Charline Chable Rotondo; Won Medal of Freedom

Charline Chable Rotondo, 78, a member of the French underground who was honored with the Medal of Freedom for helping save American fliers from the Nazis. She was the first foreign-born woman to receive the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Her exploits in the French underground saved 32 American fliers from the Nazis during World War II. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower presented the medal in Paris in 1945, after Rotondo escaped from the Germans, who tortured and imprisoned her. She moved to the United States in 1974 and died of lung cancer on Thursday in Concord, N.H.