About the book
Thirty-nine women were deployed by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France from 1941- 45 acting as secret agents behind enemy lines. They acted as organisers, wireless (radio) operators and couriers.
It was a world where women under thirty couldn’t vote, they couldn’t open a bank account without their husband being in charge of it. One of the reasons ladies couldn’t open their own bank account was because people believed they wouldn’t be able to handle the financial part. However, Winston Churchill had no qualms about sending young women behind enemy lines to fight the Nazis.
Emily Boucher is one of these women. A widow living in England, but born in France, she decides to fight for her native country after becoming a wireless operator in the WAAFs and finding out about the secret lives of the agents behind enemy lines.
The men and women of the SOE spent months organising drops (called a parachutage) to arm the Resistance and train them in sabotage and fighting, ready for D-Day when the call to arms would galvanise thousands of Resistance groups to fight back against the Nazis.
The men and women of the Special Operations Executive fought for freedom and gave their own lives in many cases. Some of them were captured, some tortured, and some died in concentration camps.
Of the women only twenty-two survived the war.
This book is dedicated to all of them.
