Talk:Mona Louise Parsons

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Untitled

Regarding the involvement of Richard Pape in the story of Mona Parsons, I'd just like to clarify this a little. As it stands, the entry makes it appear that Pape was responsible for Mona Parsons' arrest. This was not the case, since the Dutch underground group she worked with was already compromised and this in turn led to Pape's arrest. Parsons was arrested by the Nazis two weeks later.

The current entry says that Pape wrote about having a card in his pocket with Parsons' name and address on it, but he didn't write this. He didn't mention it in the orginal 1953 Boldness Be My Friend, nor in his 1984 rewrite. He did have a code book, which he destroyed by tearing it up and flushing it down the toilet before he could be searched.

The only reference I have seen to Parsons' card was in Andria Hill's book, and she gives no sources.

I thought it best to clear this up through talk rather than stumble about trying to edit the page again, as I am new to Wikipedia, although I have been researching the life of Richard Pape for some years.

Trufax (talk) 02:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have deleted the reference to Pape and business card. I only have access to the Hill source that you referenced - I appreciate you catching this. Does his Pape's book make any mention of parsons or the people/ locations that helped shelter him along the way that might subtantiate Hill's claims that they were connected? --Hantsheroes (talk) 10:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that. Pape briefly mentions Mona Leonhardt (Parsons) in Boldness Be My Friend (1953), then in much more detail in Sequel To Boldness (1959)and again in the entirely rewritten Boldness Be My Friend (1984). In fact Pape was in contact with Mona after the war, and visited her on at least one occasion whilst her husband Billy Leondhart was still alive. He started work on her biography in the late 1950s but this never came to anything. Pape was just caught up in the events of the time - the infiltration of the Dutch underground by Nazi intelligence and Dutch traitors.

Trufax (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Improbable

Having studied and written extensively about World War II in the Netherlands, this article about Mona Louise Parsons wartime activities seems highly improbable to me. As it stands, the bulk of the article is only based on Andria Hills book (also the Canadian Encyclopedia article only references her book). In Dutch archives (including the mentioned Dutch institute for War Documentation NIOD) I haven't found any references or mention of the name "Mona Louise Parsons". The suggestion that it was possible during the war to go to Leiden (10 kilometers from the sea), to board a fishing boat for a rendezvous with a British submarine, is ridiculous. There have probably been 1.700 "Engelandvaarders" who made the crossing from the Netherlands to Engeland. None of them by submarine. Furthermore, the non-specific indication of a "network of resistance" or a "Nazi military tribunal", raise more suspicion. In the beginning of the war there was hardly any organised resistance in the Netherlands and since there was a civil occupation regime, a military tribunal was exceptional. In fact, the only woman, that I know, that was tried by a German military tribunal for "Feindbegünstigung" (helping of the enemy) in 1943, was Nelly Elisabeth Lind (Nel Lind) from Alkmaar, a well-known Dutch resistance member, whose story shows remarkable similarities with Mona Louise Parsons story: both helping shot-down allied pilots, both convicted to death and exported instead to Germany, both losing a lot of weight in prison, and both escaping with the help of a friend. I wasn't able to locate "Baroness Wendelien van Boetzelaer" either. There seems to have been a baroness van Boetzelaer (born 1912), who, however, has spent the whole war in London, where she founded the Union of Dutch Women in Great-Britain. In short, I suspect this wartime story to be a fabrication. Mlduin (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I make no claim to any significant level of knowledge on the subject but your conclusion that this story is improbable strikes me as questionable. To some extent, your position rests on finding no mention of "Mona Louise Parsons" in Dutch archives but this seems unsurprising since she was married at the relevant time to Willem Leonhardt, so was known as Mona Leonhardt. This is the name on the commendations from the UK & US figures mentioned in the article & also the name Endnote 3 indicates was used in 3 books by Richard Pape. Given your apparent interest, you might want to go back to the archives & look for either or both of Mona & Willem (“Billy”) Leonhardt 71.7.225.129 (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]