1940 was a low point for the Allies, and in response to Germany’s seemingly unstoppable might, Churchill created the Special Operations Executive, a secret agency focused on espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. With most of the men already mobilized, the SOE turned to women, and in 1942 thirty-nine French women volunteered. In her riveting account, Rose, author of For All the Tea in China, draws on newly declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to follow three of these unjustly overlooked heroes. Working in Occupied France, they became the first women deployed in close combat, the first women paratroopers to infiltrate enemy lines, the first women in active-duty special forces, the first female commando raiders—and they were key to defeating the Nazis.
