Life In Secrets: The Story Of Vera Atkins And The Lost Agents Of SOE

Pub 2006-6-1 463 Little Brown During World War Two, the Special Operations Executive French Section sent more than 400 agents into Occupied France. At least 100 never returned and were reported Missing Believed Dead after the war. Twelve of these were women who died in German concentration camps—some were tortured, some were shot, and some died in the gas chambers. Vera Atkins had helped prepare these women for their missions. After the war, she traveled to Germany to find out what happened to them and other agents lost behind enemy lines. While her role in this extraordinary mission seemed quintessentially English, Vera Atkins was not. She never married and kept her life shrouded in mystery, so even her closest family knew little of her past. In 'A Life In Secrets', Sarah Helm explores her story.