special operations executive

Examines the life of Vera Atkins, who recruited and trained hundreds of agents in the Special Operations Executive, Great Britain's secret organization that helped build and supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe, and chronicles her efforts to discover what happened to missing agents in France after the war.

Unveils the history of female agents who worked behind enemy lines during World War II, and the stories of those who established a web of resistance across the continent.

After a tragic childhood among the Great War cemeteries of Flanders Fields, a troubled young woman searches for love and meaning in war-ravaged Europe. Elaine Madden's quest takes her from occupied Belgium through the chaos of Dunkirk, where she flees disguised as a British soldier, into the London Blitz, where she finally begins to discover herself. Recruited to T Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a 'fast courier', she is parachuted back to the country of her birth to undertake a top-secret political mission and help speed its liberation from Nazi oppression. Elaine Madden never claimed to be a heroine, but her story proves otherwise. Its centrepiece - war service as one of only two women SOE agents parachuted into enemy-occupied Belgium - is just one episode in an extraordinary real-life drama of highs and lows, love, loss and betrayal.