The summer of 1940 was a terrifying time to be British. After years of dragging their feet, hoping to avoid another costly war so soon after World War I, Britain was now facing the consequences of procrastination. France, their only ally, had just fallen to Germany whose Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, seemed intent on world domination. He would not stop with France and everyone knew it. Britain was a sitting duck, and now they were utterly alone. Something had to be done. That something was the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, a top secret organization commissioned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in June of 1940, just after the fall of France. Churchill gave the SOE explicit instructions to quote “set Europe ablaze” through espionage and sabotage. This all sounds very macho and masculine, like the plot of a superhero action movie. But did you know the SOE not only employed female officers but considered them among the most valuable members of the organization? Did you know these women, from all walks of life - housewives, mothers, shop assistants, and countesses - were some of the most instrumental blaze setters helping to bring down Hitler’s regime? Let’s fix that. 

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. When I think of World War II, I think of men in army uniforms, tanks and trenches, planes dropping bombs, submarine torpedos, air raid sirens. And I think of women. I think of women stepping in to fill jobs vacated by men who went off to fight - Rosie the Riveter. It was a time women gained some independence outside of the home by necessity because someone had to work in the factories, someone had to keep the industry going, maintain the infrastructure with the men gone. But a handful of those women took it even further, risking their lives to help the allied powers win the war in quite possibly the most high risk, dangerous, deadly way - espionage. Because agreeing to join the Special Operations Executive, the SOE, was no walk in the park. It meant being parachuted into enemy occupied countries - mostly France - and assuming the role of an innocent citizen all while secretly gathering intelligence, sabotaging infrastructure, and aiding and inciting rebel groups to revolt. The cost of being caught, being found out, was almost certainly death and no one was coming to save you. According to the National Army Museum of the UK, the average life expectancy of an SOE wireless operator in occupied France was just 6 weeks. Women left young children behind to do this because they believed they were saving the world. And they were. And they did. Nothing motivates a woman more to action than a complete madman ruining the world you just brought another human being into. 

 

But before we get into the stories of some of these superhero women. We need some context so you can fully understand what they were up against. Let’s go back another 20 odd years to World War I. I don’t think a lot of people understand what World War I was about. I never really have myself if I’m being honest. If you ask, you’re likely to be met with the answer “well the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of course.” But that doesn’t really make sense. Why would an entire world war start over the assassination of this heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Who’s he to us? Why do we care? Sorry Franz, but for real. Why would the world go to war over this? It’s never made sense to me. Michael Lind does a better job explaining in an article for the National Interest called “Germany’s Superpower Quest Caused World War I” when he says quote “most historians… have tended to agree that the major cause of World War I was Imperial Germany’s determination to become a “world power” or superpower by crippling Russia and France in what it hoped would be a brief and decisive war… Following the Archduke’s assassination, Berlin deliberately used the crisis in relations between its satellite Austria-Hungary and Russia’s satellite Serbia as an excuse for a general war that would establish German hegemony from Belgium to Baghdad.  World War I started in 1914 for the same reason that World War II started in 1939—a government in Berlin wanted a war, though not the war it ultimately got.” end quote. So basically, Germany used the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as an excuse to begin taking over Europe. 

 

Germany was on the wrong side of that war and ultimately lost in 1918. They were forced to sign the Treaty of Versaille in which they had to pay $33 billion in war reparations to the allies - so for this one that’s France, the UK, Russia, the US, Italy and Japan. They also had to give up some overseas territories and even some home territories to France and Poland. They were forbidden from having submarines or an air force. And this is like, I don’t know why this almost seems comical to me, like Germany is a naughty child and the rest of the world is like “No, bad Germany. How dare you try to take over the world. That’s it, we’re taking away your xbox. No more xbox and, you know what, no more skateboarding either. That’s gone too,” except it’s submarines and an air force. 

 

But you know who didn’t see the humor in it? Adolf Hitler. He didn’t think any of this was funny. He fought for Germany in World War I and returned after the war, injured and outraged. He thought the terms of the Treaty of Versaille were nothing short of insulting to Germany. And, I mean they did completely destroy Germany’s economy. That $33 billion was no joke. One unexpected consequence of that consequence was that Germany was now in dire straits. They are in rough shape. According to a National WWII Museum article called “How did Adolf Hitler Happen?” quote, “by September 1923, four billion German marks had the equal value of one American dollar. Consumers needed a wheelbarrow to carry enough paper money to buy a loaf of bread.” end quote. So their economy is in shambles and they are desperate for solutions. Hitler uses this destitution and desperation as a springboard to power. In a way, forcing Germany to pay that $33 billion in reparations after World War I helped pave the way for Hitler to take over. Which could not have been what they were going for there. 

 

That article goes on to say quote “Hitler, a mesmerizing public speaker, addressed political meetings in Munich calling for a new German order to replace what he saw as an incompetent and inefficient democratic regime. This New Order was distinguished by an authoritarian political system based on a leadership structure in which authority flowed downward from a supreme national leader. In the new Germany, all citizens would unselfishly serve the state, or Volk; democracy would be abolished; and individual rights sacrificed for the good of the führer state. The ultimate aim of the Nazi Party was to seize power through Germany’s parliamentary system, install Hitler as dictator, and create a community of racially pure Germans loyal to their führer, who would lead them in a campaign of racial cleansing and world conquest.” end quote. 

 

Hitler had some setbacks in accomplishing this. He was thrown in prison for a year after a failed coup in Bavaria but ultimately, he succeeded in rising to power. That was helped along by the Great Depression in the 1930s when quote “The Nazis fed on bank failures and unemployment—proof, Hitler said, of the ineffectiveness of democratic government,” end quote.  And it worked. Once a fringe group receiving only 2.6% of votes in 1928, the Nazi party grew into the largest political party by 1932 and Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in January of 1934 by the president, Paul von Hindenburg. He had made a lot of great promises to people who were struggling because of the economy. He had perfectly addressed their pain points in his well spoken campaign speeches. And he got into the government legitimately. He didn’t take it by force. He followed the rules and infiltrated it by gaining the people’s allegiance. But once he had gained power, it all got a little crazy. It reminds me a little too much of what’s happening in American politics right now, but I won’t get into that. 

 

After a Dutch communist set a fire in the Reichstag building in Berlin which is like a government building, soon after his appointment, Hitler used it to quote “convince President Hindenburg to declare an emergency decree suspending many civil liberties throughout Germany, including freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and the right to hold public assemblies. The police were authorized to detain citizens without cause, and the authority usually exercised by regional governments became subject to control by Hitler’s national regime. Almost immediately, Hitler began dismantling Germany’s democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. When Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler took the titles of führer, chancellor, and commander in chief of the army. He expanded the army tremendously, reintroduced conscription, and began developing a new air force—all violations of the Treaty of Versailles.” end quote. 

 

So what this all sounds like to me, is that when Hitler was first appointed chancellor, he seemed like a normal politician, someone who would play by the rules. He had ideas that appealed to people. He promised a better, more economically stable Germany. You can sort of see why people would be onboard. But fairly quickly after being given political power, he turned the entire system on its head and not in a good way. He just started doing whatever he wanted and it got out of control very, very quickly. Because once you start taking people’s rights away, freedom of speech, right to hold public assemblies, once you start imprisoning and murdering your opponents, who is going to stop you? Adolf Hitler was a Pandora's box. 

 

He completely disregards the Treaty of Versaille and sets out to accomplish what Germany had failed to pull off in World War I. He wants to take over the world. This starts in 1936 when he sends troops to the Rhineland which is like a strip of land between Germany and France that was demilitarized by the Treaty of Versaille. Hitler remilitarizes it. Then, in 1938, he takes Austria in order to unify the two German speaking countries. If you’ve ever seen the Sound of Music this is what’s happening in that. This is a bold move and he’s clearly disregarding the treaty they all signed just 2 decades ago but Britain and France do nothing at this point. That same year, 1938, Hitler demands that the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia become part of Germany too. At this point, France and Britain are like “okay, this is clearly getting out of hand but we really don’t want to fight this guy. We’re still recovering from World War I. Let’s just just try to compromise here” and they adopt a policy of appeasement which according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia means quote “making concessions to an aggressive foreign power in order to avoid war.” They basically go “okay Germany, you can have that German speaking part of Czechoslovakia, take it. Just leave the rest of the country alone.” But of course he doesn’t play by the rules and he just takes the whole country. So Germany has now expanded into the Rhineland which borders France, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. 

 

At this point France and Britain realize that Hitler cannot be appeased and they start preparing their armies. In 1939 Britain passed conscription acts requiring all men ages 18 to 41 to serve in the military. And this is my worst fear, to be honest, as the mother of two boys. By the end of 1939, 1.5 million men had been drafted into the military. Everyone knows Hitler is going to go after Poland next. Britain shores up its military and they’re like “don’t worry Poland, we got your back.” As expected, Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939 and two days later, Britain and France officially declared war. 

 

So now that they’re at war, France is in major danger. They share a border with Germany. But it is a heavily armed and fortified border at this point. Britain and France are certain they can hold it but they’re strategy is all wrong and they totally underestimate Hitler’s tendency to not play by the rules. He comes at them hard with tanks and aircraft concentrated in particular areas instead of spread out evenly along the border. This is not what they were expecting. It’s not what they had prepared to defend. So Britain and France are putting all of their efforts into defending this border between France and Germany. They do nothing to actively aid Poland hoping an economic blockade would be enough to wear Germany down. 

 

In April of 1940 Germany invades Norway. They need its iron-ore supplies and they want to use it as a base for their navy to attack the allies. Norway isn’t exactly known for its strong military, so it’s quickly overtaken by Germany. Britain and France make a feeble attempt to aid Norway but they are outnumbered and poorly equipped and quickly retreat. 

 

In May of 1940, Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg using Blitzkrieg techniques which according to the National Army Museum of the UK involves quote “fast moving armored formations supported by ground-attack aircraft, mobile artillery and mechanized infantry.” Which, I don’t know, that just sounds like normal war stuff to me but I guess it was rather innovative for the time. British and French forces rush into Belgium, leaving France vulnerable. They really overestimated how secure that border was. The German army breaks through and floods into France. The French army surrenders and the British retreat with their tails between their legs. Nazi Germany now controls Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France leaving Britain without their ally and utterly alone in Europe. And where the heck is the US on all this right? They didn’t want to touch this war for the same reason Britain and France held back. World War I messed everybody up so bad they were in no hurry to rush into another world war and I cannot blame them for that at all. According to pearlharbor.org, a poll taken in 1939 just after the war started showed that 94% of Americans were against going to war. And it would take another 2 years, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor which, whyyyy? Why poke a sleeping bear? I don’t get it and I will explore it further some day. But it took Pearl Harbor, a personal attack on home soil for America to join the war. Right now though, Britain is alone and seemingly screwed. 

 

So they have to do something. One good thing that happens on literally the exact same day that Germany invades France, May 10, 1940 (which gives me chills), Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the UK. The same day. And this guy, I have mad respect for this guy. He springs into action. He’s like “enough crapping around we have got to stop this guy.” I mean that’s not word for word, what he actually said in his first speech as prime minister was quote ““I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many long months of toil and struggle. You ask what is our policy. I will say, it is to wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalog of human crime. “You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival.” end quote. 

 

Back in 1938 three organizations had been formed in response to Hitler grabbing up all of Europe: Section D which was the sabotage branch of MI 6 (MI 6 is the UK’s secret intelligence service, what we would call the CIA in the US), MI R the research branch of the war office, and Electra House whose job was to distribute anti-Nazi propaganda. So we have sabotage, intelligence, and propaganda. Churchill combines all of these into one organization called the Special Operations Executive or SOE pretty much right after he becomes prime minister. He puts the minister of economic warfare, Charles Dalton, in charge of the SOE. And it’s really like something out of a spy novel. They have this top secret headquarters at 64 Baker Street in London and they start recruiting men and women, volunteers, and training them in sabotage, small arms, radio and telegraph communication, and unarmed combat. They also had to be fluent in the language of the country they were going to be sent to. Because these guys were supposed to go infiltrate German occupied areas, mostly France, to basically wreak havoc from the inside. They are parachuted in with wireless radios disguised as suitcases so they can gather information and transmit it back to the UK. They help organize and orchestrate sabotage like the bombings of trains, bridges, and factories, just trying to bring down the enemy’s infrastructure as best they can. They’re also tasked with inciting rebels already in the country to revolt against the Nazis. Churchill told them to quote “set Europe ablaze” and that they did. They carried things like silenced guns, exploding pens, and weapons hidden inside umbrellas and pipes. They were trained in resisting interrogation and how to evade capture. Some of them hid suicide pills inside coat buttons in case they were caught. Because they knew they were going to be killed anyway and they didn’t want to be tortured into revealing anything to the Germans first. The SOE is like the Order of the Phoenix for my Harry Potter fans, right 64 Baker Street? Might as well be 12 Grimmauld Place. This is, JK Rowling was definitely inspired by the SOE when she came up with the Order of the Phoenix. 

 

39 female SOE agents were sent to France during the war and another 16 were sent elsewhere. Women proved to be extremely valuable as undercover agents because they were much less conspicuous than men. The same reason Elizabeth VanLew and Mary Richards were so successful working undercover for the Union during the Civil War. No one expected them, as women, to be involved in any way, to be brave enough, to be smart enough to pull any of that off. Sometimes it pays to be underrated. Suyin Haynes writes in a Time Magazine article called “Inside the Stories of the Most Daring Women Spies of World War II,” quote “Women were thought to be more inconspicuous as spies, and capitalized on this perception during the war, carrying out tasks and missions that men were unable to do. In the field, women could go unnoticed as couriers delivering vital messages, with one SOE dispatch from Holland noting that in 1944, women were rarely stopped and searched at checkpoints. In some instances, women spies used their femininity and played up to stereotypes of fragility or helplessness in order to get out of sticky situations.” end quote. According to historian Juiliette Pattinson in her book “Behind Enemy Lines,” quote “several wartime accounts indicate that male agents were less resourceful and inventive than their female colleagues.” end quote. Which honestly does not surprise me. Men are very physical, right, they break stuff and punch each other in the face. Women are much more psychological with their aggression. They play mind games, they get in your head and twist your thoughts towards self-destruction. It’s like, the comedian Louis CK has a bit about this that is pure genius. He says, and his delivery is obviously better than mine but for copyright reasons I’m not going to play that audio but you should look it up, he says “here’s the difference to me between boys and girls. Boys eff things up. Girls are effed up. That’s the difference. Boy just do damage to your house that you can measure in dollars like a hurricane. Girls leave scars in your psyche that you find later.” end quote. And so, because of that, it does not surprise me at all that women made better undercover saboteurs than men. 

 

So let’s get into the stories of some of these heroic women. Most of them were sent to France but I want to start with one who stayed behind at the headquarters on Baker Street, Vera Atkins. She was born in Romania but moved to London in 1933. She started as as a secretary working for the SOE in 1941 which was like one of the only jobs women got to do at that point right, secretary. But she quickly worked her way up becoming a top SOE officer which I love because they had to have been like “okay whatever, I guess we need a secretary, you can answer phones and stuff right?” And then they’re like, “oh wait you have mad skills can you actually run the show instead?” and Vera becomes sort of a guiding figure to the agents that are deployed and keeps tabs on them, like a project manager, HR kind of position. Vera said in an interview with biographer Sarah Helm, quote “I’ve always found personally that being a woman has great advantages if you know how to play the thing right and I believe that all the girls, the women who went out, had the same feeling,” end quote. According to that Time magazine article quote “even beyond the liberation of France in 1944 and the eventual dissolution of the SOE in January 1946, Atkins was steadfast in her search for the missing SOE personnel, which amounted to 118 people—all but one of whom had been killed. Atkins eventually traced all 117 and brought their killers to war crimes trials. Atkins was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1948, appointed a CBE in 1997 and died in 2000.” end quote. So Vera Atkins was like the mama hen to the SOE agents and she made sure that their deaths were avenged after the war. 

 

Noor Inayat Khan was basically a princess. She was the daughter of Inayat Khan who was a descendant of a noble Indian family. Picture Princess Jasmine from Aladdin. That’s basically Noor. I have a picture of her on my Instagram of course @historyfixpodcast. She was born in Moscow but moved to London with her family during WWI and then to Paris where she spent her formative years. When WWII broke out in 1939, she fled France with her family and went back to Britain. So she had been personally affected by this war and she felt like she needed to do something to help the war effort. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and was so skilled at operating the radio that she came to the attention of the SOE. They recruited her in 1942. She was a skilled radio operator and a woman willing to fight who spoke fluent French. She was perfect.  Noor was sent to Paris, a city she was very familiar with. Her main job was to transmit communications between London and the resistance in Paris. This line of communication allowed for explosives to be delivered to the resistance so they could blow stuff up. But at this point, 1943, the resistance had already been infiltrated by German double agents. Two can play at this game. Noor was betrayed by a double agent, arrested, and taken to German security headquarters. The gestapo found codes in her Paris apartment that they used to send decoy transmissions to London, impersonating Noor. And this infiltration led to the capture and killing of 26 other SOE agents. As for Noor, she was kept in solitary confinement in prison in Germany for 10 months shackled by her hands and feet. Then in 1944 she was sent with 3 other female SOE officers to Dachau (dock-how) concentration camp where they were executed. During that entire over 10 month ordeal, she did not reveal any information to her captors. Her last word was reportedly “liberte” which of course means freedom or liberty in French. 

 

The story of Virginia Hall has a less tragic ending. Virginia was actually American. She came from wealthy family in Baltimore, Maryland but she traveled extensively all across Europe and became fluent in several languages. After graduating from George Washington University in DC, she went to Paris to continue her studies. So, already this woman is completely defying gender norms for the time. This is the 1930s. She’s graduated college, she’s moved overseas to continue studying, she’s traveling all over Europe. These are things usually reserved for men at this time. Virginia does not GAF. On a hunting trip in Turkey in 1933, she trips and accidentally shoots herself in the foot. Because of this injury, her leg had to be amputated below the knee and she used a wood prosthetic leg from then on. When the war starts, she wants to help, she works for the US embassy in Estonia at this point, and she’s like “let me do something, please.” But because she was a woman and she had a wooden leg, they were like “um, definitely no.” So she quits her job at the embassy and becomes an ambulance driver in France in 1940. This is basically when Germany takes over France and everyone is retreating but Virginia rushes in, fake leg and all. While working as an ambulance driver, she has a chance encounter with an undercover SOE agent. They somehow figure out that they’re both on the same team and she’s recruited by the SOE. She goes to Britain to train and then goes back to France posing as a reporter with the New York Post. She was the first female agent to take up residence in France and survived alone in the field for 12 months before other women spies were deployed. She worked to plan jailbreaks for agents who had been captured and, according to that time magazine article, came to be considered quote “the most dangerous of all Allied spies by the Gestapo,” end quote. Her efforts were so successful, she gained the attention of the Gestapo but they were never able to work out who she was because she was so good at using disguises. When Germany began fully occupying France in 1942, Virginia decided to get the heck out of there and walked crossing the Pyrenees mountains to Spain with a wooden leg. She made it back to London and continued to work as a spy for the American version of the SOE. This work quote “directly led to the liberation of large parts of France through her leadership of Resistance units, and she later became the only civilian woman in the war to receive the Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary heroism.” end quote. 

 

Violette Szabo grew up in London with a French mother and a British father. When her French husband died fighting in 1942, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She was fluent in French so she was quickly recruited by the SOE. After training, she was parachuted into France with a radio transmitter disguised as a suitcase and fake papers. She went undercover as part of a group of agents that pretended to be salesmen until they were exposed in 1944. She escaped back to Britain by plane and then returned to France again during the D-Day landings in June of 1944. D-Day, June 6, 1944, is the day that British and American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. It was a hail mary with heavy casualties but it was successful and is often considered to be the beginning of the end for Hitler. Violette parachuted in prior to this and helped to sabotage German lines of communication, delaying the deployment of German troops to Normandy. So that’s huge. She was captured on June 10th, interrogated and tortured, and then sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was executed in February of 1945 just two months before it was liberated by the Soviet Union. In 1947, Violette’s five year old daughter Tania was given the George Cross from King George VI on behalf of her mother. You guys, she did all of this with a toddler at home. This really, really gets me. Because you go “well if I do this, I’m probably not going to survive and then my daughter will lose her mother, and she’s already lost her father to this war.” But then you go “but if I don’t do this, Nazi Germany may very well take over Britain and what kind of life is that?” What’s worse, losing your mother or losing your freedom? I feel for Violette Szabo on a deeply personal level. 

 

Odette Sansom Hallowes was also a young mother. French, but living in Britain, she left three children behind when she joined the SOE as a courier. Odette worked in SOE circuits in France that were made up of 3 agents: a circuit leader, a courier, and radio transmitter. Odette was the courier in her circuit, so she carried messages and money, whatever, to their associates. The purpose of these circuits was to recruit, arm, and work with with French resistance fighters to sabotage German trains, barges, bridges, and supply depots. They were the havoc wreakers, the mayhem makers. In April of 1942, Odette was captured along with her circuit leader, Peter Churchill (who is not related to Winston Churchill, just happens to have the same last name). Odette and Peter had been pretending they were a married couple. They are interrogated at the Gestapo headquarters in Paris and, although they’ve been instructed not to say anything during interrogations, Odette kind of goes rogue and just follows her instincts. She tells the Gestapo that she is the circuit leader, not Peter and that Peter was just a pawn in the operation. He wasn’t of any importance. Because of this, his life is spared. She refuses to tell them where the circuit’s radio operator is or the location of another circuit leader, information she knew but successfully withheld in order to save their lives despite being tortured and starved. Like, they ripped out all of her toenails, you guys, and all she would say, over and over again was “I have nothing to say.” They eventually became so frustrated with her that they condemned her to die and sent her to Ravensbruck concentration camp. There she was kept in solitary confinement in an underground cell in complete darkness save for 5 minutes a day when an overhead light was turned on. Her health started to fail her. She suffered from dysentery and scurvy. Her hair and teeth started falling out and she went into a semi-comatose state. But they kept her alive, eventually moving her to a cell back above ground. I think they were still hoping she’d talk, tell them some secrets. They thought she was the circuit leader after all. By the fall of 1944, word reached Ravensbruck that the war had turned and it wasn’t looking good for the Germans. The soviets were closing in on Ravensbruck. They Nazis started desperately trying to hide evidence of their crimes. And this is quite disturbing if you want to skip forward 10 seconds. They reportedly scraped 18 inches of human fat from the crematorium chimneys and killed anyone they thought might testify as to the horrors they had committed. They marched thousands of prisoners out of the camp, most without any shoes and anyone who fell was instantly shot. On April 25, 1945, on her 33rd birthday, Odette was released from Ravensbruck. And the reason for that is pretty wild. The Nazi commandant of Ravensbruck, Fritz Suhren, puts her in his car and drives her to the American line. She thinks she’s going to be executed but he drives her to the American line, to safety hoping to save himself from being executed as a war criminal. Because, remember when I said Odette and Peter Churchill pretended they were a married couple? This commandant guy, Fritz, He knows her as Frau Churchill. He thinks she’s Winston Churchill’s wife you guys.  like “this lady’s pretty important. I’ll hand her over and they’ll let me go.” They get out of the car, he says “this is Frau Churchill,” gives her to the American forces. And she says “And this is Fritz Surhen, commandant of Ravensbruck concentration camp. Please make him your prisoner.” Then she demands that he give her his revolver which she keeps as a memento for the rest of her life. Fritz, despite his efforts to avoid it, was executed along with other top ranking prison staff after the Nuremberg trials. So Odette mostly just got really, really lucky. She died in 1995 at the age of 83. 

 

We’ll end with another happy ending. Nancy Grace Augusta Wake was nicknamed “the white mouse” by the Gestapo because she was so good at evading capture. Nancy grew up in Australia but moved to Paris to work as a journalist in 1932. She married a Frenchman and, after Germany invaded France in 1940, they worked with the resistance to help allied soldiers and Jewish people escape to neutral Spain. After her husband was captured and killed, Nancy escaped to Britain and began working for the SOE. After training, she went back to France. She once rode 300 kilometers on a bike (which is 186 miles) to arrange an equipment drop with the SOE when she learned a French resistance group no longer had a radio to communicate. She also helped organize parachute drops of weapons and equipment in preparation for the D-Day Normandy invasion, which remember was a turning point in the war. Nancy, like Odette, was one of the few SOE agents who survived their service.

 

You have to remember, at this time, women were not allowed to fight in the military. They could not take part in combat. The SOE, these were volunteer civilian positions. That’s the only reason women were allowed to do any of this. And what they learned is that women were exceedingly good at these roles. They were smart and witty and unfathomably brave and their efforts helped stop an evil man determined to take over the world, to stamp out liberty, and spread his evil racist ideas far and wide - a man who would go to such lengths as to murder 6 million innocent people - men and women and children. A man who simply had to be stopped. And these women were part of that. Odette Sansom Hallowes, Violette Szabo, and Noor Inayat Khan were the first women ever to be awarded the George Cross which is Britain's highest bravery award for civilians. But for Violette and Noor, that award was given posthumously as they had both given their lives to the cause. I have a photo of Violette’s 5 year old daughter wearing her medals including the George Cross on my instagram. It’s haunting. Because no child should have to lose her mother, both of her parents actually, because of a single man’s inhumane lust for power and determination to seize it. But every parent knows, what good is a mother, a father, if they can’t protect you from that kind of evil. A life without your parents is bad but a life without your freedom is worse. The women of the SOE knew this and they gave up everything to protect us, to protect their children, our children, all of us. And without their undying devotion to the cause, our world might be a very different place today. Our freedom, our liberty, the comfortable lives many of us get to wake up and live every single day are thanks to these courageous women and tens of millions of others, men and women, who fought battle-weary and broken to put a stop to evil. In a 1940 radio broadcast Winston Churchill said quote “This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a war of the Unknown Warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.” end quote. And that is exactly what these women did for us. 

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from Time Magazine, UK National Army Musuem, Imperial War Museums, Historic UK, the UK National Archives, National Interest, the National WWII Museum, Aspects of History, the Holocaust Encyclopedia, Pearlharbor.org, the International Churchill Society, encyclopedia.com, and the Australian War Memorial. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.