Ep. 54 Women of the SOE: How Female Agents Helped “Set Europe Ablaze” During WWII

History Fix

This week, I tell the inspiring stories of 6 women who served in the top secret British espionage and sabotage organization, the SOE, during World War II. In the late 1930s, Hitler's Nazi Germany quickly expanded throughout Europe, grabbing up country after country in its quest for world domination. When France finally fell to the Nazis in 1940, Britain was utterly alone in Europe, a sitting duck. Something had to be done. That something was the SOE and they soon found that women, who were far less suspicious and conspicuous than men, made perfect undercover agents. Join me to learn how the women of the SOE sacrificed everything to literally save the world!
Sources:

• Time Magazine "Inside the Stories of the Most Daring Women Spies of World War II"
• UK National Army Museum "Special Operations Executive"
• Imperial War Museums "SOE: The Secret British Organization of the Second World War"
• Historic UK "The Female Spies of the SOE"
• UK National Archives "Records of Special Operations Executive"
• UK National Army Museum "Defeat in the West, 1940"
• National Interest "Germany's Superpower Quest Caused World War I"
• The National WWII Museum "How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?"
• Aspects of History "The Women of SOE"
• Holocaust Encyclopedia "The British Policy of Appeasement Toward Hitler and Nazi Germany"
• pearlharbor.org "Why Didn't America Join the War Sooner?"
• International Churchhill Society "Famous Quotes and Stories"
• encyclopedia.com "Sansom, Odette"
• Australian War Memorial "Nancy Grace Augusta Wake"

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1. Ep. 54 Women of the SOE: How Female Agents Helped “Set Europe Ablaze” During WWII (00:00:00)

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3. (Cont.) Ep. 54 Women of the SOE: How Female Agents Helped “Set Europe Ablaze” During WWII (00:13:25)