Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins & the Missing Agents of WWII (2 page)

Colin Gubbins
(M, later executive director of SOE [CD])

Leslie Humphreys
(first head of F Section)

Gerry Morel
(F Ops, Operations Officer)

John Senter
(head of SOE security directorate)

Penelope Torr
(F Recs, Records Officer)

SOE A
GENTS (
W
OMEN)

Yvonne Baseden
(W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Yolande Beekman
(alias Yvonne, W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Oenise Bloch
(W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Andrée Borrel
(alias Denise, courier for Prosper)

Madeleine Oamerment
(alias Martine Dussautoy, courier for France

Antelme, Prosper subcircuit)

Noor (Nora) Inayat Khan
(alias Madeleine, call sign Nurse, W/T operator for Prosper subcircuit)

Cicely Lefort
(courier for SOE circuit)

Vera Leigh
(alias Simone, courier for Prosper subcircuit)

Eileen Nearne
(wireless operator for SOE circuit)

Stmia Olschanesky
(courier for Prosper subcircuit)

Eliane Plewman
(courier for SOE circuit)

Lilian Rolfe
(W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Diana Rowden
(courier for SOE circuit)

Yvonne Rudellat
(alias Jacqueline Gauthier, courier for Prosper subcircuit)

Odette Sansom
(later Churchill, later Hallowes, courier for SOE circuit)

Violette Szabo
(courier for SOE circuit)

Pearl Witherington
(alias Pauline, courier for Wrestler circuit, later organiser)

SOE A
GENTS (
M
EN)

Jack Agazarian
(W/T operator for Prosper subcircuit)

France Antelme
(alias Antoine, Prosper subcircuit)

Francis Cammaerts
(organiser of Jockey circuit)

Henri Déricourt
(alias Claude, alias Gilbert, air movements officer)

Henri Frager
(alias Paul, alias Louba, organiser of SOE circuit)

Fmile Garry
(alias Cinema, alias Phono, organiser of Prosper subcircuit)

John Macalister
(alias Valentine, W/T operator for Archdeacon circuit)

Bob Maloubier
(alias Paco, sabotage instructor, SOE circuit)

Gilbert Norman
(alias Archambaud, call sign Butcher, W/T operator for Prosper subcircuit)

Harry Peulevé
(alias Jean, W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Frank Pickersgill
(alias Bertrand, organiser of Archdeacon circuit)

Marcel Rousset
(alias Leopold, W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Robert Sheppard
(alias Patrice, sabotage instructor, SOE circuit)

Maurice Southgate
(alias Hector, organiser Wrestler circuit)

John Starr
(alias Bob [and known as Bob Starr], organiser for SOE circuit)

Brian Stonehouse
(alias Celestine, W/T operator for SOE circuit)

Francis Suttill
(alias Prosper, organiser of Physician circuit, known as Prosper circuit)

G
ERMAN
P
ERSONNEL

Theresia Becker
(chief wardress, Karlsruhe prison)

Franz Berg
(crematorium stoker, Natzweiler concentration camp)

Hugo Bleicher
(alias Colonel Heinrich, Abwehr intelligence officer)

Josef Goetz
(radio expert, Avenue Foch)

Hans Josef Kieffer
(counterintelligence chief, Avenue Foch)

Horst Kopkow
(senior counterintelligence officer, Berlin)

Christian Ott
(Karlsruhe Gestapo officer)

Johann Schwarzhuber
(camp overseer, Ravensbrück concentration camp)

Peter Straub
(executioner, Natzweiler concentration camp)

Fritz Suhren
(commandant, Ravensbrück concentration camp)

Max Wassmer
(Karlsruhe Gestapo officer)

S
ELECTED
F
AMILY
M
EMBERS

Phoebe Atkins
(wife of Guy), sister-in-law

Ronald Atkins
(son of Ralph and Hedy), nephew

Zenna Atkins
(daughter of Guy and Phoebe), niece

Arthur Rosenberg
, uncle

Fritz Rosenberg
(son of Arthur and Nina), cousin

George Rosenberg
(son of Arthur and Nina, twin of Hans), cousin

Hans Rosenberg
(son of Arthur and Nina, twin of George), cousin

Hilda Rosenberg
(formerly and later Atkins), mother

Karen Rosenberg
(née Gehlsen), wife of Fritz

Max Rosenberg
, father

Ralph Rosenberg
(later Atkins), brother

Siegfried Rosenberg
, uncle

Wilfred Rosenberg
(later Guy Atkins), brother

Prologue

I met Vera Atkins just once.

In May 1998, a few weeks before her ninetieth birthday, I visited her at her home in Winchelsea, on the East Sussex coast. A collection of immaculate white-boarded houses on top of a hill, Winchelsea has a post office, a shop, a pub, and a tearoom, all set around a large church and a green. At the bottom of the hill is the Winchelsea railway station and a collection of more modest houses. Vera lived at the top of the hill in a house called Chapel Platt.

I pressed a buzzer on what looked like a sophisticated intercom and found myself staring at a little smiley face on a sticker. GIVE ME TIME TO LOOK AT YOU, it read. A few moments later a woman appeared at the door. She looked at me carefully. Perhaps I was not quite what the video intercom had led her to expect. Now ushering me inside, she stooped somewhat and leant heavily on a stick. As she turned to lead the way, I found myself staring at a perfect roll of white-grey hair, tucked under at the nape of her long neck.

Vera Atkins was a woman who had preserved her good looks remarkably well, and at nearly ninety she was still almost pretty. Tall despite the stoop and poised despite the wobble, she led the way into the large entrance hall, where a portrait of her hung on the wall. It showed Vera in old age, with the fingers of both hands brought together under her chin, to produce a thoughtful pose. “Brian Stonehouse painted that one,” she said. “He was one of our agents. He survived four concentration camps.”

She told me to go on up to the living room on the first floor, as she would come up in “the contraption.” I saw that she was referring to a disabled lift that seemed to have been installed in an old dumbwaiter shaft. Vera sat in it, and it was like a box with its top sliced off so that when I turned at the half landing, I saw her disembodied head emerging through the floor just above me.