Book Launch Excerpt from Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars, by Helen Fry

New from Yale Books 

Amazon UK and Amazon US

A ground-breaking history of women in British intelligence, revealing their pivotal role across the first half of the twentieth century 

Across the twentieth century, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, they ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women’s vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running.

In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform. From spies in the Belgian network ‘La Dame Blanche’, knitting coded messages into jumpers, to those who interpreted aerial images and even ran entire sections, Fry shows just how crucial women were in the intelligence mission. 

Joan Osborne, female spy

Filled with hitherto unknown stories, Women in Intelligence places new research on record for the first time and showcases the inspirational contributions of these remarkable women.

Excerpt from Women in Intelligence

It was two decades after Margot Morse died in 1994 that her family went through her jewellery box that had been in storage and they discovered an assassin’s pen. It left them with a number of unanswered questions – had she ever used it? What covert life had she hidden from them? Margot was one of the ‘Baker Street irregulars’ who worked in utmost secrecy for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Her file has now been declassified, but its slim contents raise questions about the work she really did for SOE. 

Margot is typical of the thousands of women whose stories have been obscured behind official secrecy. Charting the contribution of women in intelligence from the First World War, through the 1920s and 1930s and into the Second World War is a monumental task. The challenge is underlined by the fact that some aspects will never be known as they are still classified by the Official Secrets Act. My book is the hidden history and legacy of women’s involvement at the heart of British intelligence operations, espionage, deception and unorthodox methods of warfare across two world wars.  

SOE assassin pen

‘Full of danger and deception, sabotage and secret codes, and some brilliant, unstoppable women.’ Clare Mulley, author of The Spy who Loved

# # #

About the Author

Historian and biographer Helen Fry is the author of the bestselling book The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of WWII, Spymaster: The Man who saved MI6, MI9: The British Secret Service for Escape & Evasion, and more than twenty books on intelligence, prisoners of war, and the social history of World War II. She appears regularly in TV documentaries, media interviews and podcasts. In 2022 she was recognised as a Woman of Achievement in the Women of the Year Lunch 2022. Find out more at Helen's website www.helen-fry.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter @DrHelenFry