who was himself smuggled to Spain after baling out over the Rhone Valley, also attended.

He said: "A lot of people say we are heroes, but the worst that would happen to us is we got caught and sent to a concentration camp. The people taking the risks were the nationals. If they got caught they would almost certainly be executed."