Julie Coleman, 85; worked with OSS
WASHINGTON -- Julie Montgomery Coleman, 85, who was working in Rome for the Office of Strategic Services during the city's liberation near the end of World War II and who later survived a harrowing plane crash in the Andes, died March 10 at George Washington University Hospital. She had suffered a stroke the day before while playing bridge at a friend's home.
Mrs. Coleman, a resident of the District of Columbia, was born in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., and as a child lived with her family in Rome. While a student at Rome's Lycée Français , she developed an aptitude for languages and became fluent in Spanish, Italian, and French. When her family returned to the United States, she became a student at St. Timothy's School in Stevenson, Md., graduating in 1939.
After receiving a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1943, she joined the OSS and worked in the Rome office under Captain James J. Angleton, who would become the legendary chief of counterintelligence with the Central Intelligence Agency. Relying on her language facility, she did translation and interrogation as the OSS sought to identify Italian operatives collaborating with the Nazis.
While working in Italy, she met a captain in British Army Intelligence, Peter Seymour. They married and moved to Cuba, where he managed a sugar plantation. When he joined W.R. Grace in 1948, the couple moved to Lima.
In 1955, Mrs. Coleman and her husband were on a flight with W.R. Grace executives from Lima to Cuzco and then on to Machu Picchu when their plane crashed in the Andes.
Her husband was seriously injured. Although Mrs. Coleman suffered burns on her legs, she was able to barter with Indians who agreed to construct litters to transport the survivors down the mountain.
They walked for two days before rescue parties found them. By then, Mrs. Coleman's husband had died of his injuries. 