The following description was written by the History Room.
This film gives some insight into the work of the British Political Warfare Executive run by Sefton Delmer. It is perhaps more suitable for whimsical entertainment than serious study, but it is still revealing and informative, casting some light on the murky underworld of the secret services. Note to teachers: the film contains some brief nudity. Uploaded for educational purposes only.
Introduction
A talk by Rick Stroud on Wednesday 11 April 2018 in The Kincaid Gallery, The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum. (see link at bottom of page)
“The French Resistance began almost as soon as France surrendered to Germany. At first it was small, disorganised groups of men and women working in isolation but by 1944 around 400,000 French citizens (nearly 2% of the population) were involved. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up in 1941 saw its role in France as recruiting and organising guerrilla fighters; supplying and training them; and disrupting the Germans by any means, including sabotage, collection of intelligence and dissemination of black propaganda.
Infiltrated into France and operating in Resistance circuits the basic SOE unit was a team of three: a leader, a wireless operator and a courier, many of them women. This is the story of those women, their selection, training, dropping into occupied France and their attempts to survive on a daily basis whilst being hunted by the Gestapo. Some survived by luck through the war, whilst others were captured, tortured and executed before the Nazis final capitulation.
Rick Stroud is a writer and television director who has directed such actors as Pierce Brosnan, John Hurt,and Joanna Lumley. He is the author of several books including Rifleman, the story of Vic Gregg, ex 2RB. He is currently working on a book about the kidnapping by the SOE of General Kreipe from his headquarters on Nazi occupied Crete.”(Ricard Shroud April 2018)
Talk by Rick Stroud
Odette ABC News
A short video interview of Odette shown on British television in 1980.
Odette speaks about being a prisoner in concentration camps , and how she coped with torture and weeks in solitary confinement under horrific conditions.
(First shown:14/11/1980. If you would like to license a clip from this interview, please e mail: archive@fremantle.com Quote: VT23965)
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As this is an American documentary most of the archive footage is American
SOE agents arrive home in December 1944: (front, from left) Lieut. J.E. Fournier, Lieut. P.E. Thibeault, Capt. H.A. Benoit; (rear) Major P.E. Labelle, Capt. L.J. Taschereau, Capt. Guy Artois, Capt. J.P. Archambault.
Documentary about Canadian agents working for SOE in occupied France.
Apart from Canadian’s being trained in England SOE also had a training and selection establishment in Canada and the newly formed American OSS received their initial training at this SOE training camp in Ontario.
A short film by CBC where former agents describe their time at Camp X
SOE: Arms and The Dragon
Produced by Christopher Riley (BBC)
Year of Release: 1988
The following short documentary by ABC Australia provides an overview of the life of Nancy Wake who was dropped by parachute into wartime France to organise resistance and subversive warfare.
A short but interesting account of Virginia Hall’s service during the Second World War.
Clare Mulley tells the extraordinary story of Krystyna Skarbek (aka Christine Granville) – the first, and the longest serving, female special agent working for Britain in the Second World War. Part of the Lunchtime Lectures series – a programme of free talks that takes place at the National Army Museum in London.
In 2015 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Denmark from German occupation (1940-45), Museum Vestsjaelland hosted an international seminar on 2nd May 2015 attended by historians, WWII veterans, descendants of allied airmen, descendants of Danish resistance fighters, and members of the public. The four key lectures are available here on the Museum Vestsjaelland’s Youtube channel. Historian and SOE specialist Mark Seaman describes the establishment and organisation of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Danish resistance movement.
Alan Malcher 