Forgotten female secret agents of WW2

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. From sabotage operations to devastating betrayals, stories of the women of Special Operations executive are some of the most incredible of the Second World War, and, says Kate Vigers, some of the least known. In her latest book, Mission Europe, Kate reveals the astonishing bravery of female agents operating in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, and the British Mandate for Palestine, many of whom parachuted behind enemy lines. She was speaking to Eleanor Evans. Kate, thank you so much for joining the History Extra podcast.

How are you doing today? I'm really good. Thank you very much for having me. It's wonderful that you're back. And we last spoke in 2021 about your book Mission France, which looked at women of the F section of SOE predominantly.

We're today talking about Mission Europe. What drove you to expand this storytelling? Bring listeners into the scope of this new book. So with Mission France, I covered the 39 women who were part of SOE's F section, which was the independent French section. And in that book, I was very keen that agents who weren't well known were brought out of the footnotes.

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