The Women Who Spied for Britain: Female Secret Agents of the Second World War

by Robyn Walker, HRH The Princess Royal (Foreword)

Espionage is one of the world’s oldest professions, and it played an integral role in Allied successes and failures during the Second World War. Equal to men in both their bravery and in the sacrifices they made, the female undercover operatives of the Second World War deserve to have their incredible stories told.The Women Who Spied for Britain traces the fascinating and sometimes tragic stories of eight women who put their lives on the line and made invaluable contributions to the British war effort. Drawn from many different walks of life, including a princess, a beauty queen, a war widow, a teenage girl and a bawdy Australian journalist, all of these women shared a sense of adventure, daring and determination that allowed them to embrace the role of secret agent. Trained in the art of clandestine warfare, guerilla tactics and radio operation, these women worked closely with resistance movements throughout Occupied Europe.Their stories are portraits of courage, offering a mixture of thrilling adventure, gutsy humour, hard-fought triumphs and, for far too many, horrific tragedy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Biography, Historical, Autobiography, War

238 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2014

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eight chapters: eight women who stood to protect the free world. The horrors they faced are not easy to digest, but I do believe my generation should be forced to know of those who sacrificed everything.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book so hard to read; the suffering that these women went through and saw is unimaginable. It was truly disturbing in places and an uncomfortable read. The descriptions of concentration camps and death camps are things I’d sooner forget but am pleased that I read about it, be warned not many of the stories have happy endings. Then there was the sexism from the era, i.e. a skilled female markswoman having to apologise for being female when teaching men in the resistance. She encouraged them by saying that she knew the basics well enough to show them but they would obviously soon be more skilled than her. Or the British Navy submarine refusing to transport a female agent because she is a woman, and having her on board makes the sub unlucky. But oh my, I am glad that the book highlights these brave and magnificent women and what they did for their country. Five stars because it should not be forgotten from history; however, don't expect a fun adventure in the style of James Bond.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a slim book. It provides one chapter to each of the women highlighted - 8 in all. We get thumbnail sketches of the exploits of these young women who dropped in behind enemy lines in WW2 and worked tirelessly and fiercely to provide intelligence to Britain and to disrupt the German forces. Many were arrested and endured interrogation, torture and incarceration in places like Ravensbruk and Dachau. It is hard to imagine the grit and courage it took to become integral members of SOE and the French Resistance. Not enough is known about these women and I found the book just made me want more information.

[Holly McDonell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a rogue choice for a summer read but it did the job. Quite interesting but often repetitive- stating details common between each woman’s story every time a new woman was introduced. Each woman had an amazing story to tell and what they went through for the war efforts was very impressive. The book itself was worth the read but not worth a re-read.

[Chavonne Wargrave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm amazed and shocked with what these women went through to protect our country.

[Anne Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting read. The writing tends to be repetitive, but each woman's story is laid out very effectively and concisely, if not entirely comprehensively. I do want to read more about these women, especially Nancy Wake and Mathilde Carre because they are fascinating. I would very much recommend this book to people who have read Rejected Princesses (you may even recognize one of the names) and people who are craving more knowledge about important women throughout history.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book about some incredibly brave women. As so many men were conscripted into the armed services during WW2 Great Britain looked towards its female citizens as a source of undercover work. Women casually walking around also caused less attention. These women did most of their work behind enemy lines working with the French Resistance. Their training included coding, wiring of information, firearms, armed combat, explosives, undercover work and parachuting into dangerous territories. Many did not survive their services. Without their work, many of the war efforts would have a different result and many more people would have perished.

[Kathryn Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read in 8 chapters, each a short biography of 8 women spies and their exploits in WWII.

Some repititon of the types of training and work each one did but inevitable in this sense. But Great to have the most interesting stories about each one told, and liked the fact it also said a little about what happened to them after the war if they survived, and about their death in WWII as was some of their fate.

Inspiring and almost 'unbelieveale' stories of bravery, standing by ones convictions, risking life on a daily basis. Extraordinary women who were also in many ways 'ordinary' as well.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, it got better towards the end. Each chapter covered a different woman spy. The last two chapters covered Mathilde Carre and Christine Granville. These two stories were fascinating. Mathilde Carre did anything to survive including switching loyalties back and forth and back. She was a triple agent. Christine Granville was a fearless Polish patriot. Her risk to get three friends out of a German prison was inspiring. Not only did the book have interesting stories and facts but I also learned a great deal about the French Resistance during WWII.

[Nicole Whinnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women are truly amazing, and the 8 women this book gives us a short but sweet introduction to (I say introduction as it is a lovely whizz over but I’d love an entire book on each one and their lives) are perfect examples of the incredibly brave, heroic and inspiring women who spied for Britain.
Loved reading it as an extra alongside my normal fiction

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at The Imperial War Museum in October. It took a while to read it with the holidays and a cold interruption. I had read about several of these women before, found a bit more information and was introduced to several more.
The bravery these women showed is amazing, Long Live Their Stories!

[Vix Spes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this at the Imperial War Museum as the stories of these women fascinates me. Yes, there are many similarities in the stories and some details are the same but all of them are incredible. I knew the stories of maybe 7 of the 8 women due to other reading on the subject but found Mathilde Carré - the one I didn't know - interesting.

[Leigh Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so glad I grabbed this book at the Churchill War Rooms gift shop. It tells the untold stories of the female spies of WWII, a group of women who did so much for the war effort but I had never heard about before.

[Muhammad Syed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and engrossing book. This text has galvanized my interest and I am now searching books on all these female agents to further increase my knowledge about them.

A definite recommendation for all espionage and spying avid individuals.

[Gernine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid! Special note towards detailed storytelling that includes both bad and good details of the spies. Got tired of the repetition of some acronyms/war events. Every chapter seemed to say the same things and use the same phrasings. Not much variety in storytelling in the 8 stories.

[Mick Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

an interesting beginners book about the soe.covers the work of eight agents,whett the appetite for more of these type of books.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always have and always will love reading about the women who spied and fought during WWII.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good history about many brave women

[Annika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt so inspired by these women and their stories. An easy read.

[Magnolia Flowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history

[Julia Morrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of remarkable women.

[Carol Pouliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for anyone interested in female heroes and/or World War II. Fascinating.

[K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd book.

I'll admit, I bought this in the hopes that it would prove to be a non-fiction version of Code Name Verity. And in some ways, it was? But in a lot of ways, this was just baffling.

Each chapter tells the story of a different woman who spied for Britain in World War II. Which, fine. That's a nice, easy way to break up the information and tell individual stories.

But.

It was like the chapters had been written to be read individually, with no attempt at actually joining the chapters together. Each chapter featured many of the same organisations, particularly the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the unfortunately acronymed First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). And yet, in each chapter, these organisations were introduced as though they'd never been mentioned before.

In some cases, the same story was told in multiple chapters - when imprisoned, one particular British agent stood in a position that blocked the German guard from seeing that another British agent was having a brief conversation with her lover, who was in the adjacent male exercise yard. And we're told that story in the chapter dealing with the agent who blocked the view, AND the agent who got to talk to her lover as a result. And it was written as though we'd never heard this story before.

Look, the women's stories were often interesting. But it seemed like each chapter was ultimately a brief biography of her entire life (which, in some cases, featured nearly 80 years of stuff NOT relating to spying for Britain) with only a couple of pages in each chapter dedicated to actual, on-the-ground badassery.

Add in the fact that there was no conclusion to the book - it literally ends with the last of the discussed spies being murdered by her stalker in the 1950s - and I was more than a little baffled.

Perhaps the intention was to show that these women were much more than the tiny amount of time that they spent being real life Code Name Verity-s. But if that's the case, the title and the blurb probably should have been reworked to indicate that.

(It was still a decent read. I'm just grumpy that there was less lady badassery and more..."she had a great childhood, here's 10 pages about it. Then she was a spy for 5 minutes, got captured and died.")

[Tim Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating stories, especially given the young age of many of these women - if this were fiction, you'd be forgiven for thinking the stories absurd and fanciful!

However, the book suffers badly from poor writing and editing - bad grammar, poor punctuation, overuse of exclamation marks and repeatedly explaining what a term meant, or who a particular person was.

[Nick Burridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating story of the female agents in the second world war. It was particularly interesting for me as a friend's mother, Sonia Butt features.