Original subtitles

The Second World War.

France is under Nazi control.

The French Resistance fight back against the German invaders.

But they can't do it alone.

British secret agency, the SOE,

send arms, explosives and agents to help them set Nazi Europe ablaze.

But when the Gestapo crack down on mail agents,

Winston Churchill concocts an audacious solution.

He illegally sends certain agents who are banned from the front line.

Women.

Vera, this business of women agents, you understand it must be kept secret at all times.

Most secret. Our eyes only.

Spymaster Vera Atkins is charged with finding women.

Are you prepared to take the fight to the Nazis, behind enemy lines, in occupied France?

As a spy.

Training them.

Good shot.

Yes, sir.

And sending these agents behind enemy lines.

Are you ready?

The Nazis won't know what hit them.

But after the war, many are missing.

I'll send them off as long as I can. Go!

Having sent these women to war, Vera makes it her life's mission to find them.

A mission that takes her deep into Germany.

And the horrors of the Nazi regime.

What happened to her?

All three were taken to the crematorium building.

How do you know?

I watched.

But it's only after her death that Vera reveals the secrets.

Behind her lost, women, spies.

In the early 1960s, Tanya Szabo pays a surprise visit to a woman who was once her mother's boss.

A woman, who during the Second World War, was in charge of Britain's first ever female secret agents sent into combat.

Many of whom wouldn't return.

I was in my 20s and I was looking forward very much to meeting Vera Hedkins.

A little trembling as well because she was known to be fierce, this very severe lady, the Kensington lady.

Vera would not have been at all concerned about how I felt.

But, and certainly in no way whatsoever, did I resent Vera sending my mother off to such

dangerous places on her secret missions.

When war is there, you do what you have to do.

Your mother, when I met her, was 22, recently bereaved.

She wanted action.

She wanted some sort of revenge.

Vera did not easily open up to anybody.

I was very aware of her decided coldness at times.

and then there would be these little chinks and she would open up.

I always drove them to the aerodromes.

Always seemed to be a summer's day.

I saw them off.

When the war ended and they didn't come back,

I went looking for them all.

Missing, presumed dead.

Such a terrible epitaph for anyone.

The admission is surprising.

Very few people outside of Vera Atkins' inner circle

knew that after the war, she'd gone looking

for her missing agents.

Excuse me.

For Vera, the most important thing that she could do

was to find out exactly what had happened to her agents.

Long after the war ends, Vera still keeps hold of files

on her former agents, locked away like all her secrets.

In later life, she moves from Kensington to Winchelsea in Sussex, taking her closely guarded

files with her.

On the 24th of June, 2000, Vera Atkins dies.

She announces, through her sister-in-law, that her treasured and secret files have all

She's now moved to her sister-in-law's shed in Cornwall.

Journalists begin investigating the files.

What is quite clear is that after the war,

when SOE was being closed down,

basically everything that had happened that SOE had been involved in

was going to be just completely hidden.

The British government destroyed many files

relating to their women agents.

But Vera's survive.

I mean, to be honest with you, she shouldn't have kept them.

That was illegal, even then, to keep official documents,

especially secret ones.

But she wanted the story to be told by someone at some point.

The files contain the revelation that, after the war,

Vera went looking for all her lost women spies.

She definitely felt responsibility to her female agents,

and that must have completely haunted Vera for the rest of her life.

In the files are page after page detailing the lives and codenames

of Britain's first-ever female agents sent to the front line.

One agent in particular catches the eye.

Noor Enyat Khan's training record is terrible.

She was not seen as a competent agent at all and as a result she was not

recommended to go to France by her instructors. But Vera Atkins sent her

anyway. Why did Vera send Knorr behind enemy lines against the advice of others?

All Vera's private files suddenly become available.

Private files that reveal the true story of Britain's lost women spies.

But also the shocking story of the one woman whose job it was to send them into battle.

Vera Atkins.

It's a story that begins in France in 1940.

Nazi Germany has invaded and taken over the north of the country and Hitler has

set his sights on Britain as the next target for Nazi invasion.

In France, an underground force of French fighters called the Resistance

tried to stop the Nazis at any point they can.

They commit acts of sabotage.

They attack soldiers. And to do this, they need help.

They need organisational skills, they need weapons and they need money.

They need all the help they can get to stop the Nazi threat.

This support is provided by a British secret agency known as the Special Operations Executive, or SOE.

SOE was sanctioned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as early as 1940.

It was unofficially known as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

And the whole idea was literally to set Europe ablaze and disrupt the Nazi war machine.

Churchill wants to frustrate the Nazis in France, and also help the resistance to launch

mass sabotage attacks against the Germans ahead of D-Day, whenever the Allied invasion

of France will take place.

The department responsible for this is SOE's France, or F, section.

Head of F section is Maurice Buckmaster.

He's an unlikely choice for a top job at SOE.

Buckmaster served in military intelligence, but he knows nothing about sabotage.

Sir.

He had no experience whatsoever in training people for guerrilla warfare.

Schedule a supply drop to Acrobat for the 22nd.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. That will be all.

But Buckmaster, or Bucks as he was known,

actually spent his earlier career as the head of marketing, effectively,

for the Ford Motor Company, based in France.

He understood French culture, he spoke French perfectly.

It's this knowledge of France that gets him the job in F Section.

Buckmaster's team is run out of Baker Street in central London

and coordinates resistance operations in France.

They break the resistance efforts into networks, or circuits.

France was divided into circuits.

Circuits of agents and operatives behind enemy lines,

and they were largely kept separate,

just in case one was compromised, they wouldn't all go down.

In the French capital, Paris is the largest

and most important SOE circuit.

The Prosper Circuit.

Each circuit is led on the ground by an organiser.

Now, they're in charge of contacting London

...to send over all the vital equipment for the acts of sabotage...

...for the resistance and the agents on the ground in France

And the need for more agents to feed the circuits is always growing

Especially wireless operators

Sir

Message from Prosper requesting another wireless operator

But it is dangerous work

And by the beginning of 1942, it's the most dangerous it's ever been.

In France, the Nazis go into overdrive to break the networks.

They very much believed that resistance was all male.

So men of military age wandering around the streets would be stopped,

their papers would be checked and they may be taken away for questioning or interrogation.

Wireless operators who communicate with SOE from bulky transmitters are especially in danger.

It's really one of the most dangerous areas in the field.

The German listening devices can tune in and they hear the tap-tap.

They can hear these going out on the radio waves.

Within minutes they can trace where this signal is being sent out from.

The average life expectancy was six weeks.

The circuits are in crisis, so head of SOE, Brigadier Colin Gubbins, the man in charge

of all SOE sections, proposes a controversial idea, deploying women agents.

Women could blend more easily into French life because women were still very much out

there in society, whereas men are pretty much disappearing off the streets.

But there's a problem.

Sending women agents to war in combat roles

is illegal under British law.

And unlike men, these women would have no protection

under international law.

In April 1942, at a meeting of the British War Cabinet,

the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,

secretly nods through Gubbin's suggestion.

Any woman sent into combat goes unclassified and without legal cover.

Buckmaster works with his second-in-command, Nicholas Boddington, to get a plan into action.

All we have on our books are men.

I know.

Boddington is 38 years old.

He's formerly worked for Reuters newspaper,

so he's travelled across Europe.

He's a little bit unorthodox in himself, a bit of a hustler.

But he was the kind of man who could get things done

and get things moving as quickly as possible.

Just the kind of man he needs,

especially as the female agents are acquired immediately.

But there's another challenge.

If it had come out that women were being sent,

then there could have been a huge public uproar

and they'd have been accused of sending young women out to their death.

Their necks were on the line too.

So, from that point of view, it was very important that they kept it quiet.

Even within the SOE itself,

Very few people are allowed to know that women are being deployed.

Of course, Buckmaster knows it.

And one of the other people who knows it is Vera Atkins.

Here. Vera's file.

How about Vera to handle the whole thing?

Vera Atkins is Buckmaster's former secretary

and knows full well the pressure he, and the resistance, are under.

Vera?

Vera Atkins.

She's volunteered.

Vera Atkins was born in Romania,

and this makes her position very difficult,

because Romania is an ally of Nazi Germany.

This makes her an enemy alien, and she has to keep this secret.

The only other person who knows about her national heritage

is Buckmaster himself.

Buck, she's your secretary.

She's a junior staff officer now, Bollington.

She's not one of us.

There are certain things omitted from her file.

Work she's done before the war for MI6.

Work on the continent.

During the 1930s, Vera had actually worked undercover in Romania in the Pallas Oil Company

as an interpreter, a role which saw her travel across Europe.

At this time, she's actually passing information to MI6.

But Vera is incredibly mysterious about her past.

She is, after all, an enemy alien.

How far can they trust her?

Please, come in.

Yes, sir.

Nicholas.

Vera.

I hear you volunteered for a promotion.

I just want to do my bit where I am useful.

Taking charge of a new division of F Section.

You'll be a busy girl.

You think you're qualified.

I do have some experience.

Before the war in Europe.

As an interpreter for an oil company based in Romania.

Romania? Allied to the Nazis?

I was employed to do a little more than interpreting.

Besides, it would hardly be a new division, Nicholas.

I would just be helping to share the load with some of you overburdened men.

Now, now, Bollings, Vera, this business of women agents, do you understand what you volunteer for?

Yes, sir, I do.

And you understand it must be kept secret at all times?

Most secret, our eyes only.

Then you'll handle deploying these women to France?

Thus, sir, I shall need to find them.

Indeed.

Little does Vera know that this one decision will change the course of her life.

And she will have to live the rest of her days with the consequences of this secret policy

to send Britain's first unit of women spies into combat.

SOE desperately need women agents in the field, particularly couriers and wireless operators.

In London, Vera interviews a new candidate.

Noor Inayat Khan.

Yes, Mum?

Please, call me Miss Atkins.

Yes, Miss Atkins.

Noor Inayat Khan has a very exotic background.

She's born in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother.

And then they move to France, and that is where she grows up.

Noor is descended from royalty in India.

Her father is a Sufi and he's a Sufi preacher and Sufism is a branch of Islam

that believes in music and meditation. So they grow up in this very open house

which is full of people and he taught Noor that you never tell a lie.

You were educated at the Sabon in Paris? Yes, Miss Atkins. And afterwards became an

Yes. I write short stories. For children.

I see.

You arrived in England in 1940?

Yes. After the Nazis invaded, we...

My family left France. We escaped here.

I see you joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

Yes, but I want to work in intelligence.

Thanks for watching!

And you currently serve as a wireless operator?

Yes, Miss Atkins.

Vera knows that the Prosper circuit is especially pushing for another to join its ranks.

Noor is a trained wireless operator who is very good at it.

The other thing, of course, is that she speaks fluent French.

Now the SOE were looking out for people with language skills

so they could infiltrate them into occupied areas.

Noor fits the bill perfectly.

Noor, do you want to make a difference in this war?

Yes, Miss Atkins.

Are you prepared to take the fight to the Nazis?

Yes.

Behind enemy lines, in occupied France?

As a spy, yes.

Yes, Miss Atkins.

There are certain dangers. As a woman, you wouldn't be covered by the Geneva Convention.

If you're caught, the chances of survival are slim. Do you understand?

Yes, I do, Miss Atkins.

You will need to sign the Official Secrets Act, and your training will begin shortly.

Welcome to SOE. From now on, I'll be looking after you.

In the Surrey and Hampshire countryside,

Knorr and the latest new recruits begin a crash course in spycraft.

Their days start with an early morning run,

followed by lessons designed to teach the new recruits

how to blend in to occupied France.

Agents were taught how to live in the country that they were going to,

and they were taught tiny intricacies.

So in a cafe, put the milk in the tea last and not first,

which is the opposite of what you would do in England, for example.

Basic things, like when you cross the street,

an English person is going to look that way first.

Make sure that you look left first when you're in France,

otherwise it's a dead giveaway.

Any slip-up could identify them as English and blow their cover.

Agents learnt things like silent killing,

which was how to kill with your bare hands,

close combat using a variety of knives and daggers,

and they also learned shooting.

Some of the agents fared very well,

but Knorr found this stuff really unnatural.

It didn't come easily to her,

and her report actually said that she was terrified of the weapons.

and was very uncomfortable using them.

Next, Noor is given an extensive course on wireless operating.

Training how to transmit messages in Morse code

over the bulky radio set.

Noor was already a good radio operator.

A little more training would make her even better at sending Morse code.

But it wasn't just plain Morse code.

There was a code added on top of it, which was difficult to crack.

but also very difficult to learn.

So she would have spent hour after hour after hour

learning this Morse code.

Another challenge is that, as the child of Sufis,

Noor had been brought up never to lie.

This becomes clear on training exercises in the English countryside,

where the mission is to drop secret messages in safe houses

known as letterboxes, on a street patrolled by the local police.

Hey, you! What are you doing?

I'm training to be a secret agent.

What?

Here's my radio. Would you like to see it?

Nor will need to learn to lie to survive.

Miss Adkins, have you seen this?

What is it?

Noor Inayat Khan's latest training report.

If this girl's an agent, I am Winston Churchill.

What do they know? Those idiot instructors.

Buffoons, all of them.

Here it says that Noor is progressing well in her wireless operating.

And a wireless operator is what they need more than anything.

And Vera has cause to trust her spy's intuition once in the field.

One of her agents, already operating in the south of France, is excelling.

Odette Sansom, a 30-year-old French woman, is assigned to the Spindle circuit, operating

near Annecy, at the foot of the Alps.

She is absolutely determined to free her country, France, from Nazi occupation.

Odette plays a crucial role, acting as an SOE courier.

You're sure? Yes.

For the circuit organiser, Peter Churchill.

This is a hugely dangerous position to be in.

She is transporting the most important messages across the circuit.

She is pivotal in the whole operation.

So she goes in person and passes messages from place to place

in broad daylight under the noses of the Germans.

She's always at risk of being caught by the Nazis,

but so far undetected.

Good luck.

In April 1943, Peter Churchill's call back to London

on a secret flight for debriefing.

And in his absence, Odette is approached

by a man named Hugo Bleicher.

Hugo Bleicher is working for the Abwehr,

for German military intelligence.

And he says to Odette that he'd like to defect

to come and work for the Allies.

He wants Odette's help getting him out of Nazi France

to Britain. Turning a high-ranking German intelligence officer could be a major

coup for SOE. Radio London, update them on the situation and ask them how best they

would like us to proceed. Sir, a message from Odette. The spindle circuit had been

If an agent was approached by an enemy who wanted to defect to the United States,

Not only were they to be completely ignored,

they were actually meant to be liquidated.

Odette could be compromised.

And if the Abwehr begins making arrests,

they could destroy the entire circuit.

Send a reply.

Colonel, highly dangerous.

Odette is to cut ties with Spindle, relocate and go into hiding.

Arrange drop zone for Churchill's return.

The SOE have decided to send Peter Churchill back to France to try and figure out what's going on and try and

rescue the situation as much as possible.

Spindle circuit organizer Peter Churchill is infiltrated back behind enemy lines.

Before leaving Britain,

F-section warns Peter Churchill that Odette is likely compromised and

And that he shouldn't have anything to do with her until they've sorted the situation out.

But out of the darkness, he sees her.

Come on.

And so therefore, she can't be avoided.

She takes Peter Churchill back to her safe house.

The same safe house she'd been ordered to abandon by F Section.

Oh, don't worry.

The German asked us to plan our flights back to the 18th.

There's still three more days till he's back. It's time to move.

What if the German changed his plan?

Hands up. Turn around. Face the wall.

Keep those hands up.

No funny business.

Out. Move.

Sir, it's urgent.

Odette and Peter Churchill have been captured.

What?

The report says they're being held at Friend Prison in Paris.

The interrogation will start soon.

They haven't started already.

If she cracks and they find out that she's a British agent,

she's not under the protection of the Geneva Convention.

She can be executed immediately.

How long can she hold out against the Gestapo?

Why are you in France?

One of the most infamous parts of SOE training was the mock interrogation.

The Gestapo-style interrogation would ensue.

Bright lights in the eyes, sleep deprivation, being doused in cold water.

We know you're SOE!

What is your mission?

Please, please!

Now, the idea behind this was to try not only to see if an agent was au fait with their cover story,

but also to see how easy it would be to break them, to get them to speak.

Noor was trembling.

Even though at the back of her head it must have struck her

that this is a mock interrogation.

But she was absolutely terrified.

We didn't even go hard on her.

Noor's latest training reports are in.

They aren't encouraging.

Here, her training officer said he found Nora's interrogations almost unbearable.

Apparently, she was terrified by the bright light, saying it hurt her.

She came out trembling and quite blanched.

Nonsense.

The reports go on and only get worse.

All of her instructors say things like,

she can run very well, but otherwise clumsy.

In her fieldcraft, she can't help but being clumsy.

In her explosive and demolitions work, she tries hard,

but her natural clumsiness just gets in the way.

Noor's training officer also reported back that Noor was becoming despondent.

She was clearly suffering under a gloom.

She was troubled and probably worried about deploying.

Look, not overburdened with brains.

It is very doubtful whether she is really suited to work in the field.

We don't want them overburdened with brains.

What do these instructors know?

Sat behind a desk in a training camp makes me cross.

Buckmaster knows that we need female agents behind enemy lines.

It's absolutely crucial.

The Prosper Circuit is the largest that's operating in France.

It's going to have an absolutely crucial role ahead of D-Day.

when the resistance mounted an uprising in Paris.

But Francis Huttle, who is the agent in charge of that circuit,

needs a wireless operator.

It's one of the most dangerous jobs for an SOE agent.

Sir, NORS wireless training reports.

They are excellent.

Prosper desperately require a wireless operator, but Noor hasn't finished training yet.

I see something in this girl, sir. I think she's as ready as she's going to be.

At this point in the war, the SOE have no choice. Beggars cannot be choosers and they

need a wireless operator.

Noor is pulled out of SOE training early. She'll join Suttle's Prosper circuit.

But Vera has reservations about one thing mentioned during Noor's training. That lately

Suddenly she's become despondent about deploying.

Come in.

Miss Atkins, you wanted to see me?

Yes, Noor. Please, come in. Take a seat.

She has to be certain that Noor is up to the job.

I need to clear something up.

Your training reports.

They say that lately you've fallen into a gloom.

No.

And that you're worried about being deployed to France.

No.

Miss Atkins, who said that?

You know, Noor, deploying to France is a very serious business.

If you are worried, if you have concerns,

it's not too late to back out.

If you're not sure you're the right person, if you aren't certain that you want to go,

you can tell me.

We can transfer you out.

Ms. Atkins.

No.

The most important thing in this business is trust.

Trust in your fellow agents and their trust in you.

That is life and death.

The worst thing you can do is go out there and let them down.

Miss Atkins, I'm the right person for the job.

You can trust me on that.

I want to go.

Well then, why this report of a gloom?

My mother.

She's not been well.

If I go missing out there, I don't know how she'll take it.

Oh, I see.

If I do go missing,

please can you bother her as little as possible?

Of course.

While you're out there,

I will be sure to send her a good newsletter

every now and then.

Thank you, Miss Atkins.

Very good, Noor.

In that case, here is your cover story.

So she'll be working in France as a children's nurse.

Her alias will be Madeline,

but her code name as a wireless operator is simply Nurse.

Nor's time has come.

This evening, you will depart for your mission.

You will be flown by moonlight to the Loire Valley,

southwest of Paris.

Once landed, you will be met by SOE agent Henri Derricot.

Henri Derricot is a mysterious figure in many ways.

He was a pilot for Air France.

He was a smuggler before the war as well,

And so he's got that sense of flying by the seat of his pants,

of getting out of difficult situations,

of understanding where you can land and where you can't.

And so he's a perfect choice for F section.

Derek Hall will hand you a package

to be flown back to England.

It is crucial that this makes it onto the plane.

Cannot fall into German hands.

One of his other tasks is to bring back

Uncoded letters from agents based in the Prosperous Circuit to London.

It's enormously dangerous if the Germans get a hold of this material because

this means that they've got personal information about people in that circuit.

The security implications could be severe for SOE

if that uncoded correspondence falls into enemy hands.

Now Vera carries out one final security check and that is to check the clothing of the women.

She checks that there are no labels inside or anything with English writing, railway

tickets or even cigarette packets. Everything just needed to look as French as possible.

Gone is any hint of Noor's gloom. She's relaxed and almost elated at the thought of finally

being deployed.

I can't believe my time has finally come. It's been such a whirlwind and yet the adventure

is just about to start.

Remember what they've taught you, Nor.

Yes, Miss Atkins.

There. You're clean.

You're so smart, Miss Atkins.

You always wear the nicest things.

Here. It's yours.

May it bring you luck.

Thank you, Miss Atkins.

Are you ready?

Yes, Miss Atkins.

Very good.

With checks finished and the plane ready,

Noor sets off for her mission behind enemy lines in Nazi-controlled France.

By the light of the full moon,

on a field 12 kilometers northeast of Angers,

in the Loire Valley,

Noor's plane touches down.

While other women agents had been infiltrated before,

Noor's arrival has an added significance.

Don't worry. You'll be safe with me.

The importance of Noor's mission can't be underestimated.

She is the first female wireless operator that's infiltrated into France.

It's an incredibly important moment for Vera and SOE.

At F-Section, Vera and Buckmaster await news on Knorr.

On the 24th of June, 1943, F-Section receives a message from Francis Suttle, the organiser

of the Prosper Circuit.

What?

I'm Suttle, about Knorr.

What?

What? What is it?

Noor was almost arrested at a letterbox.

Sutil claims was blown.

He says if Noor had gone there yesterday

she'd have been met by the Gestapo searching the safehouse.

But how could they have...

That all says he hasn't slept in days.

Something's gone wrong.

He's cancelling all letterboxes and passwords

until London can confirm that the village postman has recovered.

That meant that he pretty much cancels everything.

So the letterboxes, the safe houses,

even the infiltration of agents into Paris.

He has to shut everything down.

He can't trust anybody.

Anybody could be a double agent.

Everybody is in danger.

If you aren't willing to accept my recommendation,

please file this report under the death of the Prosper Circuit.

What the bloody hell is going on?

Noor has been dropped into the eye of a storm.

Did the Nazis simply get a lucky break?

Or is there a double agent?

What is going on?

And until they work it out, no-one is safe.

In Paris, Noor lays low in a safe house,

trying her best to update London on the situation.

But after only eight days in France, the Prosper Circuit is in chaos.