Epic Stories of World War Female Spies
It's often been speculated that women make better spies than their male counterparts. Perhaps it's their intuition, patience, or ability to listen and observe more sharply. Perhaps women are better able to multitask, as well as blend in with their surroundings. Whatever the case may be, women spies were an essential part of secret intelligence services for several countries during World War I and World War II.
These women smuggled troops to freedom, gained invaluable information, and created innovative wartime technology. Although she never confessed to being a spy, #6 was executed, and blew a kiss to the firing squad.
The Originator
Both the first and longest-serving female special agent for Britain in WWII, Krystyna Skarbek was known for her sharp wit and ability to easily charm unsuspecting men. The daughter of a Polish aristocrat, Krystyna lived on the edge, entering into daring and non-conventional missions, such as skiing right into Nazi-occupied Poland.
Krystyna often evaded capture through wild methods, such as biting her own tongue to fake tuberculosis. She even rescued one of her lovers from a prison, by simply walking in and conning the guards. She was stabbed to death by one particular crazed lover, but not before receiving a number of prestigious awards and honors.
Undoubted Courage
Violette Szabo was selling perfume in a department store when she met and fell in love with her husband, Etienne Szabo, an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Her husband was then killed in action, and soon after, Violette joined the British Special Operations Executive. She worked to establish new contacts and networks with the French resistance
She was captured by the Gestapo in France, viscously interrogated and beaten. During her imprisonment, she risked her life to bring water to British soldiers. Not long after, she was executed. Following her death, she was awarded the George Cross, a British decoration for "acts of the greatest heroism."
The White Mouse
Australian journalist Nancy Wake was living a luxurious life with her wealthy husband in France when WWII broke out. Refusing to remain idle, Nancy gave up her ritzy life to help hundreds of Allied servicemen and potential political prisoners escape to England through Spain and the Pyrenees mountains.
Nancy soon earned the title "The White Mouse", as well as the Gestapo's most wanted fugitive. She fled, but then returned to France, joining the Maquis, a French guerrilla resistance army. With them, she lead 7,000 fighters in secret airdrops of weapons, explosives, and supplies, and was known to kill German officers using only her bare hands.
La Dame Qui Boite
Virginia Hall desperately wanted to join the United States Foreign Service. After shooting off her foot in a hunting accident, and thus having to wear a wooden leg and a limp, she was rejected. She then moved to France to work as an ambulance driver, where she was recruited by Vera Atkins as the first female S.O.E. operative to be sent into France.
She smuggled out information and prisoners while smuggling in agents and supplies, and became known as "the lady with a limp,". She later worked for the U.S. precursor for the C.I.A., returning to France disguised as an old peasant woman, monitoring German intelligence and delivering supplies.
The Starlet Spy
Child wasn't the only female celebrity spy during WWII. Marlene Dietrich was one of Germany’s most famous actresses, but she was completely against Hitler and his regime. The F.B.I. Initially thought she was a German spy, and conducted numerous investigations, but all they uncovered was in-depth details about her colorful love life.
Dietrich wanted to prove her distaste for the Nazis and offered to work for the O.S.S. She'd perform for the troops to help keep morale high, while also searching for intelligence. She created "black" propaganda music used to demoralize the German troops. There isn't much documentation on what information she shared because her file was destroyed.
Falsely Accused
When Dutch exotic dancer Margaretha Geertruida Zelle moved to France to work for a theater company, she changed her name to Mata Hari. She befriended a number of officers and bedded a number more. She spoke numerous languages, and it was speculated that spymasters on both sides approached her about collecting and sharing military intelligence
The French accused her of revealing secrets about Allied tanks to the Germans and arrested her. During her execution, she refused a blindfold and blew a kiss to the firing squad. It was later revealed that she may not have shared any secrets with either side.
A Couple Accused
It's still up for debate on whether the 1953 execution of Jewish communists Ethel Rosenberg and her husband Julius was the result of the anti-Semitic and anti-communist panic of the times, or whether they did in fact commit the crime they were accused of. Both were believed to have plotted to share classified information during World War II with the USSR about the atomic bomb.
Today, the general consensus seems to believe that Julius in fact was a spy, while Ethel was merely an accessory. Regardless, the couple remains the only husband and wife team to be executed for espionage.
Code Name: Sonja
Ursula Ruth Kuczynski was born into a Polish-Jewish family in Berlin in 1904. As a teen, she joined the German Communist Party. When she was in her 20's, she was recruited by the G.R.U., the Soviet Union’s military intelligence service. She then became known as Ruth Werner, and used the code name "Sonja."
Under the guise of a housewife, she moved to Oxford, England to work with Nuclear Scientist Klaus Fuchs to transmit secrets about the atomic bomb to Moscow. She was convicted of espionage in 1950 and was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but only served nine.
The Boss
Vera Atkins was a Romanian who was recruited by British intelligence, specifically William Stephenson, the alleged inspiration for James Bond. She masqueraded as a translator for Stephenson's steel company when she in fact held a high-ranking position in the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.),“Churchill’s secret army.”
Vera became known for creating adaptive weapons that could be assembled quickly such as explosives stuffed in rats or manure. She was in charge of the 400 secret agents who parachuted into France on a mission to sabotage the Nazis. When 118 of her agents lost their lives, Atkins was able to track down the killers of 117 of them, and brought them to justice.
The Performer
After renouncing her U.S. citizenship and becoming a French national through marriage, Josephine Baker soon became a renowned Parisian dancer. During WWII, she was recruited by the French military intelligence, as an "honorable correspondent." Her celebrity status enabled her to interact with international officers at various events in the hopes she'd overhear military secrets.
While touring Europe, she'd hide secret messages in invisible ink in her sheet music. She'd also secretly pin photos to her underwear of German military installations out of enemy territory. She became a lieutenant in the Free French Air Force, and was the first American woman to received the Croix de Guerre.
Highly Dangerous
Raised in France, Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of a Muslim Indian father and an American mother. Khan was working as a poet and children's stories writer when WWII broke out. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and studied wireless operating. Khan was then recruited into the French Section of the Special Operations Executive.
At one point she was the only wireless operator in Paris, where she was caught. The Germans discovered a notebook which contained all of the messages she has been transmitting. Khan was considered "highly dangerous" while imprisoned, beaten and eventually executed.
Nursing The Enemy
At the start of World War I, Edith Cavell was working as a nurse in Belgium. Born in England, Cavell tended to soldiers on both sides of the war. She then began to smuggle over 200 Allied soldiers under her care out of the hospital and into the neutral country of Holland.
The Germans arrested her, charging her with harboring foreign soldiers. Cavell was executed by a firing squad. Her execution was highly publicized and received condemnation worldwide. Her photo was even used in British military recruitment posters and war propaganda.
The Author
Marthe Cnockaert was studying medicine when WWI began. She was working as a nurse in a German military hospital when she was recruited as a British intelligence agent. She not only spied on German military personnel, but also sabotaged a telephone line that was being used by a priest who was spying for the Nazis.
Cnockaert accidentally dropped her engraved watch while hiding explosives in an abandoned sewer system beneath a German ammunition depot. She was then discovered and arrested, and remained so until the end of the war. After her release, she married a British army officer and wrote a number of successful spy novels.
Spreading Lies
When war tensions started to escalate, Barbara Lauwers and her husband moved from Czechoslovakia to America. She was a lawyer, but after the Pearl Harbor bombing, her husband went to work for the Czech embassy and she joined the Women's Army Corp.
Her job was to create "black" propaganda amongst German troops in order to turn them against the regime. She created the "League of Lonely War Women." a fake organization used to convince German troops that their women at home were seeking comfort outside of their marriage. One of her missions was so successful, it led to 600 German troops defecting behind Italian lines, earning Lauwers a Bronze Star.
The Teacher-Turned Spy
Just around the time Slovakia fell under German control, Maria Gulovich started teaching. One day Maria's sister asked her to help hide a Jewish friend's family, and she agreed. The Slovakian army caught on to her, and offered to help, if Maria joined the resistance as a courier. She agreed, and went undercover as a dressmaker.
Since Maria spoke five languages, she then worked as a translator for a Russian military intelligence group. She took a position in the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), scouting food and intelligence. She eventually moved to America, and was awarded the Bronze Star for her work with the O.S.S.
Elizabeth P. McIntosh
Elizabeth "Betty" Peet McIntosh was working at a news service near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii when the attack took place. She transferred to Washington to cover Eleanor Roosevelt and other government activities, and was recruited by the O.S.S. Since she was fluent in Japanese, she was one of very few women assigned to "Morale Operations." Her job was to create "black" propaganda to lower Japanese morale.
After the war, she published a number of books; one was a memoir about her experiences working for the O.S.S. She later worked for the U.S. government, and eventually the C.I.A.
The Code Breaker
Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein studied math with the initial desire to become a math teacher. She then decided to try for a professional government mathematician position, and after taking a series of tests, was recruited by Signal Intelligence Service (S.I.S.). She then became a cryptanalyst, decrypting and reading Japanese diplomatic messages. Her work led to the breaking of the "Purple" code, providing crucial intelligence during World War II.
After the war, she worked on a Soviet-based project called the "Venona", and was responsible for the most important breakthrough on the project: discovering ways to decrypt Russian KGB messages.
Julia Child
Before Julia Child was a famous TV chef, she was a WWII spy. She began working in L.A. as a civilian volunteer with the Aircraft Warning Service, helping to prevent attacks along the coast. She then applied for W.A.V.E.S. (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), but was rejected for being too tall at 6'3".
During the war, she got a job with the O.S.S., where she handled a number of top secret documents. She transferred to the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section, helping create a chemical shark repellent. Afterward, Child transferred to the U.S. Information Agency in France, fell in love with their cuisine, and decided to become a chef.
The Queen of the Spies
Known as "Joan of Arc of the North", Louise de Bettignies was a French secret agent for the British during WWI. In 1914, when Germans invaded France, Louise and her sister provided supplies to those in need. Multilingual, she was recruited by the British military and M16 Intelligence service to run an intelligence network from her home in the North of France.
During its nine-month of operation, Louise's network saved the lives of over 1000 British soldiers. Her superiors referred to her as "the queen of spies." She was eventually caught by the Germans and sentenced to a life of labor but died after three.
Pearl Witherington Cornioley
A courier between the British and the French resistance, Pearl Witherington Cornioley bravely parachuted directly into Nazi-occupied France during WWII. She commanded 3,000 underground fighters, who took down 1,000 German soldiers and oversaw the surrender of 18,000 German troops. During her drop into France, she was reunited with her fiancé, who'd escaped from a German prison camp and joined the resistance with Pearl.
Pearl lived in the woods and organized a number of supply drops and distribution of explosives to the Maquis. She'd often pose as a traveling saleswoman of cosmetics. Given the code name "The Wrestler", she was recognized as one of the best shots ever, male or female, in the S.O.E.
