OSHER 853 - SOE Operatives: The Women taking down Hitler from Behind Enemy Lines

On June 22, 1940, France fell to Hitler and the Nazi party with the signing of the armistice. Great Britain was left standing alone, as the wave of the Third Reich swept across Europe. With so many governments toppling, widespread resistance movements began cropping up across the continent. Knowing these resistance fighters were already on the ground, and familiar with the area, Winston Churchill put Hugh Dalton in charge of developing a British network to send aid. With Churchill's command to "Go and set Europe ablaze" the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was born. The SOE sought to train both male and female agents who could pass for natives in the country they would be dropped in, particularly France, so they could lend British aid to resistance fighters. Over the course of the war, 55 women volunteered to go behind enemy lines as part of the SOE, helping change the tide of the fight, and take down the Nazis.