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Helen Fry
Women in Intelligence, by Helen Fry
The intelligence historian has righted a historical wrong.
Recent years have seen a welcome recognition of the many women who worked in top secret roles with the intelligence services, particularly during the Second World War. Helen Fry’s highly impressive new book on Women in Intelligence goes even further, describing how...
Invisible Spies: Women Behind Enemy Lines
From early on in the Intelligence Services, female spies were carrying out operations every but as exciting as found in a spy novel.
Across two world wars, women living in occupied countries displayed extraordinary bravery and resilience in running spy networks and gaining intelligence for the Allies, often at great personal risk. To date their stories have largely been missing from the wider...
Episode 114
Female Spies | RSS.com
Episode 49
Thomas Kendrick, the Spymaster who saved MI6 with Helen Fry | RSS.com
The Happy Traitor, by Simon Kuper
George Blake's death in 2020 led to the publication of this new biography from Simon Kuper.
On a Saturday in 2012, journalist Simon Kuper had the highly sought-after opportunity to interview the last surviving traitor of the Cold War, George Blake, in his dacha (home) outside Moscow. As it turned out, Kuper is believed to have been the last Western...
Foursquare: The Last Parachutist, by George Bearfield
A little-known operation during WW2 is given a close examination in a new book.
Most of us have probably never heard of Operation Foursquare, a top secret operation into Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. On the night of 4th May 1945, an RAF plane takes off from Dijon in France, with four Czech soldiers on board, who have been...
Spymaster: The Man Who Saved MI6, by Helen Fry
The espionage historian has written a biography of Thomas Kendrick, long serving officer of MI6.
British Intelligence operations of the Second World War have been the frequent subject of both scholarly and creative attention, often appearing in popular culture in films such as The Imitation Game and A Call To Spy. Some might argue that there is little left to...
MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two, by Helen Fry
In the 1950s and 60s, Word War Two was a recent memory for most families who had nearly all been involved in the struggle one way or another. At that time, escape stories and the daring exploits of servicemen who had been captured regularly appeared on shop...
When the Walls Had Ears…..
As German tanks rolled over the border and occupied Poland on 1 September 1939, one of Britain’s most senior spymasters MI6 intelligence officer Thomas Joseph Kendrick arrived at the Tower of London. Within a special compound, away from the public eye, he opened a...