D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II

Sarah Rose

Crown, Apr 23, 2019 - History - 400 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The dramatic, untold history of the heroic women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to help pave the way for Allied victory in World War II

“Gripping. Spies, romance, Gestapo thugs, blown-up trains, courage, and treachery (lots of treachery)—and all of it true.”—Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake

In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was on the front lines. To “set Europe ablaze,” in the words of Winston Churchill, the Special Operations Executive  (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharpshooting, was forced to do something unprecedented: recruit women. Thirty-nine answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France.

In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently de­classified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the thrilling story of three of these remarkable women. There’s Andrée Borrel, a scrappy and streetwise Parisian who blew up power lines with the Gestapo hot on her heels; Odette Sansom, an unhappily married suburban mother who saw the SOE as her ticket out of domestic life and into a meaningful adventure; and Lise de Baissac, a fiercely independent member of French colonial high society and the SOE’s unflap­pable “queen.” Together, they destroyed train lines, ambushed Nazis, plotted prison breaks, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war.

Rigorously researched and written with razor-sharp wit, D-Day Girls is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance: a reminder of what courage—and the energy of politically animated women—can accomplish when the stakes seem incalculably high.

Praise for D-Day Girls

“Rigorously researched . . . [a] thriller in the form of a non-fiction book.”—Refinery29

“Equal parts espionage-romance thriller and historical narrative, D-Day Girls traces the lives and secret activities of the 39 women who answered the call to infiltrate France. . . . While chronicling the James Bond-worthy missions and love affairs of these women, Rose vividly captures the broken landscape of war.”—The Washington Post

“Gripping history . . . thoroughly researched and written as smoothly as a good thriller, this is a mesmerizing story of creativity, perseverance, and astonishing heroism.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Contents

• God Help Us: 3
• Ungentlemanly Warfare: 12
• A FirstClass Agent: 23
• The Queen of the Organization: 37
• Merde alors: 49
• To the Very Last Man: 63
• PART II: 67
• A Thousand Dangers: 69
• The Dark Years: 76
• Alone in the World: 90
• Robert est arrivé: 105
• The Paris of the Sahara: 120
• Our Possibilities: 126
• The Demolition Must Never Fail: 143
• An Obstinate Woman: 150
• An Endless Calvary: 163
• The Swap: 175
• The Dog Sneezed on the Curtains: 191
• Hunted: 201
• When the Hour of Action Strikes: 209
• PART III: 225
• Kisses: 227
• A Patriotic Profession: 231
• A Little Braver: 240
• The Sighing Begins: 244
• Death on One Side Life on the Other: 252
• Your Mind Goes On Thinking: 267
• EPILOGUE A Useful Life: 275
• Authors Note: 287
• Acknowledgments: 289
• Notes: 291
• Bibliography: 351
• Index: 373

About the author

Sarah Rose is the author of For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, Outside, The Saturday Evening Post, and Men's Journal. In 2014, she was awarded a Lowell Thomas Prize in Travel Writing.

Bibliographic information

• Title: D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
• Author: Sarah Rose
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Crown, 2019
• ISBN: 045149508X, 9780451495082
• Length: 400 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Women; History / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / General; Political Science / Intelligence & Espionage