Biographical records and profiles of individual SOE operatives.
Andrée Borrel (1919–1944) was a French Resistance member and Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent who became one of the first two women to parachute into occupied France. Serving as a courier for the Prosper network, she was eventually captured and executed by the Nazis in 1944.
Madeleine Damerment was a French agent and courier for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. After initial work with escape lines, she was parachuted into France in 1944 as part of the Bricklayer network, where she was captured and eventually died in the Dachau concentration camp.
Brian Stonehouse (1918–1998) was an English painter and Special Operations Executive (SOE) wireless operator during the Second World War. After being captured in occupied France, he survived multiple concentration camps, later becoming a renowned fashion illustrator for Vogue.
Colonel Maurice Buckmaster was the leader of the non-Gaullist French section (F Section) of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) from 1941 to 1945. He was responsible for the recruitment, training, and deployment of hundreds of agents into occupied France to conduct sabotage and intelligence gathering.
Virginia Hall was an American operative who served with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in occupied France. Known as ‘The Limping Lady,’ she organized resistance networks and conducted espionage despite the challenges of a prosthetic limb.
Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš were Czechoslovak agents trained by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich. Their mission, Operation Anthropoid, represents one of the most significant government-organized targeted killings of a high-ranking Nazi official during World War II.
Lise de Baissac was a British citizen of Mauritian birth and one of the first female agents parachuted into occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Operating under various codenames, she established resistance circuits and coordinated sabotage and weapons distribution.
Between 1943 and 1945, a group of Jewish volunteers from Mandate Palestine, trained by the British Army, parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe. Operating under the auspices of the SOE and MI9, they worked to organize local resistance, rescue Allied personnel, and aid Jewish communities.
Headmaster 2 was a clandestine network established by the F Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Sarthe department of France during World War II, focused on organizing resistance groups and providing weapons instruction.
Denise Bloch (1916–1945) was a French Jewish agent and wireless operator for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Working in occupied France, she provided critical communications for resistance networks before her capture and subsequent death in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.