Special Operations Executive
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Special Operations Executive was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements during World Wa
Sir Campbell Stuart was the director of Electra House.
SOE might not have been possible without Joan Bright Astley, Secretarial Typist and Personal Assistant to Jo Holland. She also ran secret war rooms for Winston Churchill, and is considered one of the primary inspirations for Miss Moneypenny.
Major General Colin McVean Gubbins, director of SOE from September 1943
SOE memorial plaque in the cloister of Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, unveiled by Major General Gubbins in April 1969
Violette Szabo
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Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC was a British-French Special Operations Executive agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupi
Special Operations Executive
…unveiled in 1996 on the wall of the west cloister of Westminster Abbey by the Queen Mother, and in 2009 on the Albert Embankment in London, depicting Violette Szabo. The Valençay SOE Memorial honours 91 male and 13 female SOE agents who lost their lives while working in France. The Tempsford Memorial was unveiled…
Violette Szabo c.1944
The former Register Office in Aldershot, Hampshire where the Szabos married in 1940
Westland Lysander MkIII (SD)
George Cross and its ribbon bar