The Special Operations Executive was a secret British spy organisation formed at the start of World War II. Tasked with conducting espionage and carrying out sabotage operations against the Axis powers, we take a closer look at three of its agents: Violette Szabó, Odette Hallowes and Noor Inayat Khan.

What was the Special Operations Executive?

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret organisation formed by the British government in 1940 to ‘coordinate, inspire, control and assist the nationals of the oppressed countries who must themselves be the direct participants’.

Recruits were toughened up with targeted training and would have good knowledge of the Nazi-occupied country they were to be sent to.

In 1942, Churchill approved women being sent to Europe as couriers and wireless operators, as they were thought to be less conspicuous to the Gestapo than men. 39 women of the SOE did extraordinary things in the course of duty, and three were awarded the highest civilian gallantry honour, the George Cross:

Violette Szabó, G.C.

Violette Szabó was an agent of the SOE during World War II and was a posthumous recipient of the George Cross for her ‘magnificent courage and steadfastness’ (Gazette issue 37820).

Born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell in a British hospital in Paris in 1921, to an English father and French mother, the family moved to Stockwell, London, when she was 11. Violette left school at 14 and worked in department stores, until joining the Women’s Land Army in 1940 and going from strawberry picking to working in an armaments factory.

Shortly after a visit to France, where she met the French Legionnaire officer Étienne Szabó (Légion d'Honneur, Médaille Militaire, Croix de Guerre with Star and Palm, Colonial Medal), the two were married. Étienne tragically never met his daughter, Tania, who was born while he was stationed in North Africa, as his life was taken at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 (Gazette issue 38177). It was this trauma that made Violette agree to train as a field agent, to fight the enemy that had killed her husband.

The ability to speak both French and English made her invaluable to the SOE. She took part in strenuous paramilitary training in Scotland, where she learned skills such as cryptography and escape and evasion tactics.

Her first mission, under the codename Corinne Leroy, was as a courier for Liewer's Salesman circuit in the Rouen-Le Havre red zone area, where she reported that 100 French Resistance workers had been captured by the Gestapo. She was thus promoted to the rank of Ensign in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Her second, highly dangerous mission, along with three other colleagues, was the day after D-Day, when she was parachuted into the Limoges area to assist with coordinating the activities of the diverse Résistance and SOE groups to harass the SS-Das Reich Panzer Division from mounting from the south of France to Normandy.

Along with fellow French-English agents Denise Block and Lilian Rolfe, and after displaying great courage under fire, Violette was captured and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in August 1944. Transferred to Torgau and then Königsberg for work under terrible conditions during a bitter winter (where Violette came close to mounting an escape), and then a camp on the River Oder, the three women were taken back to Ravensbrück. Between 26 January and 5 February, Violette was executed, age just 23. 

Violette was awarded a posthumous George Cross, which was collected by her daughter, Tania, aged just 4, from King George VI. She was also awarded the Croix de Guerre, and the Médaille de la Résistance by the French government.

Together, Violette and Étienne are the most highly decorated married couple for gallantry, awarded by their respective countries. 

Odette Hallowes, G.C., M.B.E.

Odette Hallowes was an agent of the SOE during WWII and was awarded the George Cross in recognition of her ‘bravery, endurance and self-sacrifice’ (Gazette issue 37693).

Odette Marie Céline Brailly was born in Amiens, France, in 1912. She suffered the tragic loss of her father at Verdun, and serious illness left Odette blind for nearly two years. But this didn’t prevent her from being headstrong and determined. She moved to Britain after marrying Englishman Roy Samson in 1931, and they had three daughters.

Roy joined the army in 1939, and Odette and her daughters moved to Somerset. In spring 1942, Odette responded to appeals from the Admiralty to send snapshots of the French coast for war use, saying she knew the area well and was French by birth. She mistakenly sent them to the War Office, and by chance came to the attention of the SOE. After an interview with a recruiting officer, she was enrolled, passed strenuous training including parachute school, and was sent as an agent into Nazi-occupied France in 1942 to work with the French Resistance as part of the FANY unit.

With the codename Lise, she acted as courier to Peter Churchill, coordinator of the Spindle circuit, an SOE network based in Cannes. When Spindle was infiltrated and the two were betrayed, they were arrested by German intelligence organisation the Abwehr and sent to Fresnes Prison. They were tortured by the Gestapo, but Odette kept to her story throughout, that Churchill and she were married, and he was the nephew of the prime minister.

Odette was condemned to death and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, but survived for two years, often in solitary confinement, before release. This is mostly thought to be due to her supposed connections with Winston Churchill, which were calculated to allow her to be used as a bargaining tool. As the Red Army approached, Fritz Suhren, the camp commandant, drove in a sports car with Odette beside him into US lines, in the hopes that this would act in his favour, though this didn’t prevent him from being hanged after trial. On release, Odette was gravely ill, weak and emaciated. Churchill was sent to a different concentration camp and also escaped execution before liberation by the US army.

Odette was awarded an MBE in 1945 for services in France during enemy occupation (Gazette issue 37328) and the George Cross on 20 August 1946. The citation describes her horrific treatment. In Odette Hallowes’ words, her George Cross was not to be regarded as an award to her personally, but as an acknowledgement of all those, known and unknown, alive or dead, who had served the cause of the liberation of France. She also paid tribute to Violette Szabo, saying that "She was the bravest of us all."

Odette married Peter Churchill in 1947. They divorced in 1956, when she married Geoffrey Hallowes. In 1950, she was granted a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for her work with the French Resistance (Gazette issue 39069).

Odette died peacefully at her home in Surrey in 1995, age 82.

Noor Inayat Khan, G.C.

As an SOE agent, Noor Inayat Khan was the first woman radio operator to be sent into Nazi-occupied France. She received a posthumous George Cross for conspicuous courage, ‘both moral and physical’ (Gazette issue 38578).

Noor was born in 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father, who was a musician and Sufi teacher, and American mother. The family moved to London and then Paris, where she was educated in medicine and music, and began a career as a writer. After the fall of France, Noor escaped to England and joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

Having been trained for a year as a radio operator, in 1943 she was flown to France to join the Prosper resistance in Paris and given the codename ‘Madeleine’. She remained in France delivering messages to London, though other members of her network had been arrested. She was betrayed by a French woman and arrested by the Gestapo and, despite an escape, was recaptured and sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany. Tortured, chained and in solitary confinement, she revealed nothing to her captors for a full ten months.

In September 1944 she and three other agents were transferred to Dachau concentration camp and were shot. Her final word, uttered as the German firing squad raised their weapons, was ‘liberté’.

Noor Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949, gazetted April 1949.

Images

Tania Szabó Archives

Imperial War Museums

Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust 

Publication updated

18 March 2025