WORLD WAR II (1939-1945)

Terms Used Throughout This Section

Abwehr ~ The Abwehr was a German intelligence-gathering organization from 1921-1944. It dealt exclusively with human intelligence, especially raw intelligence reports from field agents and other sources.

Axis Powers ~ Also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries or the Axis. The Axis powers were nations that fought in WWII against the Allied forces. They were united by their opposition to the Western world and the Soviet Union, describing their goals as "breaking the hegemony of plutocratic-capitalist Western powers and defending civilization from communism." Countries included Germany (Achsenmächte), Japan (枢軸国 Sūjikukoku) and Italy (Potenze dell'Asse).

Concentration Camps ~ There were 39 female SOE agents who were sent to France and 13 of them never returned. One died a natural death soon after her arrival. The remaining 12 were captured in France by the German Gestapo and executed in concentration camps:

• Dachau ~ Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment, Noor Inayat Khan, Eliane Plewman
• Natzweiler-Struthof ~ Vera Leigh, Sonya Olschanezky, Diana Rowden
• Ravensbruck ~ Denise Bloch, Andree Borrel, Cecily Lefort, Lilian Rolfe, Violette Szabo

Enigma Machine ~ An Enigma machine was any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used in the 20th century for enciphering and deciphering secret messages. Enigma was invented by the German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. Early models were used commercially from the early 1920s, and adopted by military and government services of several countries—most notably by Nazi Germany before and during World War II. Several different Enigma models were produced, but the German military models are the most commonly discussed.

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) ~ A British independent, all-female unit and registered charity affiliated to, but not part of, the Territorial Army, formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. AKA Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps.

In September 1938, the FANY Corps was asked to form the initial Motor Driver Companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, called the Women's Transport Service.

A small part of FANY - highly secret at the time and later famous - served as a parent unit for many women who undertook espionage work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Recruits were trained in one of four fields: Motor Transport, Wireless Telegraphy, Codes or General. They worked on coding and signals, acting as conductors for agents and providing administration and technical support for the Special Training Schools. Their work was top secret and often highly skilled. Members operated in several theatres of war, including North Africa, Italy, India and the Far East.

Thirty-nine of the agents sent by SOE to France were commissioned into the Corps: twelve were captured by the Germans and died in concentration camps. Many decorations, of both the UK and other countries, were awarded for their service and outstanding courage. Among these, four of the highest UK decorations were the George Cross awarded to Odette Sansom (who was incarcerated and tortured, but survived the war), to Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan (both perished in captivity and were decorated posthumously). Nancy Wake's awards included the George Medal.

A memorial at St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge commemorates 52 named members who were killed on active service with the Corps in World War II.

Fresnes Prison ~ The second largest prison in France, Fresnes was used by the Germans to house captured British SOE agents and members of the French Resistance. Held in horrific conditions, these prisoners were tortured and some died there. As soon as the Allied forces broke through at Normandy and fought their way to liberate Paris, the Gestapo peremptorily killed prisoners at Fresnes. Suzanne Spaak, a French Resistance operative, was executed there on 12 Aug 1944, less than two weeks before the city was liberated.

Intelligence Networks ~ Also known as circuits (or réseaux to their French participants) these networks were established by the "F" Section (France) of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). For a complete list, click HERE. Women mentioned in this Blog:

• Acrobat ~ Diana Rowden, Courier.
• Bricklayer ~ Madeleine Damerment, Courier.
• Cinema ~ Noor Inayat Khan, Wireless Operator.
• Clergyman ~ Denise Bloch, Wireless Operator.
• Detective ~ Blance Charlet, Courier. Denise Bloch, Wireless Operator.
• Donkeyman ~ Peggy Knight, Courier.
• Farrier ~ Juliane Aisner, Courier. 
• Fireman ~ Patricia O'Sullivan, Wireless Operator.
• Headmaster ~ Sonya Butt, Courier.
• Historian ~ Lillian Rolfe, Wireless Operator.
• Inventor ~ Vera Leigh, Courier.
• Jocky ~ Christine Granville & Cecily Lefort, Couriers.
• Juggler (aka Robin) ~ Sonya Olschanezky, Courier & Administrator.
• Marksman ~ Devereaux Rochester, Courier.
• Minister ~ Yvonne Fontaine, Courier.
• Monk (aka Monkeypuzzle) ~ Eliane Plewman, Courier. Jean Dubois, Wireless Operator.
• Musician ~ Yolande Beekman, Wireless Operator.
• Permit ~ Ginette Jullian, Courier.
• Physician (aka Prosper) ~ Francine Agazarian, Andree Borrell & Yvonne Rudellat, Couriers.
• Salesman ~ Violette Szabo, Courier.
• Scholar ~ Yvonne Baseden, Wireless Operator.
• Scientist ~ Lise De Baissac & Mary Katherine Herbert, Couriers. Phyliss Latour, Wireless Operator.
• Silversmith ~ Madeleine Lavigne, Courier & Wireless Operator.
• Spindle ~ Odette Sansom, Courier.
• Spiritualist ~ Eileen Nearne, Wireless Operator
• Spruce (aka Plane) ~ Marie-Therese Le Chene & Madeleine Lavigne, Couriers.
• Stationer ~ Jacqueline Nearne & Pearl Witherington, Couriers.
• Tinker ~ Yvonne Fontaine, Courier.
• Ventriloquist ~ Muriel Byck, Wireless Operator.
• Wheelwright ~ Anne-Marie Walters, Courier. Yvonne Cormeau, Wireless Operator.
• Wizard ~ Eileen Nearne, Wireless Operator.

July Plot ~ the abortive attempt on 20 Jul 1944, by German military leaders to assassinate Adolf Hitler, seize control of the government and seek more favorable peace terms from the Allies.

Maquis (pronounced ma'ki) ~ Rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters, called maquisards, during the occupation of France in WWII. Initially, they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vicy France's Service du travall obligatoire (STO) to provide forced labor for Germany. To avert capture and deportation to Germany, they became increasingly organized into active resistance groups.

Morale Operations (MO) ~ A branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during WWII. It utilized psychological warfare, particularly propaganda, to produce specific psychological reactions in both the general population and military forces of the Axis powers in support of larger Allied political and military objectives.

Purple (cipher machine) ~ In the history of cryptography, 97-shiki ōbun inji-ki (九七式欧文印字機, System 97 Printing Machine for European Characters) or Angōki B-kata (暗号機B型, Type B Cipher Machine),code named "Purple" by the United States, was a diplomatic cryptographic machine used by the Japanese Foreign Office just before and during World War II. The information gained from decryptions was eventually code-named "Magic" within the U.S. government. The code name "Purple" referred to binders used by U.S. cryptanalysts for material produced by various systems. 

Red Orchestra (Die Rote Kapelle) ~ Coined by the Reichssicherheitshauptampt (RSHA), this was the counter-espionage arm of the SS, which referred to resistance radio operators as 'pianists', their transmitters as 'pianos' and their supervisors as 'conductors'. The RSHA included three independent espionage networks in the Red Orchestra: the Trepper group (in Germany, France and Belgium), the Lucy spy ring (in Switzerland) and the Schultz-Boysen/Harnack group (in Berlin).

Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) ~ The intelligence agency of the SS and Nazi Party. It was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often a "sister organization" with the Gestapo. 

Special Operations Executive (SOE) ~ On July 22, 1910 the SOE was officially formed by the British Minister of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and Italy) and to aid local resistance movements.

It was initially also involved in the formation of the Auxiliary Units, a top secret "stay-behind" resistance organization which would have been activated in the event of a German invasion of Britain.

Few people were aware of SOEs existence. To those who were part of it or liaised with it, it was sometimes referred to as "the Baker Street Irregulars", after the location of its London headquarters. It was also known as "Churchill's Secret Army" or the "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare". For security purposes, various branches, and sometimes the organisation as a whole, were concealed behind names such as the "Joint Technical Board" or the "Inter-Service Research Bureau", or fictitious branches of the Air Ministry, Admiralty or War Office.

The SOE operated in all countries or former countries occupied by or attacked by the Axis powers, except where demarcation lines were agreed with Britain's principal allies (the Soviet Union and the United States). It also made use of neutral territory on occasion, or made plans and preparations in case neutral countries were attacked by the Axis. The organisation directly employed or controlled just over 13,000 people, about 3,200 of whom were women. It is estimated that SOE supported or supplied about 1,000,000 operatives worldwide.

After the war, the organisation was officially dissolved on 15 Jan 1946. A memorial to SOEs agents was unveiled in London in October 2009. It is situated on the Albert Embankment by Lambeth Palace. 

Click HERE for a list of female SOE agents.

Lorraine Adie (1921-2013)

DOSSIER:
Elizabeth Lorraine Adie was born in 1921 in Scotland. She worked for British Intelligence in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). It was during this period that she met her American husband, Miles Copeland, Jr.

The married on 25 Sept 1942 and had four children: Miles, Ian, Lorraine "Lennie" and Stewart (best known as the drummer for the band The Police). 

Found at www.andmagazine.com

FAMED CIA WIDOW DIES

LORRAINE COPELAND WAS A DARING WW-2 OPERATIVE HERSELF

Lorraine Adie Copeland, the widow of a famed CIA official who was a daring World War Two operative in her own right, died Saturday in her chateau in the south of France, surrounded by family members. She was 92*.

The daughter of a wealthy Scots neurosurgeon, Copeland was a secret agent with Britain's Special Operations Executive, a sabotage and subversion service that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered to "set [Nazi-occupied] Europe ablaze."

She was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and the Distinguished Service Cross for her wartime exploits, according to a family friend.

It was while serving with the SOE that she met her life's mate, Miles Copeland, Jr., who had been assigned to London as a counterintelligence specialist with the OSS, America's wartime spying and sabotage outfit. They married in 1943*.

After the war, her husband became a founding member of the fledgling CIA, and began a long string of Middle East assignments. It was there that she developed an interest in the region's paleolithic period. Over the years, she authored or co-authored several dense archeological studies of prehistoric Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and North Africa.

"Her books and have always stopped me at the second word," her son Stewart, the famed drummer for The Police, jibed in his 2010 autobiography, Strange Things Happen: A Life with The Police, Polo, and Pygmies. "They start with "The," followed by an unpronounceable fourteen-syllable word."

While Lorraine was dusting rocks, her husband was helping overthrow Middle East governments, most famously in Syria and as a key member of the CIA team that reinstalled the Shah of Iran on the Peacock Throne, according to several accounts and his own memoirs. He dedicated one of them, The Game Player: The Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative "to Lorraine, for overlooking and forgiving."

But she was also helping him with his spying chores, according to her son Miles Copeland III, best known for creating IRS Records and managing the 1980s mega-hit rock band The Police and later its lead singer, Sting.

"While living in Beirut. Lebanon she was involved with...keeping an eye on" Kim Philby, a senior British intelligence operative and KGB mole who later defected to Moscow, he said. "She was Kim's wife Eleanor Philby's best friend and recently contributed to a British TV documentary on the subject, as well as to the recent documentary on CIA agent Frank Kearns," a CBS correspondent who was also reporting to the agency.

Her husband died in 1991.

Born Elizabeth Lorraine Adie in Scotland in 1921, she was educated at the private Wyecombe Abbey in Buckinghamshire.

She died from colon cancer on Apr. 27, at the Chateau Marouatte, a restored 14th-century fortified castle in "the Dordogne," a region of southern France popular with British ex-pats.

At her side or en route, according to a family friend, were her sons Stewart and Miles and a daughter, Lennie, who is a writer and film producer. Another son, Ian, a prominent music producer, died in 2006.

Her interested in prehistory never flagged, her family said.

She was on the advisory board of the Stone Age Institute, of Bloomington, Ind., and "a member of the Perigord Historical and Archeological Society, involved in local French prehistory (such as the Lascaux cave paintings)," Miles said, "but kept up her archeological contacts in the Middle East, where many of her writings and artifacts have been bequeathed to the local Beirut museum." 

*Originally reported as 97 years old, and married in 1942, based on her Wikipedia entry. Updated Wednesday with input from the Copeland family.

Francine Agazarian (1913-1999)

DOSSIER:
Francoise Isabella "Francine" Agazarian (nee Andre) was born on 9 May 1913.

CODE NAME:
Marguerite

She landed in France by Lysander aircraft on 17 Mar 1943, with Claude de Baissac and France Antelme. She was joining her husband Jack Agazarian and the Prosper network as a courier. It was deemed unusual a married couple working on the same network; after the war Francine clarified the situation:

"Although in the same network, my husband and I were not working together; as a radio operator he worked alone and transmitted from different locations every day. I was only responsible to Prosper (Francis Suttill) whom we all called Francois . He liked to use me for special errands because, France being my native land, I could get away from difficulties easily enough, particularly when dealing with officialdom.

Francois was an outstanding leader, clear-headed, precise, confident. I liked working on his instructions, and I enjoyed the small challenges he was placing in front of me. For instance calling at town halls in various districts of Paris to exchange the network's expired ration cards (manufactured in London) for genuine new ones. Mainly I was delivering his messages to his helpers: in Paris, in villages, or isolated houses in the countryside. From time to time I was also delivering demolition material received from England. And once, with hand-grenades in my shopping bag, I travelled in a train so full that I had to stand against a German NCO. This odd situation was not new to me. I had already experienced it for the first time on the day of my arrival on French soil, when I had to travel by train from Poitiers to Paris. A very full train also. I sat on my small suitcase in the corridor, a uniformed German standing close against me. But, that first time, tied to my waist, under my clothes, was a wide black cloth belt containing bank-notes for Prosper, a number of blank identity cards and a number of ration cards; while tucked into the sleeves of my coat were crystals for Prosper's radio transmitters; the crystals had been skilfully secured to my sleeves by Vera Atkins herself, before my departure from Orchard Court. My .32 revolver and ammunition were in my suitcase. The ludicrousness of the situation somehow eliminated any thoughts of danger.

In any case, I believe none of us in the field ever gave one thought to danger. Germans were everywhere, especially in Paris; one absorbed the sight of them and went on with the job of living as ordinarily as possible and applying oneself to one's work.

Because I worked alone, the times I liked best were when we could be together, Prosper (Francis Suttill), Denise (Andrée Borrel), Archambaud (Gilbert Norman), Marcel (Jack Agazarin) and I, sitting round a table, while I was decoding radio messages from London; we were always hoping to read the exciting warning to stand by, which would have meant that the liberating invasion from England was imminent."

As the network appeared to be close to being broken by the Germans, Francine and Jack returned to England by Lysander on 16 Jun 1943; arriving on that flight were Diana Rowden, Cecily Lefort and Noor Inayat Khan.

Jack returned to France, but was arrested on 30 Jul 1943 after falling for a German trap. He was tortured by the Gestapo for six months at Fresnes Prison and eventually sent to Flossenburg concentration camp where he was kept in solitary confinement.

After the war Francine settled in London. Her husband, Jack, did not come back from Flossenburg concentration camp; he was executed on 29 Mar 1945, one of the many SOE Agents killed by the Germans immediately before the camps were liberated.

Juliene Aisner (1919-1980s)

DOSSIER:

Juliane Marie Louise Aisner (nee Simart), was born in 1900.

CODE NAME:

Her companions were Sidney Jones and Marcel Clech. Aisner was to be a courier for Dericourt's Farrier circuit, while Jones (an arms instructor)and Clech (a wireless operator) were to join Vera Leigh in establishing a new sub-circuit known as Inventor, which was to work alongside the Prosper network. 

She returned to England 14 April 1943 and died in 1947.

Vera Adkins (1908-2000)

DOSSIER:

Vera-May Rosenberg, daughter of Max Rosenberg and Zeffro Hilda Adkins, was born on 16 Jun 1908 in Galati, Romania. After the death of her father, Vera and her mother emigrated to Britain in 1937, a move made in response to the threatening political situation in Europe and the growing extremism and antisemitism in Romania.

CODE NAMES:

None Known

During her somewhat-gilded youth in Romania, where she lived on the large estate bought by her father at Crasna (now in Ukraine), Vera enjoyed the cosmopolitan society of Bucharest where she became close to the anti-Nazi German ambassador, Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg (executed after 1944 July Plot). Later she became involved with a young British pilot, Dick Ketton-Cremer, whom she had met in Egypt, and to whom she may have been briefly engaged. He was killed in action in the Battle of Crete on 23 May 1941. She was never to marry, and lived in a flat with her mother until 1947 when Hilda died.

While in Romania, Vera came to know several diplomats who were members of British Intelligence, some of whom were later to support her application for British nationality, and to whom in view of her and her family's strong pro-British views, she may have provided information as a 'stringer'. She also worked as a translator and representative for an oil company.

In the spring of 1940, Vera travelled to the Low Countries to provide money for a bribe to an Abwehr officer for a passport for her cousin, Felix, to escape from Romania. She was stranded in the Netherlands when the Germans invaded on 10 Mar 1940, and, after going into hiding, she was able to return to England late in 1940 with the assistance of a Belgian resistance network.

In February 1941, despite not being a British national, Vera joined the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), originally in a secretarial capacity, but soon as assistant to section head Colonel Maurice Buckmaster and a de facto intelligence officer. Her primary role was related to the recruitment and deployment of British agents in occupied France. She was also given responsibility for the 37 female SOE who would later work as couriers and wireless operators for the various circuits established by SOE. Vera also would take care of the 'housekeeping' related to the agent, such as ensuring they received their pay, checking that their clothing and papers were appropriate for their mission and acting as SOE liaison with their families, which included the sending out at regular intervals of anodyne pre-written letters.

She would often accompany agents to the airfields from which they would depart for France, and would carry out final security checks before waving them off. She did this for almost all of the women agents, each of whom she regarded as one of her 'girls', and to whom she felt a close affinity despite never herself serving in the field or undergoing military or signals training.

Vera did not usually arrive at F Section's Baker Street office until around 10 a.m., but always attended the daily section head meetings, and would often stay late in the signals room to await the decoded transmissions sent by agents in the field. Although not a popular officer with many of her colleagues, especially in view of her inability to admit to mistakes, she was trusted for her integrity, good organizational skills and exceptional memory. She was 5' 9" tall, liked to dress elegantly in tailored skirt-suits and was a lifelong smoker, preferring the 'Senior Service' brand.

Controversy has arisen as to why clues that one of F section's main spy networks had been penetrated by the Germans were not picked up, resulting in the failure to pull out agents at risk. Instead, several more were sent in. A radio operator for the Prosper circuit, Gilbert Norman, had sent a message omitting his true security check - a deliberate mistake. So why didn't Vera challenge Buckmaster when other signals from captured radios came in without checks? 

Vera, it is alleged, was negligent in letting Buckmaster repeat his errors at the expense of agents' lives, including 27 who the Germans arrested upon landing and later killed. Her biographer, Sarah Helm, believes that Vera, who still had relatives in Nazi occupied Europe, may have travelled to the Netherlands in 1940 and helped a cousin to escape by bribing Abwehr officials, and then later escaped from occupied Belgium through a resistance 'lifeline'. She did not tell SOE of this when she joined in 1941, and kept it secret for the rest of her life. Whatever the truth, Buckmaster was Vera's superior officer, and thus ultimately responsible for running SOE's French agents, and she remained a civilian and not even a British national until February 1944. It was Buckmaster who recklessly sent a reply to the message supposedly sent by Norman telling him, and thus the actual German operator, that he had forgotten his 'true' check and to remember it in future.

It was not until after the end of the war that Atkins learnt of the almost total success the Germans had had by 1943 in destroying SOE networks in the Low Countries by playing the Funkspiel (radio game), by which radio operators were captured and forced to give up their codes and 'bluffs', so that German intelligence (Abwehr in the Netherlands; Sicherheitsdienst in France) officers could impersonate the agents and play them back against HQ in London. For some reason, Buckmaster and Atkins were not informed of the total collapse of the circuits in the Netherlands (N Section) and Belgium (T Section) due to the capture and control of wireless operators by the Abwehr. This may have been a result of inter-departmental or service rivalry, or just bureaucratic incompetence, but the failure of their superiors to tell F Section officially of these other SOE disasters (although rumours about N and T Sections circulated at Baker Street) may have led Buckmaster and Atkins to be overconfident in the security of their networks and too ready to ignore signals evidence that questioned their trust in the identity of the wireless operator.

Notice should also be taken of the well-organised and skillful counter-espionage work of the Sicherheitsdienst at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris under Hans Josef Kieffer, who built up a deep understanding of how F Section operated in both London and France.

It has been suggested that Vera's diligence in tracing agents still missing at the end of the war was motivated by a sense of guilt at having sent many to deaths that could have been avoided. It is also possible that she felt it her duty to find out what had happened to the men and women, each known personally to her, who had died serving SOE F Section in the most dangerous of circumstances.

In the end, what caused the complete collapse of the Prosper circuit of Francis Suttill and its extensive network of sub-circuits, were not errors in London, but the actions of Henri Dericourt, F Section's air-landing officer in France, who was at the heart of its operations, and who was literally giving SOE's secrets to the Sicherheitsdienst in Paris. What is not completely clear is whether Dericourt was, as is most likely, simply a traitor, or, as he was to claim, working for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) (unknown to SOE) as part of a complex deception plan in the run-up to D-Day. However, it is beyond doubt that Dericourt was at least a double agent, and that he provided, first his friend, Karl Boemelburg, head of the Sicherheitsdienst in France, and then Kieffer, with large amounts of written evidence and intelligence about F Section's operations and operatives, which ultimately led to the capture, torture and execution of scores of British agents.

The conclusions of M.R.D. Foot in his official history of F Section are that the errors made by Atkins, Buckmaster and other London officers were the products of the 'fog of war', that there were no conspiracies behind these failings, and that few individuals were culpable.

Vera Atkins never admitted to making mistakes, and went to considerable lengths to hide her errors, as in her original identification of Noor Inayat Khan, rather than (then unknown to Atkins) Sonya Olschanezky, as the fourth woman executed at Natzweiler-Struthof on 6 Jul 1944.

After the liberation of France and the allied victory in Europe, Vera went to both France, and later, for just four days, Germany, where she was determined to uncover the fates of the 51 still unaccounted for F Section agents, of the 118 who had disappeared in enemy territory (117 of whom she was to confirm had been murdered in German captivity). Originally she received little support and some opposition in Whitehall, but as the horrors of Nazi atrocities were revealed, and the popular demand for war crimes trials grew, it was decided to give official support for her quest to find out what had happened to the British agents, and to bring those who has perpetrated crimes against them to justice.

At the end of 1945 SOE was wound-up, but in January 1946 Vera, now funded on the establishment of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), arrived in Germany as a newly promoted Squadron Officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force to begin her search for the missing agents, including 14 women. She was attached to the war crimes unit of the Judge Advocate-General's department of the British Army HQ at Bad Oeynhausen, which was under the command of Group Captain Tony Somerhaugh.

Until her return to England in October 1946, Atkins searched for the missing SOE agents and other intelligence service personnel who had gone missing behind enemy lines, carried out interrogations of Nazi war crimes suspects, including Rudolf Hoess, ex-commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and testified as a prosecution witness in subsequent trials. In November 1946 her commission was extended so that she could return to Germany to assist the prosecution in the Ravensbrueck Trial which lasted into January 1947. She used this opportunity to complete her search for Noor Inayat Khan, who she now knew had not died at Natzweiler-Struthof, as she had originally concluded in April 1946, but at Dachau.

As well as tracing 117 of the 118 missing F Section SOE agents, Vera established the circumstances of the deaths of all 14 of the women, 12 of whom had been murdered in concentration camps: Andree Borrel, Vera Leigh, Sonya Olschanezky (whom Atkins did not identify until 1947, but knew as the fourth woman to be killed) and Diana Rowden executed at Natzweiler-Struthof by lethal injection on 6 Jul 1944; Yolande Beekman, Madelaine Damerment, Noor Inayat Khan and Eliane Plewman executed at Dachau on 13 Sept 1944; Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo executed by shooting at Ravensbrueck on 5 Feb 1945; and Cecily Lefort gassed at Ravensbrueck sometime in Feb 1945. Yvonne Rudelat died of Typhus on 23 Apr 1945, 8 days after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. Muriel Byck had died of meningitis in hospital in Ramorantin, France, on 25 May 1944. 

Vera had also persuaded the War Office that the 12 women, technically regarded as civilians, who had been executed, were not treated as having died in prison, as had been originally intended, but were recorded as Killed in Action. Her efforts in looking for her missing girls meant each now have a place of death. By detailing their bravery before and after capture, Vera also helped to ensure that each (except Sonya Olschanezky, unknown to Atkins until 1947) received official recognition by the British government. To her death, Vera a strong defender of F Section's wartime record, and ensured that each of the 12 women murdered in the three concentration camps of Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau and Ravensbrueck were commemorated by memorial plaques close to where they were killed. She also supported the memorial at Valençay in the Loire Valley, unveiled in 1991, which is dedicated to the agents of SOE in France killed in the line of duty.

Vera Atkins died in a nursing home in Hastings on 24 June 2000, shortly after contracting MRSA in hospital and breaking her hip.

Madeleine Barclay (1911-1943)

DOSSIER:
Madeleine Victorine Bayard, daughter of (father unknown) and Suzanne Bayard, was born on 21 Feb 1911 in Paris, France and died at sea after the sinking of the HMS Fidelity 1 Jan 1943.

ALSO KNOWN AS:
Madeleine Barclay

Madeleine served on the French merchant vessel Le Rhin. After the fall of France, in 1940, the ship escaped to Britain and was accepted for service with SOE, re-commissioned as HMS Fidelity, with its French crew inducted into the Royal Navy.

She was commissioned into the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and became a First Officer (equivalent to a Lieutenant commander). After attending the WRNS Officers' Training Course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in January 1941, she rejoined her ship on operations for SOE. At the time, it was extremely rare for a "Wren", whether rating or officer, to serve afloat.

In November 1942, the Allies landed in French North Africa and the Germans occupied Vichy France as a precaution. It was no longer appropriate to continue the operations to this part of France. However, a new role was considered for Fidelity in the Far East. Large enough to carry her own torpedo-boats (MTBs) and spotter aircraft, she was ideal as an offshore base to mount Commando operations on Japanese-held coasts in South-East Asia. A company (in reality, more a Troop) of 40(RM) Commando was embarked and Fidelity set off on her new mission, joining a convoy for the dangerous initial part of the voyage through the North Atlantic.

Off the Azores, Fidelity was damaged by an attack from U-615, then sunk by U-435 around 1 Jan 1943. There were reports of survivors of the sinking, but Fidelity had herself been rescuing other survivors and was far behind the convoy. A detached Motor Torpedo Boat reached safety, but otherwise all hands were lost, Including Madeleine.

Yvonne Baseden (1922-2017)

DOSSIER:
Yvonne Jeanne Therese de Vibraye Baseden was born on 20 Jan 1922 in Paris, France. After the war she married and moved to what was then Northern Rhodesia, where her husband worked in the Colonial Service. She remarried in 1966 and took the name Yvonne Burney. She died on 28 Oct 2017.

CODE NAMES:
Odette
Mademoiselle Yvonne Bernier

On 4 Sep 1940, Josephine joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a General Duties Clerk. She was commissioned in 1941 (later promoted to the rank of Section Officer) and worked in the RAF Intelligence branch, where she assisted in the interrogation of captured airmen and submarine crews. It was through this work that she came to the attention of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). She joined the SOE on 24 May 1943.

One of the youngest SOE women to be dropped by parachute (aged 22), she left from RAF Tempsford airbase near Sandy on the night of 18/19 Mar 1944. Her field name was "Odette". She was parachuted into France with Gonzague Saint Geniès, a French organizer. They were dropped into South West France, close to the village of Gabarret. The local resistance, who were working for George Starr's Wheelwright network, hid them for a few days before she made her own way across France. Her wireless equipment travelled separately to Jura in Eastern France, where Josephine worked for four months as the wireless operator to the Scholar circuit. Her cover story was that she was Mademoiselle Yvonne Bernier, a shorthand typist and secretary.

Following the largest daylight air drop of the war to that date, during a routine search by the Gestapo on 26 Jun 1944, she was trapped in a cheese factory with seven colleagues from the network. Her organizer took a suicide pill immediately, as he was known to the Gestapo. Josephine was found, arrested and taken away for local questioning. At the end of that month, she was moved to the Gestapo Headquarters in Dijon and kept in solitary confinement.

On 25 Aug 1944, she was transferred to a prison in Saarbrücken and then to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 4 Sept of the same year. While at Ravensbrück, she became ill and was put in the camp hospital where she remained until the liberation of the camp. She was one of 50 women released from Ravensbrück to the Swedish Red Cross. All the women were driven in coaches across Germany and Denmark and then on to Sweden. In Malmö, they were cleaned and deloused. 

Josephine spent her first nights of freedom on a mattress on the floor of the Malmö Museum of Prehistory, sleeping under the skeletons of dinosaurs. She was then flown to Scotland and put on a train to Euston. On her arrival at Euston, there was no one to meet her, so she called the Air Ministry and the duty officer arranged for Vera Atkins take her home to her father at Brockwell Park.