The link between The London Spymaker and SOE
As I’m writing the last book in The Resistance Girl Series (for now), I’m already transitioning to what I’m going to specialize in for probably the rest of my writing career. The secret agents of SOE, an abbreviation for the Secret Operations Executive. A name and organization as shrouded in mystery as its non-descript name.
Hannah at SOE plaque in Beaulieu
In book 7 in The Resistance Girl Series, titled The London Spymaker, I’m already deeply invested in SOE, the British organization Winston Churchill launched in July 1940 “to set Europe Ablaze” with irregular warfare and sabotage actions. Flight officer Anna Adams in The London Spymaker, though fictive, is based on Vera Atkins’ remarkable position at the London-based organization, as the second person behind Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, the head of SOE’s French section.
Vera Atkins
From 1941 till after D-Day in June 1944 some 400 Section F agents were dropped into France. 109 of them didn’t survive the arrests, torture, and murder by the Gestapo. Most of these heroic agents, who came from all walks of life, were killed in concentration camps. Of the 40 brave women, whom SOE started recruiting in 1942 as women could more easily blend in with the French population and were less likely to be stopped by the Germans, 13 did not survive their missions. 104 of these agents are commemorated on the Valencay Memorial in France, which I will certainly visit in person one day and tell you all about.
Valencay memorial for SOE French Section
With Anna’s story, we start at the end of the second World War as she flies to post-war Germany in search of her “missing agents.” In the chaos after the liberation, with hundreds of thousands of bewildered and traumatized holocaust survivors trying to find their way to safety, it was often unclear what had happened to political prisoners, especially these agents whom Hitler had branded the worst enemies of the Third Reich. They fell in the “Nacht und Nebel” category, people the Nazis didn’t want to leave any trace of where they’d gone (Night and Fog), so their families would never know what had happened to them.
Anna not only attends the opening of the Nuremburg trials in November 1945, she also interrogates arrested camp commanders from Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen to find out about the fate of “her girls”. The real Vera Atkins made it her life’s mission after the war to trace all the agents so she could tell their families what had happened to them.
To give you a taste of the history and research behind Anna’s story, you can read the rough draft of the first chapters of The London Spymaker here. The book is on preorder and will be available on 7 March 2024.
The London Spymaker sneak peek - click to download
Next week I will tell you about my visit to the Canadian War Cemetery in Groesbeek, where 2 of the 5 French-Canadian SOE male agents are commemorated. Though I intend to start my new series “Timeless Spies” (2024) with the female agents, in time I’d like to honour the brave men as well. What’s more, they usually worked together in teams.
