Who were the real women of SOE, F Section? Follow us down the rabbit hole!
“Set Europe ablaze.”
That was Churchill’s directive in 1940 when he established the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a clandestine branch of British intelligence tasked with sabotage, espionage, and supporting resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. What he didn’t state explicitly: women would be central to this mission.
In our latest Rosie the Reviewer episode, we delve into A Call to Spy — a dramatised account of three of SOE’s trailblazing female spies: Virginia Hall, Noor Inayat Khan, and Vera Atkins. Their real-life stories extend far beyond the screen.
The SOE and the Call for Women – A Radical Shift in Intelligence Strategy
The recruitment of women into roles involving direct engagement in occupied territories was unprecedented in 1941. At the time, military intelligence operations were almost exclusively male — but SOE leadership began to recognise a vital strategic truth: women could often succeed where men could not.
In occupied France, women aroused less suspicion than men of fighting age. They could travel more freely, pass as locals, and blend into civilian life more easily. As couriers, wireless operators, and liaisons, they could move messages, weapons, and intel across heavily monitored zones. Their perceived weakness became their tactical advantage. The SOE looked seriously at recruiting women after a string of early male agents ended up caught or killed — too visible, too brash, too easy to suspect. Women, by contrast, succeeded where others failed, precisely because they were underestimated.
The SOE women’s champions
Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, head of the SOE’s French Section (F Section), recognised that women could move more easily through German-occupied zones and were far less likely to arouse suspicion.
Captain Selwyn Jepson, the SOE’s recruiting officer, was particularly instrumental in advocating for female agents. Jepson later explained:
“I was responsible for recruiting women for the work, in the face of a good deal of opposition, I may say, from the powers that be. In my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women, as you must know, have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men.” In the same interview, he described a brief but telling exchange with Winston Churchill:
“There was opposition from most quarters until it went up to Churchill, whom I had met before the war. He growled at me, ‘What are you doing?’ I told him and he said, ‘I see you are using women to do this,’ and I said, ‘Yes, don’t you think it is a very sensible thing to do?’ and he said, ‘Yes, good luck to you.’ That was my authority!”
— Selwyn Jepson, Imperial War Museum’s Oral History
These endorsements opened the door for what would become one of the SOE’s most effective — and ultimately most tragic — tactical innovations. Between 1941 and 1944, 39 women deployed into occupied France as agents. Most of them knew they might never return.
Virginia Hall – The Reich's Most Wanted
One of the SOE’s most daring, Virginia Hall, was an American with a passion for adventure and languages. A hunting accident resulted in the amputation of her left leg, which could have ended her aspirations. Instead, it marked the beginning of an extraordinary journey.
Virginia Hall’s Missions
Joining the SOE in 1941, Hall operated under the alias “Diane” in occupied France. She established the Heckler network, orchestrating sabotage missions, aiding downed pilots, and coordinating arms drops. Her ability to elude the Gestapo, who referred to her as “la dame qui boite” (the limping lady), was legendary. At one point, she was the most wanted Allied agent in France. Her leadership extended from sabotage in Lyon to organising anti-Nazi fighter groups in the Austrian Alps by war’s end.
Her most daring escape involved traversing the Pyrenees into Spain during winter, a feat made even more remarkable by her prosthetic leg, affectionately nicknamed “Cuthbert.”
As she crossed the mountains, Hall radioed SOE HQ: “Cuthbert is giving me trouble.” London, unaware this was her prosthetic, responded: “If Cuthbert is troublesome, have him eliminated.”
After the war
Hall continued her intelligence career by joining the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), becoming one of its first female field operatives. She remained with the CIA for over fifteen years, working in various roles — often in complete anonymity, as she had throughout the war.
In the film: Hall is portrayed as strategic and principled. While the film takes some dramatic license, it accurately reflects her leadership and resilience.
Noor Inayat Khan - The Radio Operator
In almost all regards, Noor Inayat Khan’s background was unique: the daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic and an American mother, she was a pacifist, musician, and writer. Despite being a gentle soul, she became the first female wireless operator sent into occupied France.
Operating under the codename “Madeleine,” Noor deployed in June 1943. Shortly after her arrival, the Prosper network was compromised, leaving her isolated. Knowing the immense risk, she chose to stay anyway, transmitting messages to London while constantly relocating to avoid detection.
Wireless operators in occupied France had an average survival time of six weeks. Noor evaded capture for over three months, more than double that lifespan. During this time, she transmitted 120 encrypted messages, never missing a scheduled contact, impressing even her SOE colleagues in London with her endurance.
When ordered to evacuate, she refused, insisting someone needed to maintain the link to London until a replacement was ready.
After her capture
Noor attempted to escape twice, was chained by wrists and ankles in solitary confinement for ten months, and never gave up a single name. Noor was known as “the spy who wouldn’t lie.” Even in training, she struggled with deception, but when it counted, she resisted every interrogation and betrayed no one.
SOE cryptographer Leo Marks had warned her: if she ever sent a sentence with exactly 18 characters, he’d know she’d been compromised. Months later, such a message came through. Marks raised the alarm — but was overruled. Agents were parachuted in and captured.
Noor’s last word, reportedly overheard by her executioner at Dachau, was “Liberté.”
In the film: Noor is depicted with quiet strength. While the film condenses certain events, it honours her bravery and endurance.
Vera Atkins – The Architect and Reckoner
Born Vera Maria Rosenberg in Romania, Vera Atkins was the intelligence officer for the SOE’s French Section. She was instrumental in recruiting, vetting, and preparing agents, particularly women, for missions behind enemy lines in occupied France.
Atkins not only managed logistics and aliases but also shaped entire identities. She helped build the cover stories that would determine whether an agent lived or died. She was formidable, precise, and sometimes feared by trainees for her exacting standards.
After the war
Atkins carried an immense burden: the knowledge that many women she had sent into France never returned. Though she never publicly expressed regret, she personally investigated the fate of every missing agent. She interviewed Nazi war criminals, visited former concentration camps, and reconstructed final movements from fragments of memory and witness testimony.
Many believe this tireless search was motivated not only by duty but by guilt over those sent into compromised circuits or deployed too hastily. Vera’s postwar work laid the foundation for public knowledge of the female SOE agents and their sacrifice.
In the film: Atkins is portrayed with authority and heart. While certain aspects are fictionalised, the film captures her dedication and the weight of her responsibilities.
Fact vs Fiction – How Accurate Is A Call to Spy?
While A Call to Spy brings Virginia Hall, Noor Inayat Khan, and Vera Atkins together in a shared narrative arc, the reality was more fragmented and far less interconnected.
- Noor and Virginia never met. Their service periods in France did not overlap.
- Vera Atkins likely never interacted with Noor directly, though she investigated her death after the war.
- Each woman operated independently, with distinct circuits, missions, cover identities, and outcomes.
The film’s decision to dramatise these lives into a cohesive plotline is understandable, and not without merit. It successfully re-centres women in a genre long dominated by male protagonists. However, it compresses timelines, blends characters, and introduces fictionalised relationships. That said, it does not exaggerate their courage. What these women endured was already beyond belief.
If anything, the true history is even more astonishing than what appears on screen.
Their Legacy and Ours
The women of the SOE lived under constant threat of erasure. Working in the shadows, under false names and forged papers, they risked everything to support the Allied war effort. What they did was classified, and their heroism was kept secret, sometimes even from their own families.
For decades, their stories were buried beneath national security and postwar amnesia. Only in recent years, through books, memorials, and films like A Call to Spy, have they been given a spotlight.
This isn’t just about preserving historical record. It’s about recognising and acknowledging sacrifice, and rebalancing the lens through which we view wartime heroism, because it’s not always found on the battlefields. And it’s also about urgency, as we are rapidly losing the last living witnesses of these women’s stories. The window to gather first-hand testimony, ask the next question, and preserve memory at its source is closing. If we don’t tell these stories now, we may never get the chance to again.
Listen to Our Discussion About A Call To Spy
Can’t get enough of the real women of SOE’s F section? Well, we can’t either. Be sure to check out our episode about A Call to Spy. And did you know, we also have an episode about another female spy, Violette Szabo.
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