Violette Szabo: The life that I have

by Susan Ottaway

The story of Violette Szabo is one of the most extraordinary in the annals of World War II espionage and covert operations. Totally fearless and a dead shot, Violette Szabo volunteered to become part of the Special Operations Executive, Britain's premier sabotage and subversion organization of the time. On 7 June 1944, Violette left behind a two-year-old daughter to parachute into France on a special mission. Szabo and other British agents were assigned to organise French resistance fighters to hinder the advance of the SS Das Reich Division to the Normandy beaches. Unfortunately, Szabo's party was soon ambushed by the SS. Unable to walk due to a twisted ankle, Szabo covered the retreat of her comrades with machine-gun fire. Captured, she went through a series of interrogations and changes of confinement before ending up at Ravensbruck, the German all-women's concentration camp. She was finally executed on 26 January 1945. She was twenty-three years old. This exceptional work has been written with the assistance of Violette Szabo's daughter, Tanya, and unravels fact and fiction about one of the most fascinating characters of World War II.

Genres: Biography

270 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2020

About the author

Susan Ottaway was born in Windsor, brought up in Egham and educated at Sir William Perkins's Girls School in nearby Chertsey. The daughter of an aircraft engineer, she has had a lifelong enthusiasm for aeroplanes and books. She worked for four different airlines over a period of 20 years, mainly in the UK but also in Germany and Australia, and wrote her first book, a biography of Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, before leaving the world of aviation. She then worked as a freelance editor and has since written six more books.

Her books include Violette Szabo: The Life That I Have, a biography of SOE agent Violette Szabo for which she personally interviewed Eileen Nearne. She has appeared on BBC national television to be interviewed about her work, and she took part in the four-part television series for the Discovery History Channel entitled George Cross Heroes.

Susan is a guest speaker on battlefield tours and in 2008 she delivered the Annual Dambuster Lecture at the Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa, home of the wartime 617 'Dambuster' Squadron.

- compiled from Andrew Lownie Literary Agency and Harper Collins

Reviews

[Julie Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I read it as part of a course I was on Lambeth Tour Guide.

I haven't read much about word war 11, for various reasons. This story of a girl from Stockwell who married a French soldier then killed in the war. She had a child with him, the father never saw him and she wanted to do something to help in the war.

She became a special operations executive and was flown to occupied France so she could report back to England about what was happening on the ground.

She was captured by the Germans and taken to the Gestapo Headquarters for interrogation and sent to Ravenscourt Concentration Camp where eventually she was executed.

This is a brief, but what I enjoyed about it is the story of an ordinary girl fighting for her country and learning about the 2nd world war . From reading this I am interested in learning more.

Since then I have been to the war museum several times, it is fascinating. They have an amazing bookshop, with so many stories. If only they had this type of material when I was at school I might have learnt something then!