The.Lost.Women.Spies.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH Subtitles

00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:03,The Second World War.

00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:05,France is under Nazi control.

00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,The French Resistance fight back against the German invaders.

00:00:12,620 --> 00:00:14,But they can't do it alone.

00:00:17,490 --> 00:00:20,British secret agency, the SOE,

00:00:20,890 --> 00:00:26,send arms, explosives and agents to help them set Nazi Europe ablaze.

00:00:29,550 --> 00:00:32,But when the Gestapo crack down on mail agents,

00:00:34,570 --> 00:00:37,Winston Churchill concocts an audacious solution.

00:00:39,190 --> 00:00:43,He illegally sends certain agents who are banned from the front line.

00:00:44,990 --> 00:00:45,Women.

00:00:46,270 --> 00:00:52,Vera, this business of women agents, you understand it must be kept secret at all times.

00:00:52,710 --> 00:00:54,Most secret. Our eyes only.

00:00:55,070 --> 00:00:58,Spymaster Vera Atkins is charged with finding women.

00:00:59,590 --> 00:01:05,Are you prepared to take the fight to the Nazis, behind enemy lines, in occupied France?

00:01:06,330 --> 00:01:07,As a spy.

00:01:09,010 --> 00:01:09,Training them.

00:01:10,470 --> 00:01:12,Good shot.

00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:13,Yes, sir.

00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:17,And sending these agents behind enemy lines.

00:01:18,780 --> 00:01:19,Are you ready?

00:01:21,320 --> 00:01:23,The Nazis won't know what hit them.

00:01:29,220 --> 00:01:32,But after the war, many are missing.

00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:37,I'll send them off as long as I can. Go!

00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:44,Having sent these women to war, Vera makes it her life's mission to find them.

00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,A mission that takes her deep into Germany.

00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:51,And the horrors of the Nazi regime.

00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:53,What happened to her?

00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,All three were taken to the crematorium building.

00:01:56,700 --> 00:01:57,How do you know?

00:01:58,420 --> 00:01:59,I watched.

00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,But it's only after her death that Vera reveals the secrets.

00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:08,Behind her lost, women, spies.

00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:30,In the early 1960s, Tanya Szabo pays a surprise visit to a woman who was once her mother's boss.

00:02:33,020 --> 00:02:41,A woman, who during the Second World War, was in charge of Britain's first ever female secret agents sent into combat.

00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:46,Many of whom wouldn't return.

00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:53,I was in my 20s and I was looking forward very much to meeting Vera Hedkins.

00:02:56,490 --> 00:03:06,A little trembling as well because she was known to be fierce, this very severe lady, the Kensington lady.

00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:17,Vera would not have been at all concerned about how I felt.

00:03:17,640 --> 00:03:29,But, and certainly in no way whatsoever, did I resent Vera sending my mother off to such

00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:33,dangerous places on her secret missions.

00:03:38,510 --> 00:03:43,When war is there, you do what you have to do.

00:03:43,610 --> 00:03:53,Your mother, when I met her, was 22, recently bereaved.

00:04:00,740 --> 00:04:02,She wanted action.

00:04:06,490 --> 00:04:08,She wanted some sort of revenge.

00:04:10,700 --> 00:04:14,Vera did not easily open up to anybody.

00:04:14,780 --> 00:04:21,I was very aware of her decided coldness at times.

00:04:21,460 --> 00:04:26,and then there would be these little chinks and she would open up.

00:04:30,090 --> 00:04:32,I always drove them to the aerodromes.

00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:36,Always seemed to be a summer's day.

00:04:39,620 --> 00:04:40,I saw them off.

00:04:45,820 --> 00:04:49,When the war ended and they didn't come back,

00:04:51,550 --> 00:04:53,I went looking for them all.

00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:00,Missing, presumed dead.

00:05:02,750 --> 00:05:04,Such a terrible epitaph for anyone.

00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:09,The admission is surprising.

00:05:11,620 --> 00:05:15,Very few people outside of Vera Atkins' inner circle

00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:17,knew that after the war, she'd gone looking

00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:19,for her missing agents.

00:05:26,020 --> 00:05:26,Excuse me.

00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:34,For Vera, the most important thing that she could do

00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:38,was to find out exactly what had happened to her agents.

00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:44,Long after the war ends, Vera still keeps hold of files

00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:50,on her former agents, locked away like all her secrets.

00:05:56,350 --> 00:06:03,In later life, she moves from Kensington to Winchelsea in Sussex, taking her closely guarded

00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:04,files with her.

00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:10,On the 24th of June, 2000, Vera Atkins dies.

00:06:12,290 --> 00:06:18,She announces, through her sister-in-law, that her treasured and secret files have all

00:06:18,180 --> 00:06:21,She's now moved to her sister-in-law's shed in Cornwall.

00:06:24,370 --> 00:06:27,Journalists begin investigating the files.

00:06:28,150 --> 00:06:31,What is quite clear is that after the war,

00:06:31,370 --> 00:06:33,when SOE was being closed down,

00:06:33,490 --> 00:06:36,basically everything that had happened that SOE had been involved in

00:06:37,010 --> 00:06:39,was going to be just completely hidden.

00:06:39,970 --> 00:06:43,The British government destroyed many files

00:06:43,130 --> 00:06:45,relating to their women agents.

00:06:46,450 --> 00:06:48,But Vera's survive.

00:06:49,950 --> 00:06:52,I mean, to be honest with you, she shouldn't have kept them.

00:06:52,690 --> 00:06:56,That was illegal, even then, to keep official documents,

00:06:56,350 --> 00:06:57,especially secret ones.

00:06:58,390 --> 00:07:04,But she wanted the story to be told by someone at some point.

00:07:05,190 --> 00:07:09,The files contain the revelation that, after the war,

00:07:09,770 --> 00:07:13,Vera went looking for all her lost women spies.

00:07:13,210 --> 00:07:18,She definitely felt responsibility to her female agents,

00:07:18,940 --> 00:07:22,and that must have completely haunted Vera for the rest of her life.

00:07:25,690 --> 00:07:31,In the files are page after page detailing the lives and codenames

00:07:31,450 --> 00:07:36,of Britain's first-ever female agents sent to the front line.

00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:40,One agent in particular catches the eye.

00:07:41,980 --> 00:07:44,Noor Enyat Khan's training record is terrible.

00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:50,She was not seen as a competent agent at all and as a result she was not

00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:54,recommended to go to France by her instructors. But Vera Atkins sent her

00:07:54,160 --> 00:08:03,anyway. Why did Vera send Knorr behind enemy lines against the advice of others?

00:08:05,060 --> 00:08:08,All Vera's private files suddenly become available.

00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:15,Private files that reveal the true story of Britain's lost women spies.

00:08:19,020 --> 00:08:24,But also the shocking story of the one woman whose job it was to send them into battle.

00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:26,Vera Atkins.

00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:36,It's a story that begins in France in 1940.

00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:52,Nazi Germany has invaded and taken over the north of the country and Hitler has

00:08:52,660 --> 00:08:56,set his sights on Britain as the next target for Nazi invasion.

00:09:02,380 --> 00:09:07,In France, an underground force of French fighters called the Resistance

00:09:07,100 --> 00:09:10,tried to stop the Nazis at any point they can.

00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:13,They commit acts of sabotage.

00:09:14,220 --> 00:09:18,They attack soldiers. And to do this, they need help.

00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:24,They need organisational skills, they need weapons and they need money.

00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:29,They need all the help they can get to stop the Nazi threat.

00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:39,This support is provided by a British secret agency known as the Special Operations Executive, or SOE.

00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:47,SOE was sanctioned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as early as 1940.

00:09:48,340 --> 00:09:54,It was unofficially known as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

00:09:54,380 --> 00:10:06,And the whole idea was literally to set Europe ablaze and disrupt the Nazi war machine.

00:10:07,820 --> 00:10:14,Churchill wants to frustrate the Nazis in France, and also help the resistance to launch

00:10:14,760 --> 00:10:23,mass sabotage attacks against the Germans ahead of D-Day, whenever the Allied invasion

00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:25,of France will take place.

00:10:31,320 --> 00:10:36,The department responsible for this is SOE's France, or F, section.

00:10:40,690 --> 00:10:43,Head of F section is Maurice Buckmaster.

00:10:45,110 --> 00:10:48,He's an unlikely choice for a top job at SOE.

00:10:50,510 --> 00:10:57,Buckmaster served in military intelligence, but he knows nothing about sabotage.

00:10:58,490 --> 00:10:58,Sir.

00:10:58,870 --> 00:11:04,He had no experience whatsoever in training people for guerrilla warfare.

00:11:05,190 --> 00:11:09,Schedule a supply drop to Acrobat for the 22nd.

00:11:09,830 --> 00:11:10,Yes,...