Historian obsessed with writing women into history. Knows a thing or two about espionage, spies and war. DEBUT BOOK
#HerSecretService
Rep’d by
@northbanktalent
I am delighted to share the beautiful cover of my debut book, Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence, published by
@wnbooks
@orionbooks
on 24 October 2024. You can pre-order
#HerSecretService
➡️
When I think of the word
#courage
and what it means in the context of the Second World War, I instantly think of SOE's first female radio operator sent into occupied France. Her name was Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944).
#knowherstory
#HERstory
#spyhistory
#OTD
13 September 1944, four courageous SOE agents were executed in Dachau concentration camp. The bravest of the brave: Yolande Beekman (32 yrs), Madeleine Damerment (26 yrs), Noor Inayat Khan (30 yrs) and Eliane Plewman (26 yrs). We Remember
#HerSecretService
BOOK GIVEAWAY
#HistoryWritersDay24
#JamesBondDay
I'm giving away one signed copy of my debut book, Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence, to one lucky winner.
The book tells, for the first time, the story of the 'real' Miss Moneypenny, Kathleen
So proud of my daughter (9yrs) who has chosen Dr Rachel Clarke
@doctor_oxford
as her hero of the pandemic for
@RoyalMail
#Herostamps
competition. I think it’s FAB but I guess I’m biased 🙃 ❤️
I spy
#Caturday
! Claudette Blance, an intelligence officer in the French Resistance (Maquis) & a lieutenant in the Free French Army holds her cat whose attention is elsewhere. Claudette’s house was used as a 'safe house' by the 'Jude' Jedburgh Team, 1944 [IWM HU 62468]
#HERstory
#Wednesday
#WomeninBritishIntel
Constance 'Babs' Babington Smith (1912-2000) was a pioneer in photographic interpretation. During
#WW2
she set up an aircraft interpretation section that became part of the Central Interpretation Unit based at RAF Medmenham.
After years of research, here is the real MI6 ‘secretary’ who inspired Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny character. Kathleen Pettigrew is finally getting the recognition she so rightly deserves
#HerSecretService
@wnbooks
@NorthbankTalent
#remebranceday
Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a brave nurse who helped hundreds of British, French & Belgian soldiers escape the Germans. She paid the ultimate price. In 1915, she was arrested, tried & executed by a German firing squad in Brussels
#WeWillRememberThem
#HERstory
“Women are like teabags – you don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water” - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), American first lady and United Nations diplomat
#HERstory
#OTD
#spyhistory
2 January 1942, cryptographers
@bletchleypark
broke the Enigma key known as “Kite” (Oberquartiermeister Maschinenschlüssel). This key contained the German Army’s most secret supply messages between Berlin & the Eastern Front.
#WW2
There is something about this cover/type of wartime intelligence file that makes intelligence historians (moi) feel like all your Christmases have come at once!
#spyhistory
Doesn’t get much better than this folks!
I am delighted to share that I have recently been appointed as a trustee of the Medmenham Collection - what an honour! The collection covers the history of military aerial photographic interpretation & imagery analysis - work that was vital to the Allied intelligence effort
#WW2
Today I am attending a special preview event of
@bletchleypark
newest & biggest exhibition yet - 'The Intelligence Factory'. Women were key to ensuring Station X could operate on an industrial scale from 1942-to 45. I have the honour of talking about this👇on a special panel👀
My mission for 2021 is to try my hardest to shine a brighter light on the role & contributions of women in British intelligence - the ‘missing dimension’ in intelligence history. So folks, this means moving well beyond Mata Hari! My twitter feed will be largely devoted to this!
#spyhistory
#AdventCalendar
#Day7
On 7 December 1942, SOE 'special agent' Marie Christine Chilver alias 'Agent Fifi' spotted her prey in a Liverpool café. José Tinchant failed the SOE training exercise as he revealed all his secrets, incl. details of his Belgium sabotage mission!
Glamour. Style. Victory Red lipstick. This ATS anti-aircraft spotter photographed near London in 1943 sported a bold lip that conveyed a message of patriotism & resilience, taking a defiant stand against nazism/fascism. Hitler famously hated red 👄
Please spend a moment to appreciate the AWESOME power-dressing of Pauline Cushman (1833-93) Actress & Union spy during the U.S. Civil War. President Lincoln awarded her the honorary rank of Brevet Major
#HERstory
#spyhistory
Today my students
@BGULincoln
get to learn all about the remarkable Vera Atkins, Intelligence Officer in
#SOE
F-Section
#WW2
She never wrote her memoir but did grant interviews. The one with
@I_W_M
is unforgettable. Take a listen
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 15. No baby Jesus in a manger, just the veteran SOE/OSS agent Virginia Hall sitting in the doorway of a farm stable. One of Virginia's faithful Poodles investigates the two newborn lambs she is holding.
#HERstory
#InternationalWomensDay
#IWD
Honouring all those women in British Intelligence - past & present - who serve(d) in technical & operational roles. (It’s not all Bond you know 😉)
I have finally got my hands on a withdrawn 1932 copy of Mackenzie’s
#WW1
memoir that revealed information about MI6 (M.I.i.c). He was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It is signed AND it has its dust cover 🤩 Plus added bonus of newspaper cuttings from trial!
#spyhistory
#SOE
agents like Virginia Hall faced a dangerous & lonely existence operating behind enemy lines in occupied
#France
#WW2
SOE agents trusted no one - not even their own reflections
#spyhistory
#HERstory
Can you spot the difference
@MailOnline
? Women working in the secret services were trailblazers! Using such images of a highly sexualised stereotype is an insult to
#WomeninBritishIntel
#ShameOnYou
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 5. This Minox subminiature camera measures just 8 x 11mm with exposures on 9.5mm film. Originally designed by Walter Zapp in 1937 (Riga, Latvia), this model was used by SOE agents in France, in 1943 & Greece, in 1944 [IWM PHO 85] 👀🎄
The secret lives of MI6’s top female spies by the brilliant
@helenwarrell
@FT
‘If there is to be any real equality for the women who spy for their country, then they must wrest it from the past. It is time for a new story’
#Herstory
Today is the BIG day!
#IntelligenceFactory
is open to all
@bletchleypark
Please do visit. I promise you will be 110% engaged, informed & inspired! It really is a special exhibition in a very special
#spyhistory
place ❤️
Woman-power was central to codebreaking
@bletchleypark
#Women
did everything from codebreaking to cleaning! They were young women from all walks of life. Their stories feature prominently in the AWESOME new exhibition
#IntelligenceFactory
Make sure you go see it 👀
#HERstory
#AdventCalendar
#spyhistory
#Day16
#OTD
1942 German agent Eddie Chapman was dropped by parachute into a field
#Cambridgeshire
He quickly turned himself into the police & MI5. He became Double Cross agent ZIGZAG feeding misinformation back to his German handler.
This photograph captures a unique moment in time
@bletchleypark
#WW2
was a war of information - check out the level of paperwork going on! AND women made a HUGE contribution. I can’t wait to visit next week & share my photo diary with you all ❤️
#spyhistory
#HERstory
Many career women who worked in Britain’s secret services shied away from having their photograph taken & destroyed personal papers shortly before their deaths. We will never know their real faces, but I have ensured their names are known & their lives recognized in my debut book
Fred Kovaleski (1924-2018) was a
#tennis
pro AND
@CIA
agent recruited 1951. Fluent in Polish & Russian, tennis provided the perfect cover to recruit other agents during the Cold War. A year before he became a spy, he reached the 4th round of
@Wimbledon
as 13th seed
#spyhistory
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) world-renowned entertainer, French Resistance &
#OSS
agent
#WW2
civil rights activist. Her awesomeness was/is OFF the scale
#Legend
#HERstory
Last night I had the pleasure of dining at The Reform Club where I learnt that Guy Burgess had been a member & that with Kim Philby, they frequently sat in the gallery watching the coming & goings of members & their guests. The table where they sat is known as ‘traitors table’
Had a major breakthrough yesterday with a top secret research project - my head is still buzzing! Such a good feeling to know that I know ‘something’ KEY to wartime British intelligence that NO other historian/person has discovered!
#spyhistory
1 January 2024. Day 1 as a full time writer! Exciting year ahead with my debut book
#MissMoneypenny
- The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence published in the autumn (eek!)
@wnbooks
#HappyNewYear
Milicent Bagot (1907-2006) intriguing MI5 officer whose career spanned 40yrs. First woman to reach senior rank. A recognised authority on international communism & the model for Connie Sachs, the eccentric Sovietology expert who appeared in John le Carré's novels
#spyhistory
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calendar
Day 4. A rather dark Christmas Card sent by MI5 to Sir Malcolm Seton in 1923. [Source: Papers of Sir Malcolm Seton, India Office, Mss Eur E267/224] 🎄👀
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 16.
#OTD
1942, Eddie Chapman dropped by parachute into a field in
#Cambridgeshire
He immediately turned himself into the police & MI5. Double Cross agent ZIGZAG was one of the most successful (convincing) Double Cross agents of
#WW2
Warlock Cecil Williamson worked for
#MI6
during
#WW2
collecting occult information on Nazis such as Himmler and performing witches’ rituals in Ashdown Forest & cursing Hitler. He claimed to have used his occult knowledge to lure Hess to Scotland
#halloween2021
#spyhistory
#OTD
The first
@TheIanFleming
007 novel CASINO ROYALE was published (13 April 1953) & the character
#MissMoneypenny
was born. One woman's story lies at the centre of my book & that is the MI6 secretary who inspired Fleming. Her story will be told for the FIRST time
#70YearsOf007
I have been away from X for various reasons, but I am back and ready to share my passion for
#spyhistory
#herstory
♥️ If anyone can see this, let me know in the replies or like the post. Tomorrow at precisely 2 p.m. (Wednesday, September 10, 2024), I will share some exciting news
Row upon row of card index cabinets
@bletchleypark
c1945. The ability to organise & manage the intelligence produced from decrypted enemy messages played an important part in Bletchley Park’s wartime success. Mind blowing to think of the no. of card indexes in operation!
#VEDay
Vera Atkins (1908-2000) An extraordinary & complex woman began her search for the missing F-Section agents which included fourteen women: Yolande Beekman, Denise Bloch, Andrée Borrel, Madeleine Damerment, Noor Inayat Khan, Vera Leigh, Cecily Lefort, Sonya Olschanezky...
The author and creator of
#JamesBond
, Ian Fleming, photographed in his wartime office, Room 39 of the Admiralty. His adventures as a naval intelligence officer during
#WW2
fueled the postwar creation of Bond characters
#M
#Q
#MissMoneypenny
👀
@007
A remarkable woman was born on 6 April 1906 in
#Baltimore
#USA
Her name was Virginia Hall. Working for
#SOE
& OSS (+ postwar
@CIA
) she played a key role in undermining the Nazi occupation of
#France
If you are not familiar with her incredible story you really should be
#HERstory
Yes, that’s me on
@itvnews
My debut book
#HerSecretService
(out 24 October) telling the story of the ‘real’ Miss Moneypenny, Kathleen Pettigrew & many other incredible women of British Intelligence made national news!!!! It’s taken me a week to pluck up the courage to watch it 🙈
Doris Bohrer née Sharrar began her 27 year career in U.S. intelligence in 1942. From
#OSS
typist to gun wielding officer, she retired in 1979 as deputy chief of counterintelligence
@CIA
having trained U.S. officers on the methods and tactics of foreign espionage operatives.
#spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calendar
Day 1. This scarf was given to Vera Atkins, intelligence officer of F section
#SOE
by another F section agent, Claude de Baissac. He gave it to her on his return to England from the first of three missions in
#France
[IWM EPH 4090]
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 6. The owner of this delightful teddy bear was none other than Alan Turing. Christmas 1934, while still at university, Turing asked his mother for a teddy bear, complaining he had never had one as a child. You can meet 'Porgy'
@bletchleypark
#spyhistory
#AdventCalendar
#Day5
From the 1930s until the 1990s, MI5 vetted people who applied for work at the BBC and denoted possible ‘subversives’ (pacifists, members of left-wing groups etc) by putting a doodle of a Christmas tree on their personnel files.
#twitterstorians
I have a website! I will be sharing my ❤️ of
#WW2
intricate espionage operations, ingenious traitors & coded wartime communications via research blog postings & audio/visual presentation films -see below (full 3 mins available via website)
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 21. Not for the faint-hearted, this unique photograph shows 'Jeds' of the
#WW2
secret Operation Jedburgh team training on the high bars obstacle course at Milton Hall, Cambridgeshire, UK c. 1944.
#OSS
[Source: NARA]
#twitterstorians
Happy to announce my latest research with the fab
@adhistorian
is now OUT!!!! Wives of Secret Agents: Spyscapes of the Second World War & Female Agency in International Journal of Military History and Historiography
#spyhistory
From the outside, this may have looked like an ordinary suitcase. But it actually carried a Type 3 Mk.II radio with a range of over 1,000 miles.
It was carried by Allied spies and agents in occupied France to send secret information back to the UK.
This wonderful photograph captures a garden fete held by the WRNS in August 1944 at Wavendon House, an outstation of
@bletchleypark
Wavendon provided accommodation for the WRNS & housed a no. of Bombes (computing machines) that were an essential part of Bletchley Park's work.
This is quite remarkable - anonymous donation to
@bletchleypark
of rare film footage of those who worked at Whaddon Hall
#MI6
#WW2
A film that should never have been made due to top secret nature of work! One of a kind!
#spyhistory
#twitterstorians
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 20. This jumper with a darned bullet hole belonged to SOE agent Harry Rée (1914-1991). Harry orchestrated the successful destruction of the Peugeot factory at Sochaux. Later, he attempted to evade capture but was shot 4 times [IWM UNI 127805]
Wishing you all a happy & peaceful Easter! An egg inspired
#spyhistory
fact: Winston Churchill described the Bletchley team as 'the geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled'.
@bletchleypark
@ChuArchives
I will always remember this
@UkNatArchives
record because of the discovery I made back in May this year, but also the strong smell of tobacco that hit me as I turned each page. Sometimes it’s not just the written word that is preserved.
#spyhistory
#HERstory
I love Ben Macintyre's books, but this article is flawed. MI5 (and MI6) has never been an all-male organisation, and he should know better than to suggest this and add further fuel to sexist depictions of the secret services.
Women were, and still are, the cornerstone of MI5.
No, No, NO! Can we PLEASE stop perpetuating this counterfactual remark made by Harry Hinsley during a Q&A after a 1993 lecture. Of course, the work of those
@bletchleypark
possibly shortened the war BUT to put a number to that is crazy BECAUSE no one knew when the war would end!
Today, my excitement levels are off the chart!!!! My second-year students
@BGULincoln
have a whole session on 'women in intelligence'. I conclude my lecture with the question: How long do we have to wait for a woman to be appointed 'C' of SIS/MI6? (Judi Dench doesn't count 😉)
Next week semester one of the new academic year kicks off
@BGULincoln
I am delivering a new third-year history special subject devoted entirely to women in British intelligence. My excitement levels are OFF THE CHART!
@womenknowintel
#HERstory
#spyhistory
SOE's exploding rat! Unfortunately, the Germans smelt a rat and seized the first consignment. While there were no BIG bangs, the very idea caused more trouble than had the rats been successfully detonated by the enemy🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
NEW Publication!
@adhistorian
and I have had the following published in the Journal of Intelligence History - 'Landscapes of intelligence in the Third Reich: visualising Abwehr operations during the Second World War'
DM me for a free copy (50 available)😊
I’m off to
@bletchleypark
tomorrow and I can’t wait! It’s always a treat taking my students
@BGULincoln
@BGUMilitaryHist
@BGUHistory
For many it’s their first visit. Unlike ‘Captain Ridley’s shooting party’, we will be in need of ☔️ tomorrow.
Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence
📆 25 Sep 2024, 4.00pm
🎟️ £12.00
📍
@NAM_London
Claire Hubbard-Hall reveals the stories of women who worked behind the scenes of British Intelligence.
Book Now:
@spyhistory
1 April 1941 - short on space at Wembley, the RAF photographic interpretation unit moved to Danesfield House, Medmenham & was renamed the Central Interpretation Unit. Churchill’s daughter, Sarah, analysed aerial reconnaissance photos during 12hr shifts with eye tests every 8wks.
A fantastic
@BGULincoln
graduation
@LincsCathedral
where we welcomed the awesome
@James1940
who received an honorary doctorate 🤩 It was particularly fitting as the first cohort of
@BGUMilitaryHist
students graduated - they are all BIG fans of James’s work (we all are!)!
#Spyhistory
#Christmas
#Calender
Day 22. Hiding in the spotlight,
#WW2
resistance agent Josephine Baker was the spy
#France
needed. She was committed, courageous & complex. In 2021, she became the first Black woman to be honoured at the Panthéon.
#Herstory
continues to inspire.
After years of research, here is the real MI6 ‘secretary’ who inspired Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny character. Kathleen Pettigrew is finally getting the recognition she so rightly deserves
#HerSecretService
@wnbooks
@NorthbankTalent