Women Spies World War Ii

After losing her family to a Nazi bomb attack back home in Ireland, Sarah Gillespie joins the British Secret Services to bring them justice. Partnered with an American undercover agent, Lieutenant Tony Anderson, Sarah embarks on a dangerous mission that takes her from war-torn London into the black mountains of Wales. But when one of her team is revealed to be a German mole, and enemies begin to close in, what price will Sarah have to pay to save her country, and to save herself?

Evelyn Varley has always been ambitious and clever. As a girl, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious academy well above her parents’ means, gaining her a best friend from one of England’s wealthiest families. In 1939, with an Oxford degree in hand and war looming, Evelyn finds herself recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit. A secret society seeks an alliance with Germany and, posing as a Nazi sympathizer, Evelyn must build a case to expose their treachery. But as she is drawn deeper into duplicity, some of those close to her become embroiled in her investigation.

The Second World War changed the course of modern history. It is filled with incredible stories of daring risks and exceptional struggles, but in the popular imagination, these stories are more often than not the stories of men. There is, however, a hidden treasure trove of untold stories of heroic women who have risked their lives in the monumental battle against fascism. We’ve heard of women who became nurses treating soldiers with battlefield injuries, partisans who fought occupying armies, and skilled laborers who worked in wartime industries.

In this biography, young listeners will learn all about Elizebeth Friedman (1892-1980), a brilliant American code breaker who smashed Nazi spy rings, took down gangsters, and created the CIA's first cryptology unit. Her story came to light when her secret papers were finally declassified in 2015. From thwarting notorious rumrunners with only paper and pencil to “counter-spying into the minds and activities of” Nazis, she held a pivotal role in the early days of US cryptology. No code was too challenging for her to crack, and her work undoubtedly saved thousands of lives.

In 1943, movie producer Henrik Zoltan approaches Amelie Blake under the guise of offering the Hollywood star a leading part in his upcoming film, but he has a more meaningful role in mind. Amelie’s homeland of Sweden declared neutrality in the war, but Stockholm has become the “Casablanca of the North.” When top-secret atomic research goes missing in Sweden, the Allied forces scramble to recover the files before they fall into Nazi hands.

February, 1944. Washington, DC. With the war entering its most dangerous phase, Louise Pearlie is thrilled to be reassigned to the London office of the OSS. But in order to take up her new post, she must make a perilous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the SS Amelia Earhart. Accompanying her on the voyage to Liverpool is an eclectic group of passengers, including the aloof Blanche Bryant, whose husband, Eddie, died in mysterious circumstances on the ship’s voyage out to New York, three months before.

The incredible true story of British special agents Eileen and Jacqueline Nearne, sisters who risked everything to fight for freedom during the Second World War. When elderly recluse Eileen Nearne died, few suspected that the quiet little old lady was a decorated WWII war hero. Volunteering to serve for British intelligence at age 21, Eileen was posted to Nazi-occupied France to send encoded messages of crucial importance for the Allies, until her capture by the Gestapo.

New York City, 1939: At the height of the Great Depression, a time when President Roosevelt is trying to keep America out of World War II, Giddy Brodsky is lucky to have a job as a cigarette girl at a Manhattan jazz club. Nevertheless, she dreams of establishing a cosmetics business and leaving the poverty-stricken Lower East Side tenements behind. She has lived there with her family ever since they fled Russia, forced to emigrate after a group of Cossacks burned down their village, and her memories continue to haunt her.

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie has a new job inside the OSS - the Office of Strategic Services: recruiting German prisoners of war for a secret mission inside Nazi Germany. It’s a big chance for her, and Louise hopes she can finally escape her filing and typing duties. With the job comes two new colleagues: Alice Osborne, a propaganda expert, and Merle Ellison, a forger from Texas who just happens to speak fluent German. But when the three arrive at Fort Meade to interview the first German POWs to arrive there, their mission is beset by complications.

It’s 1942 in Washington, DC. Louise Pearlie is now a chief file clerk at the legendary OSS, the precursor to the CIA, and enjoys being an independent working woman despite wartime privations. But a casual friendship struck up with Alessa di Luca, a secretive war refugee, sucks Louise into a dangerous game of mafia bosses, Nazi spies, banished royalty, and Sicilian aristocracy - placing not only her job but her life in jeopardy.

On a bitterly cold night in December, 1943, government girl Louise Pearlie and her friend Joe Prager are enjoying a quiet drink in the Baron Steuben Inn, when a bloodstained body is discovered behind the bar. Although the victim had been a regular customer, no one seems to know anything about him. When it turns out there is a link to Louise’s top-secret work at the OSS, she is ordered to find out as much as possible about the murder while keeping the connection secret from those involved, including the investigating police detective.

Young widow Louise Pearlie seizes a chance to escape the typewriters and files of the Office of Strategic Services, the United States’ World War II spy agency, when she’s asked to investigate a puzzling postcard referred to the OSS by the US Censor. She heads off to St. Leonard, Maryland, to talk to the postcard’s recipient, one Leroy Martin. But what seemed like a straightforward mission to Louise soon becomes complicated.

The truth is just another lie. Draken Kosset, a high-ranking officer in the Manderian militia, is a man haunted by loss. His brother's death, orchestrated by the enigmatic Kaileegh Tokal, a powerful hybrid vital to the Directorate's security, has left him with a thirst for vengeance. But when he's ordered to prepare Cressel Prime Station for the Director's arrival, ensuring the station's safety rests on a forced alliance with the very woman he blames for his brother's death. As the lines between ally and enemy blur, Draken must walk a path of deceit, wrestling with a moral dilemma that ...

The 1940s, Washington, DC. Government girl Louise Pearlie is asked to review the file usage of a missing analyst from the Office of Strategic Services - the United States’ wartime intelligence agency - only to learn he’d drowned in the Tidal Basin days before. The OSS confirms it was an accident, and Louise is sent back to her regular job in the file rooms. Her time spent investigating Paul Hughes at least has one positive outcome, though: Louise meets a young woman in the OSS Reading Room, who asks her to join her “salon".

It’s 1942. Louise Pearlie, a young widow, has come to Washington, DC, to work as a clerk for the legendary OSS, the precursor to the CIA. When, while filing, she discovers a document concerning the husband of a college friend, Rachel Bloch—a young French Jewish woman she is desperately worried about—Louise realizes she may be able to help get Rachel out of Vichy France. But then a colleague whose help Louise has enlisted is murdered, and she realizes she is on her own, unable to trust anyone.

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessive colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising, but that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. She was one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated secret agents, and the intelligence she gathered was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort.

Virginia Hall, known to her family as “Dindy,” was an athletic, outdoorsy girl who dreamed of joining the foreign service and becoming an ambassador. Despite numerous setbacks, including losing her leg to gangrene after an accident, Virginia never wavered in her determination to serve her country. After the outbreak of World War II, a chance meeting on a train changed her life—George Bellows, an agent of the British Special Operations Executive, recruited her as one of its first women agents.

This is the story of Esther Simpson, a remarkable woman history has largely forgotten, but whose selfless actions left an indelible mark on the cultural and intellectual landscape of the modern world. Forgoing marriage, family, even, it seems, a private life, she committed her whole life resettling academic refugees before, during and after World War Two. She thought of these refugees as her family and by the end of her life could count among her 'children'.

Jeannie Rousseau appeared to be just a highly educated girl, fluent in five languages, graduating at the top of her class at the elite university, the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. She had no idea she would become one of the most amazing women in WWII. When the German troops invaded France, Rousseau fought back—using nothing other than her gifted mind. Jeannie Rousseau bravely took on the Gestapo, posing as an ally and sympathizer to extract the highly sensitive, secret plans of the Nazi party.

New York, 1939 Giddy Brodsky knows she’s lucky to have a job as a cigarette girl at a Manhattan jazz club, but she dreams of opening her own beauty shop and lifting her family out of poverty. The Brodskys have lived cheek to jowl in the Lower East Side tenements since they came to America nineteen years ago, fleeing a deadly pogrom in their Russian village. But they continue to face prejudice. Yet Giddy is focused on the future—until she recognizes one of the Cossacks who irrevocably changed her life and the past comes flooding back.