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Book Synopsis The Heroines of SOE by : Squadron Leader Beryl E Escott
Download or read book The Heroines of SOE written by Squadron Leader Beryl E Escott and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-12-26 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Britain's war in the shadows of male spies and subterfuge in the heart of occupied France is a story well known, but what of the women who also risked their lives for Britain and the liberation of France? In 1942 a desperate need for new recruits, saw SOE turn to a previously overlooked group – women. These extraordinary women came from different backgrounds, but were joined in their idealistic love of France and a desire to play a part in its liberation. They formed SOE's F Section. From the famous White Mouse, Nancy Wake, to the courageous, Noor Inayat Khan, they all risked their lives for King, Country and the Resistance. Many of them died bravely and painfully, and often those who survived, like Eileen Nearne, never told their stories, yet their secret missions of intelligence-gathering and sabotage undoubtedly helped the Resistance to drive out their occupiers and free France. Here, for the first time is the extraordinary account of all forty SOE F women agents. It is a story that deserves to be read by everyone. 'They were the war's bravest women, devoted to defeating the Nazis yet reluctant ever to reveal their heroic pasts. Now a new book tells their intrepid tales.' Daily Express Squadron Leader BERYL E. ESCOTT served in the RAF and is one of the foremost experts on the women of SOE.
Download or read book Lonely Courage written by Rick Stroud and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘A fascinating, superbly researched and revelatory book – told with tremendous pace and excitement’ William Boyd ‘Rick Stroud writes brilliantly about war … an astonishing book … a wonderful story’ Ben Macintyre 'Enthralling, edge-of-smart exciting and also heart-breaking...Stroud's book is a reminder and fitting testimony to their immense bravery' James Holland On 18 June 1940 General de Gaulle broadcast from London to his countrymen in France about the catastrophe that had overtaken their nation – the victory of the invading Germans. He declared: ‘The flame of French Resistance must not and will not be extinguished.' The Resistance began almost immediately. At first it was made up of small, disorganised groups working in isolation. But by the time of the liberation in 1944 around 400,000 French citizens, nearly 2 per cent of the population, were involved. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Winston Churchill in 1941 saw its role in France as helping the Resistance by recruiting and organising guerrilla fighters; supplying and training them; and then disrupting the invaders by any means necessary. The aim of this work was to prepare for the invasion of Europe by Allied forces and the eventual liberation of France. It was soon decided that women would play a vital role. There were 39 female agents recruited from all walks of life, ranging from a London shop assistant to a Polish aristocrat. They all knew France well, were fluent in French and were prepared to sacrifice everything. The women trained alongside the men, learning how to disappear into the background, how to operate a radio transmitter and how to kill a man with their bare hands. Once trained, they were infiltrated behind the lines; some went on to lead thousands of Resistance fighters, while others were arrested, brutally interrogated and sent to concentration camps. Lonely Courage tells their remarkable story and sheds new light on what life was really like for these brave women.
Download or read book SOE Heroines written by Bernard O'Connor and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New B-format paperback - The amazing stories of 38 female spies who operated in occupied France and Vichy France, many told for the very first time.
Download or read book Mission France written by Kate Vigurs and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known—Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan—others have had their stories largely overlooked. Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Vigurs shows just how greatly missions varied. Some agents were more adept at parachuting. Some agents’ missions lasted for years, others’ less than a few hours. Some survived, others were murdered. By placing the women in the context of their work with the SOE and the wider war, this history reveals the true extent of the differences in their abilities and attitudes while underlining how they nonetheless shared a common mission and, ultimately, deserve recognition.
Book Synopsis I Heard My Country Calling by : Sue Elliott
Download or read book I Heard My Country Calling written by Sue Elliott and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a tragic childhood among the Great War cemeteries of Flanders Fields, a troubled young woman searches for love and meaning in war-ravaged Europe. Elaine Madden's quest takes her from occupied Belgium through the chaos of Dunkirk, where she flees disguised as a British soldier, into the London Blitz, where she finally begins to discover herself. Recruited to T Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a 'fast courier', she is parachuted back to the country of her birth to undertake a top-secret political mission and help speed its liberation from Nazi oppression. Elaine Madden never claimed to be a heroine, but her story proves otherwise. Its centrepiece – war service as one of only two women SOE agents parachuted into enemy-occupied Belgium – is just one episode in an extraordinary real-life drama of highs and lows, love, loss and betrayal. Relayed to the author in the final years of her life, Elaine's true story of courage and humour in testing times is more intriguing, more compelling than fiction.
Download or read book Nancy Wake written by Russell Braddon and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Woman in Arms written by Russell Braddon and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spymistress written by William Stevenson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller by the Author of A Man Called Intrepid Ideal for fans of Nancy Wake, Virginia Hall, The Last Goodnight by Howard Blum, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, The Wolves at the Door by Judith Pearson, and similar works Shares the story of Vera Atkins, legendary spy and holder of the Legion of Honor Written by William Stevenson, the only person whom she trusted to write her biography She was stunning. She was ruthless. She was brilliant and had a will of iron. Born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Bucharest, she became Vera Atkins. William Stphenson, the spymaster who would later be known as “Intrepid”, recruited her when she was twenty-three. Vera spent most of the 1930s running too many dangerous espionage missions to count. When war was declared in 1939, her many skills made her one of the leaders of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by, and reporting to, Winston Churchill. She trained and recruited hundreds of agents, including dozens of women. Their job was to seamlessly penetrate deep behind the enemy lines. As General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, the fantastic exploits and extraordinary courage of the SOE agents and the French Resistance fighters “shortened the war by many months.”They are celebrated, as they should be. But Vera Atkins’s central role has been hidden until after she died; William Stevenson promised to wait and publish her story posthumously. Now, Vera Atkins can be celebrated and known for the hero she was: the woman whose beauty, intelligence, and unwavering dedication proved key in turning the tide of World War II.
Download or read book The Spy Who Loved written by Clare Mulley and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Special Agent of World War II In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessed colleague in a hotel in the South Kensington district of London. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising; that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. The daughter of a feckless Polish aristocrat and his wealthy Jewish wife, Granville would become one of Britain's most daring and highly decorated special agents. Having fled to Britain on the outbreak of war, she was recruited by the intelligence services and took on mission after mission. She skied over the hazardous High Tatras into occupied Poland, served in Egypt and North Africa, and was later parachuted behind enemy lines into France, where an agent's life expectancy was only six weeks. Her courage, quick wit, and determination won her release from arrest more than once, and saved the lives of several fellow officers—including one of her many lovers—just hours before their execution by the Gestapo. More importantly, the intelligence she gathered in her espionage was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort, and she was awarded the George Medal, the OBE, and the Croix de Guerre. Granville exercised a mesmeric power on those who knew her. In The Spy Who Loved, acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary history of this charismatic, difficult, fearless, and altogether extraordinary woman.
Book Synopsis Code Name Pauline by : Pearl Witherington Cornioley
Download or read book Code Name Pauline written by Pearl Witherington Cornioley and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pearl Witherington Cornioley, one of the most celebrated female World War II resistance fighters, shares her remarkable story in this firsthand account of her experience as a special agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Told through a series of reminiscences—from a difficult childhood spent in the shadow of World War I and her family's harrowing escape from France as the Germans approached in 1940 to her recruitment and training as a special agent and the logistics of parachuting into a remote rural area of occupied France and hiding in a wheat field from enemy fire—each chapter also includes helpful opening remarks to provide context and background on the SOE and the French Resistance. With an annotated list of key figures, an appendix of original unedited interview extracts—including Pearl's fiancé Henri's story—and fascinating photographs and documents from Pearl's personal collection, this memoir will captivate World War II buffs of any age.
Download or read book A Life in Secrets written by Sarah Helm and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for twelve of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe. Brimming with intrigue, heroics, honor, and the horrors of war, A Life in Secrets is the story of a grand, elusive woman and a tour de force of investigative journalism.
Book Synopsis Operation EBENSBURG: SOE’s Austrian ‘Bonzos’ and the rescue of looted European art by : Bernard O'Connor
Download or read book Operation EBENSBURG: SOE’s Austrian ‘Bonzos’ and the rescue of looted European art written by Bernard O'Connor and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-04-16 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some captured German and Austrian personnel were brought to Britain as prisoners of war. Those who were identified as anti-Nazi were 'turned' and, codenamed 'Bonzos', were trained in paramilitary and clandestine warfare to be sent back into occupied Europe on top secret missions. The British Special Operations Executive arranged the infiltration of four Austrians, Albrecht Gaiswinkler, Joseph Grafl, Karl Standhartinger and Karl Lzicar, into the Salzkammergut area of northwestern Austria. This book tells the story of Operation EBENSBURG, their mission to kidnap or assassinate Joseph Goebbels, the Reich's Minister of Propaganda, to organise resistance groups before the arrival of American forces and to protect the looted works of art hidden in the Altaussee salt mine.
Download or read book Spy Princess written by Shrabani Basu and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the riveting story of Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of an Indian prince, Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), who became a British secret agent for SOE during World War II. Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's life, from her birth in Moscow – where her father was a Sufi preacher – to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three women SOE agents awarded the George Cross and, under torture, revealed nothing, not even her real name. Kept in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, but the Germans could not break her spirit. Ten months after she was captured, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp and, on 13 September 1944, she was shot. Her last word was 'Liberté.'
Download or read book Shadow Knights written by Gary Kamiya and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulp History brings to life extraordinary feats of bravery, violence, and redemption that history has forgotten. These stories are so dramatic and thrilling they have to be true. In SHADOW KNIGHTS, everyday men and women risk their lives on top-secret missions to sabotage Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Hell-bent on conquering Europe, Hitler had just set his sights on England when Winston Churchill reached into his bag of tricks and invented a secret spy network of ordinary citizens. These schoolteachers, housewives, prostitutes, and farmers abandoned their former lives, trained in covert black ops, and set Europe ablaze. Parachuting into Nazi territory under the cover of night, they destroyed factories, armed resistance networks, and turned Hitler’s juggernaut on its head.
Book Synopsis Wolves at the Door by : Judith Pearson
Download or read book Wolves at the Door written by Judith Pearson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-05-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia Hall left her Baltimore home in 1931 to enter the Foreign Service and went to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) when Hitler was building toward the peak of his power in Europe. She was assigned to France, where she helped the Resistance movement, escaped prisoners of war, and American Allied paratroopers. By 1942 she was considered so dangerous to the Gestapo that she had to escape over the Pyrenees mountains—on an artificial leg, no less. When she got to England, she was reassigned to France by the OSS, disguised as an old peasant woman. She helped capture 500 German soldiers and kill more than 150, while she sabotaged Nazi communications and transportation. Hitler's forces were hot on her trail, however, and her daring intelligence activities and indomitable spirit defied the expectations of even the Allies until the very end of the war. Her story was ignored for more than fifty years, and this book now brings Virginia Hall's story to patriots young and old.
Book Synopsis The Women Who Lived for Danger by : Marcus Binney
Download or read book The Women Who Lived for Danger written by Marcus Binney and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2003-09-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Special Operations Executive was formed by Winston Churchill in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze." In the SOE women were trained to handle guns and explosives, work undercover, endure interrogation by the Gestapo, and use complex codes. In The Women Who Lived for Danger, acclaimed historian Marcus Binney recounts the story of ten remarkable women who were dropped in occupied territories to work as secret agents. Once they were behind enemy lines, theirs was the most dangerous war of all, as they led apparently normal civilian lives while in constant danger of arrest. They organized dropping grounds for arms and explosives destined for the Resistance, helped operate escape lines for airmen who had been shot down over Europe, and provided Allied Command with vital intelligence. SOE women agents came from all walks of life: from the dazzling Polish Countess Krystyna Skarbek (alias Christine Granville) and the American Virginia Hall, who was from a rich Baltimore family, to Marguerite Knight, a secretary in Walthamstow. Petite Lisa de Baissac lived next to Gestapo headquarters in Poitiers playing the part of a quiet widow, while twenty-year-old student Paola Del Din was sent to find a way through the German front line in Florence. Hot-tempered Paddy O'Sullivan deflected a German officer from examining her suitcase by making a date with him, and Alix d'Unienville feigned madness when captured. The stories of these women agents -- some famous, some virtually unknown -- are told with the help of extensive new archive material. Their exploits form a new chapter of heroism in the history of warfare matched only by their determination, resourcefulness, and ability to stay cool in the face of extreme danger.
Book Synopsis Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives by : Martha Moffitt Peacock
Download or read book Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives written by Martha Moffitt Peacock and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-11-16 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Co-Honorable Mention for the 2021 Book Award by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (SSEMWG) In Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives, Martha Moffitt Peacock provides a novel interpretive approach to the artistic practice of Imaging Women of Consequence in the Dutch Golden Age. From the beginnings of the new Republic, visual celebrations of famous heroines who crossed gender boundaries by fighting in the Revolt against Spain or by distinguishing themselves in arts and letters became an essential and significant cultural tradition that reverberated throughout the long seventeenth century. This collective memory of consequential heroines who equaled, or outshone, men is frequently reflected in empowering representations of other female archetypes: authoritative harpies and noble housewives. Such enabling imagery helped in the structuring of gender norms that positively advanced a powerful female identity in Dutch society.
