SOE Heroines: The special operations executive’s French section and free French women agents
by Bernard O’Connor
Nearly 40 female agents were sent out by the French section of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The youngest was 19 and the oldest 53.
Most were trained in paramilitary warfare, fieldcraft, the use of weapons and explosives, sabotage, silent killing, parachuting, codes and cyphers, wireless transmission and receiving, and general spycraft.
Bernard O’Connor uses recently declassified government documents, personnel files, mission reports and memoirs to assess the successes and failures of these 38 women, showing how they were sent to France on vital and highly dangerous missions, tasked with
