This Is Your Life: Albert Guerisse

Patrick O'LEARY (Albert GUERISSE) GM (1911-1989)

The first subject whose story is told over two consecutive editions of This Is Your Life

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Albert Guerisse, physician and former army officer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre, having been brought along as a guest of the Belgian ambassador.

Albert, who was born in Brussels, Belgium, was a physician with the Belgian Army when Germany invaded Belgium in 1940. Having fled to Gibraltar after the army's surrender, he joined a British Navy special operations unit where, using the aliases Patrick O'Leary and Joseph Cartier, he participated in secret missions in the Mediterranean.

After being captured and imprisoned in France by the Germans, he escaped and returned to Belgium, where he led an underground network through which hundreds of Allied airmen, shot down over the continent, returned to England. In 1943, he was arrested for a second time by the Gestapo and held in several Nazi camps for the duration of the war, where he continued to help save lives through the establishment of the International Prisoners' Committee. In 1946, he was awarded Britain's highest civilian award, the George Cross, for his wartime activities.

programme details...