Film documentary telling the story of the Australian who, after engineering the escape of hundreds of allied servicemen from occupied France during the Second World War – and following her own escape and subsequent training as an S.O.E. agent returned to France by parachute to support the resistance. (Six-part documentary)
Tag: SOE
RAF Special Duties Squadrons during WW2
John Williamson continues the story of the secret RAF Special Duties Squadron based at Tempsford during WW2
RAF No. 138 Special Duties Squadron
138 Special Duties Squadron was responsible for dropping agents, weapons, sabotage equipment and other stores by parachute inside occupied Europe and flew as far as Poland and Yugoslavia from RAF Tempsford. There was also a detachment serving the Middle East.
Silent film
Missions By Moonlight No. 161 Special Duties Squadron
Hugh Verity was a night fighter pilot during WWII until 1942 when he volunteered for RAF special duties and became involved in one of the most extraordinary and effective operations of the secret war. Flying a single-engine Lysander aircraft he was landing in German occupied France delivering and collecting SOE and SIS agents. With only the light of the moon to recognise landmarks whilst navigating hostile terrain 161 squadron had carefully selected pilots with highly developed flying and navigation skills.
The Barn Tempsford Airfield 2014
The barn where agents were fitted with parachutes and issued with equipment. From this barn agents who could not face the possibility of prolonged torture were given an opportunity to take with them the ‘L Pill’ (lethal) containing cyanide. During their training they were informed the ‘L Pill’ would kill them within five seconds.
Lonely Courage – the story of the SOE Heroines in Occupied France. A talk by Rick Stroud
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 Churchill, George Cross, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (SOE French Section)
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)
SOE during the Second World War and British Intelligence (Full Documentary)
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As this is an American documentary most of the archive footage is American
SOE – Canadian agents working in occupied France
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 in the Far East
SOE: Arms and The Dragon
Produced by Christopher Riley (BBC)
Year of Release: 1988
The legendary Nancy Wake who served in wartime France with Britain’s SOE (Special Operations Executive)
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.
Virginia Hall the American agent who worked for Britain’s SOE (Special Operations Executive) in wartime France before later serving with the American OSS and CIA
A short but interesting account of Virginia Hall’s service during the Second World War.
Christine Granville’s Exploits in the Second World War (SIS and SOE)
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.