Hell hath no fury like an amazing female spy scorned. While the men of the Allied forces have long been celebrated, the daring deeds of women on the front lines of espionage were just as crucial. From daring parachute drops to sabotage of railways, these ten remarkable women risked everything to cripple the Nazi war machine.
Why These Amazing Female Operatives Matter
10 Andree Borrel
Andrée was already deep in the resistance before she ever wore a spy’s badge. She and a friend built an underground railway into Spain, ferrying downed Allied airmen out of occupied France. When the network was betrayed in 1940, she escaped to Portugal and, by 1942, had joined the SOE.
On 24 September 1942 she became one of the first female agents to parachute into France, alongside Lise de Baissac. In Paris she quickly rose to second‑in‑command of the local network by March 1943, coordinating attacks on a power station and other key infrastructure. Her boldness led to her arrest, and the Germans tried to finish her off with a lethal injection. Miraculously she revived, fought the doctors for her life, and was ultimately cremated alive.
9 Nancy Wake
Born on 30 August 1912 in Wellington, New Zealand, Nancy started as a journalist in pre‑war Nazi Germany. After marrying a French industrialist she threw herself into the French Resistance, helping British airmen evade capture. When betrayed in December 1940, she convinced her captors she wasn’t the woman they sought, escaped to Britain, and joined the SOE. Her husband’s execution by the Gestapo only hardened her resolve.
Back in France in 1944, she coordinated Resistance attacks for the D‑Day landings, led a raid on a Gestapo headquarters, and sabotaged German gun factories. After a German counter‑attack split her from her radio operator, she trekked 200 km on foot and then biked another 100 km to contact a new operator. One comrade summed her up: “She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.” Nancy lived to 98, passing away in 2011.
8 Violette Reine
French‑born Violette moved to London before the war, where she married Etienne Szabo, a French Foreign Legion officer. After his death in 1942, she joined the SOE to avenge him. Replacing the compromised agent Philippe Liewer, she rebuilt the shattered Resistance in Normandy in June 1943, leading sabotage missions against roads and railways and identifying bombing targets for the British.
Returning briefly to Britain, she launched a second mission into France, only to have her car ambushed. With just 64 rounds, she held off German troops long enough for a colleague to escape. Captured and deported to Saarbrücken with two other female agents and 37 men, she used an Allied air raid as cover to fetch water for the imprisoned men before being executed on 27 January 1945.
7 Cecile Pearl Witherington
Cécile, a British citizen born in France, fled the occupied country and joined the SOE on 8 June 1943. Dropped near Paris on 22 September 1943, she began as a courier—a perilous role when the Germans treated even the prettiest girls with suspicion. When her superior was arrested, she seized command of the Wrestler network, rallying over 1,500 fighters for the Normandy landings.
The Germans placed a 1 000 000‑franc bounty on her head. In one fierce encounter, 2 000 German soldiers attacked her and her men; the 14‑hour battle left 86 Germans and 24 of her freedom fighters dead. By war’s end she had overseen the killing of about 1 000 German soldiers, disrupted railways over 800 times, and presided over the surrender of 18 000 German troops.
6 Virginia Hall
Virginia Hall may be the most impressive of the lot. With only one real foot and a prosthetic limp, she defied the odds to become a top Allied operative. Before officially becoming a spy, she drove an ambulance during the invasion of France, organized resistance cells, rescued downed pilots, and conducted raids in 1941 under the cover of an American reporter.
Branded the “Limping Lady” by the Nazis, she was forced out of France in 1942. The American OSS recruited her in 1944, parachuting her back into France with her prosthesis tucked in her pack. Disguised as a farmhand, she trained resistance troops, orchestrated sabotage, and helped the D‑Day effort.
5 Odette Hallowes
“Who you know is everything,” might sum up Odette Hallowes’ wild ride. A mis‑sent postcard landed her in the SOE, and she was dropped into France in 1942. Working with supervisor Peter Churchill (no relation to Winston), she acted as assistant and courier.
When their network was infiltrated, both were arrested and tortured in Paris. Their quick‑thinking claim—that Peter was Winston Churchill’s nephew and Odette his wife—didn’t spare them from a June 1943 transfer to a concentration camp. Yet the camp commandant, Fritz Suhren, brought her along when he surrendered, hoping her alleged connections would protect him. After the war, Odette testified against him, and he was hanged in 1950.
4 Diana Rowden
Diana Rowden began the war as a French journalist, then joined the French Red Cross. After fleeing France in the summer of 1941, she entered the SOE in March 1943. Flown to a base northeast of Angers, she linked up with the “Acrobat” network in June 1943.
She ferried messages across Marseille, Lyon, and Paris, and helped plan an attack on the Peugeot factory at Sochaux—crippling tank and aircraft production. Betrayed in November 1943, she was arrested and shipped, alongside fellow agents Leigh, Borrel, and Olschanezky, to the Natzweiler‑Struthof concentration camp.
3 Vera Leigh
Vera Leigh joined the French resistance after Paris fell, aiding Allied servicemen trapped behind enemy lines. In 1942 she fled to England, where, at age 40, the SOE recruited her despite her age.
Renowned as a crack shot, she arrived near Tours in May 1943 to forge a new network. By chance she met her sister’s husband, who operated a safe house for Allied airmen, and she became involved in that operation as well. Arrested on 30 October before completing the “Inventor” network, she was deported to Natzweiler‑Struthof and killed.
2 Krystyna Skarbek
Polish spy Krystyna Skarbek, the inspiration for the Casino Royale heroine, joined the SIS in 1939. She persuaded Polish Olympic skier Jan Marusarz to escort her across the frigid Tatra Mountains—from Hungary into Poland—where temperatures plummeted to –30 °C. There she made first contact with numerous agents and resistance groups, later smuggling Polish airmen to neutral Yugoslavia.
Captured in 1941, she feigned tuberculosis by biting her tongue and producing fake blood; German doctors, seeing lung scars from her former auto‑shop job, accepted the ruse and released her. She escaped to England, and in 1944 the SOE sent her to southern France. There she scaled a 610‑meter cliff to reach the Col de Larche fort, convincing a 200‑man Polish garrison to surrender. She was stabbed to death on 15 June 1952, never seeing her country fully liberated.
1 Lise de Baissac
After fleeing Paris in 1940, Lise de Baissac found herself in London and promptly applied to the SOE as soon as they opened their doors to women. On 24 September 1942 she parachuted into France alongside Andrée Borrel, becoming one of the first female agents on French soil.
Posing as a destitute widow, she set up a network and smuggled arms from the UK to French resistance fighters. She even moved into an apartment near the Gestapo headquarters, befriending the chief, Herr Grabowski, and used an amateur archaeologist’s cover to gather geographic intel for Allied landings.
Returning for a second mission on 10 April 1944, she continued gathering troop‑movement data after D‑Day, even renting a room in a house occupied by the local German commander. Lise lived to 98, passing away in 2004.