Daring spies drop by parachute into dark farmland, breaking an ankle upon landing. Secret guerrilla fighters don weapons and hide in the hills. Undercover government agents with multiple identities and outfits.
Most of these descriptive sentences produce evocative images of grizzled men with years of experience. Almost no one would automatically think of women in these roles. Yet these roles and more were held by hundreds of women during the Second World War.
In Shadow Warriors of World War II: The Daring Women of the OSS and SOE, Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis give us an informative look at these women and their stories. It was one of our 20 Most Anticipated WW2 Nonfiction Books of 2017 and was certainly worth the wait!
Though it begins with quite a bit of background on the men and organizations leading the OSS and SOE when the book moves on to the stories of the women themselves it really comes into its own. While the authors are both men and do tend to remind the reader repeatedly about the fact that many of these women are “slim” “trim” or “attractive”, the truth is that most women spies used their gender as a weapon against the fascists.
One memorable story involves the theft of the French naval ciphers in 1942, needed urgently by Churchill and the Allies to determine what Vichy was going to do with what was left of the French Navy. This would have a big impact on the upcoming Operation Torch landings in Africa.
Pack and her lover who had an office in the French embassy in Washington, DC planned to steal the cipher codes from, pass them through the window and wait until they were copied and returned. The first attempt involved drugging the security and guard didn’t work. After her lover convinced the security guard to let him see his “mistress” in the office after hours, they arrived with a nod and wink and made their way to the where the cipher codes were kept. They tried again to get the codes but were unable to get the safe open in time.
On the third try Pack, in a flash of brilliance, stripped naked except for her heels and pearl necklace as the curious guard approached the room holding the safe, wanting to see what the commotion was. He shined his flashlight, saw her naked with her lover, apologized and quickly turned away. Moments later the safe was opened and the cipher codes were passed out the window to be copied and returned in a number of hours. Pack and her lover were not interrupted by the guard again and the Vichy codes were now cracked and disseminated to Allies across the world.
Some of the most harrowing stories are those of the female Russian agents that served as a part of the SEO-NKVD operations in France. Nearly all of them eventually ended up being captured and killed despite incredibly bravery. Much of the treachery was due to the Germans capturing and using communications equipment to give various resistance networks a false sense that the agents were still alive and operating when they had in fact been compromised. This happened with a number of the resistance networks in the lead up to the D-Day invasion in 1944.
Despite the brave women and men who didn’t make it, the portions of the book covering the preparations by the remaining agents and resistance networks to help prepare the way for the Allies’ successful invasion of Normandy are nothing short of inspiring. Networks helped pinpoint landing zones in farms and fields for incoming paratroopers. Resistance fighters blew up bridges and stopped rail traffic with sabotage.
Though many of these undercover agents died while fighting against the Nazis, those that did survive like Nancy Wake were respected for their knowledge and leadership by the Allied nations who were able to gain a full appreciation of their previously clandestine work only years later. Memorials are littered throughout Europe in memory of the sacrifice of these brave women and the men they fought with. This book is a useful addition to that appreciation and serves as a modern day memorial for women who fought in undercover services in the most dangerous of times.
