How celebrated ‘spymistress’ Vera Atkins helped protect Chelsea during the Blitz

Vera Atkins is one of the most famous woman intelligence officers of the Second World War because she was responsible for running women Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents into occupied France during the Second World War.

Her role and the exploits of her agents have been the subject of books, films and documentaries.

While it is known that she was an Air Raid Precautions Warden in Chelsea, the extent of her work in protecting civilians from air raids during the worst period of the London Blitz has not been given much attention.

And there is considerable evidence that it was her ARP work in the streets of Hanstown Ward around the King’s Road, Draycott and Sloane Avenues which led directly to her recruitment into the Special Operations Executive.

Her biographer Sarah Helm discovered that a fellow part-time Warden asked her to make up a Bridge party game of four in Thurloe Square, South Kensington frequented by SOE people where she played well and was noticed.

She lived with her mother in flat 725 Nell Gwynn House in Sloane Avenue between 1940 and 1946 which remains a spectacular Art Deco managed apartment block built to high steel frame and brick and concrete specifications in the 1930s.

Vera volunteered to be an ARP Warden and that meant working evenings, nights and weekends in addition to carrying out her highly pressured and stressful duties with the SOE between 1941 and June 1943.

She had to apply to be released from her Home Defence work and this was granted on the basis that her 55 hours a week ‘day job’ with SOE had become so demanding.

By the middle of 1943, she and her superior running F Section networks in France, Maurice Buckmaster, were concerned that some of their agents being parachuted into, or landed by Lysander aircraft in occupied France were being intercepted and rounded up by the Gestapo and German Intelligence.

With its reinforced basement, Nell Gwynn House was an ideal location for potential protection from high explosive and incendiary bomb attack.

In fact, the building itself was the location of Chelsea’s ARP “G” Warden’s Post that Vera was assigned to in 1940.

ARP Stretcher Bearer unit driver Isobel Haslewood had also decided to move to Nell Gwynn house on 17th September 1940 as she felt safer there. She called it her ‘small funk hole flat […] a large one room flat on the second floor in a bay of the building. It has a so called hall – a good bathroom. and a kitchenette and is in an excellent repair.’

Vera Atkins background and espionage

Vera Atkins was born Vera May Rosenberg on the 15th June 1908 in Galați, in the Kingdom of Romania. Her father, Max Rosenberg was German-Jewish and died n 1932. Her mother, Zefra Hilda née Etkins, known as Hilda, was British Jewish and died in 1947.

Atkins emigrated from Romania with her mother to Great Britain in 1937. This decision was based on the increase in antisemitism and growing political and economic instability in Europe.

In her life-time she assiduously sought to conceal her Jewish background. She would not discuss it during her archive interview with a researcher from the Imperial War Museum.

She was very likely conscious of the cultural antisemitism present in British society at the time as well as the fact that the terrible persecution and attempted annihilation of European Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s by the German Nazis and their allies meant her public identification as a Jew would have made her vulnerable.

Another difficulty she had was that while her mother was a British citizen, her birth in Romania meant she was not. As one of the Axis powers, Romania declared war on Great Britain and the United States in December 1941, thus making her officially ‘an enemy alien.’

Her direct superior in F-Section of SOE, Maurice Buckmaster, supported and endorsed her vital and sensitive work in an intelligence organisation commissioned by war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill to ‘set Europe ablaze’ during World War II by conducting sabotage and espionage behind enemy lines, and equipping and bolstering local resistance movements.

Antisemitic prejudices in the hierarchy of the SOE meant that Vera’s first application for naturalisation was rejected. It had to be processed by public notices in the Kensington News and the West London Times newspapers in January and February 1942:

‘Notice is hereby given that Vera May Atkins (otherwise Rosenberg, of 725, Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, S.W.3, in the County of London, Spinster, is applying to the Home Secretery for Naturalization, and that any person who knows any reason why Naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts to the Under Secretary of State, Home Office, S.W.1.’

Maurice Buckmaster enthusiastically supported her second application made two years later with a long letter of recommendation outlining the significance of her unique contributions to British intelligence and security operations.

It was anticipated that following the D-Day landings she would be needed on the ground in France and this would not be possible if she were still a citizen of Romania.

She was interviewed by the Home Office. Nothing detrimental against her was recorded by the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard. By the morning of 6th June 1944 she was now a British citizen.

Her surname ‘Atkins’ was a further Anglicisation of her mother’s maiden name ‘Etkins.’

There are two influential investigative biographies of Vera which have helped to raise her legend and significance.

The first was written and published in May 2005 by journalist Sarah Helm and titled: A Life In Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE. The second was written and published in November 2006 by William Stevenson and titled: Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II.

The blurb for A Life In Secrets said:

‘During World War Two the Special Operations Executive’s French Section sent more than four hundred agents behind enemy lines, where, as spies rather than soldiers, they risked execution if caught. At least one hundred of them were reported ‘Missing Believed Dead’ after the war. Among those who never returned were twelve young women whom Vera Atkins had helped to prepare for their missions, even escorting them to the aircraft from which they would parachute into Occupied Europe – some of them into the hands of the waiting Gestapo.

A Life In Secrets traces Vera’s lone search – what she called her ‘private enterprise – through the chaos of Allied-occupied Germany to establish the fate of the agents – in particular the women she had seen off: a harrowing trail that led her finally to the concentration camps of Natzweiler, Ravensbrück and Dachau. Not only did Vera uncover how the agents died, she also interrogated captured Gestapo officers, discovering the extent of SOE’s blundering and the treachery that had hastened her agents to their deaths.

But while the woman who carried out this extraordinary mission appeared quintessentially English, she was nothing of the sort. Vera Atkins, who never married, covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past. In A Life In Secrets Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera’s many veils.

With unprecedented access to official and private papers and the cooperation of Vera’s relatives, Sarah Helm has vividly reconstructed an incredible life. Travelling to a much-changed eastern Europe to see where Vera spent her early years, the writer has interviewed many figures from Vera’s past in order to understand a remarkable woman who refused to accept the verdict ‘Missing Believed Dead.’

The blurb for Spymistress said:

‘She was beautiful. She was ruthless. Recruited at the age of twenty-three by legendary spymaster William Stephenson – code name: Intrepid – Vera Atkins undertook countless perilous missions in the 1930s. Her fierce intellect, personal courage, and facility with languages quickly propelled her to the leadership echelon of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert intelligence agency formed by Winston Churchill. During World War II, she became Great Britain’s spymistress. Her agents penetrated deep behind enemy lines, aided resistance fighters, destroyed vital targets, helped Allied pilots evade capture, and radioed information back to London. They were prepared to die to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Vera Atkins was demobilized in 1947. Author William Stevenson was the only person she trusted to record her life – as he had done for her one-time recruiter, Intrepid – with one condition. He would not publish her biography until after her death. Here is her incedible story.’

Stevenson is the researcher and author who says Atkins was recruited before the war by Canadian spymaster Sir William Stephenson of British Security Co-ordination and who sent her on fact-finding missions across Europe to supply Winston Churchill (then in the ‘political wilderness’) with intelligence on the rising threat of Nazi Germany.

Helm is the researcher and author who says that in the spring of 1940, before joining SOE, Atkins travelled to Europe to effectively pay a bribe to German Abwehr officer, Hans Fillie, so that a passport could be issued to her cousin, Fritz enabling his escape from Romania.

Atkins was in Holland when the Germans invaded on the 10th May 1940. She needed help from the Belgian resistance to avoid capture and return to England later on that year.

She joined the French section of the SOE as a secretary in the spring of 1941. She became assistant to F-Section head Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, and her role had quickly transformed from secretary to intelligence officer.

Atkins remained a civilian intelligence officer until August 1944, when she was commissioned as a Flight Officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).

This enabled her to travel to Allied occupied Europe and investigate the War Crimes perpetrated against her women agents and establish what had happened to them after their capture.

Atkins’ main role in SOE was to recruit and deploy suitable British agents in occupied France who could speak fluent French and knew the country well. She also had responsibility for the 53 women SOE agents who worked as couriers and wireless operators for the various circuits established by SOE across occupied and Vichy regime controlled France.

Women were considered as having better cover as couriers. Young men of military age consistently seen moving from place to place inevitably aroused suspicion and were more likely to be stopped and questioned with their papers closely examined.

The women agents were also found to be particularly expert at fast and accurate morse code transmission, receiving and decoding. This was particularly the case with those who had musical ability.

Atkins would take care of the ‘housekeeping’ detail for their cover identities. Their clothing and belongings needed to be carefully scrutinised so as to match the fashion and everyday objects used in occupied France. Lipstick, matches, cigarettes, and clothing labels with British origin could prove fatal.

Their papers needed to be up-to-date with regulations, laws and practices imposed by German occupiers and the Vichy French regime run by Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval.

She would post undramatic and rather banal letters for her agents’ loved ones and families which had been pre-written by the agents with no hint that they were in enemy territory operating under a false name and legend.

These communications had to be coordinated and sent out regularly. In many respects she was a kind of social worker or liaison officer for the women’s families, creating and sustaining a mood of reassurance and security and always making sure their service pay was distributed on time.

She also had the distressing task of directly contacting the families of those women agents who were effectively ‘missing in action.’

She had the complex responsibility for coded communications to agent networks in France via the BBC radio broadcasts.

Atkins would often travel with the agents by car to the airfields and stand by to wave them off on their departure.

There would also be a final security check as the aircraft’s engines started up. Vera found these moments intensely stressful. At the same time Lysander aircraft would bring back agents ‘from the field’ and she once said the emotional extremes of this experience each night would ‘turn her inside out.’

She was trusted by Buckmaster. He recognised and respected her brilliant management skills, disciplined and accurate near photographic memory, and patriotic integrity, She was calm and would meet any crisis with concentration and a systematic intensity of organisation.

Physically Vera was tall among the women in SOE at 5 feet 9 inches. She struck an impressive figure often wearing elegant and individually tailored suits.

She chain-smoked filterless cigarettes. ‘Senior Service’ was her favourite brand. She can be heard striking matches, and repeatedly lighting up and inhaling on her cigarettes during her recorded interview with the historian from the Imperial War Museum.

It may be coincidental that Ian Fleming’s Secret Service James Bond character smoked Senior Service cigarettes in the novels Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, and The Man with the Golden Gun.

Neither biography devotes much space to her life in Chelsea during the Blitz and time in the Borough’s ARP Home Defence services, though Sarah Helm’s book does suggest it was her work as a Chelsea ARP warden which led to her recruitment into British World War Two intelligence.

At Page 183, Helm writes: ‘By June 1940, with German forces just across the Channel, Vera had moved back to London to live with her mother in a small two-room apartment in Nell Gwynn House, a block of well-appointed flats in Sloane Avenue. The local Air Raid Precautions group, which met in the basement, was already practising for the Blitz and accepted Vera as a member. A woman called Pat Holbeton, [actually Maud Patricia Holberton] also in the Chelsea ARP, remembered meeting Vera in her boiler suit as they patrolled the street. “She was always very cagey,” said Pat, “and I never really knew anything about her.” Pat was a friend of Elizabeth Norman, the SOE secretary at whose bridge party Vera had appeared in February 1941 when Pat had taken her along to make up a four.’

Pat Holberton was a shorthand typist, born 5th April 1916, and living with her mother Mary at 55-57 Cadogan Street. She was the daughter of the late Sir Campbell Scott Holberton who had been a successful stock broker.

Helm writes at page 23: ‘Vera always arrived at work by the same black cab. She had an arrangement with a driver, a Mr Lane, who collected her from her flat, where she lived with her mother, at Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, every morning, and dropped her outside an office block in Baker Street.’

At page 358 when the narrative moved to 1946 Helm writes: ‘These were busy times for Vera. Soon promoted within the Bureau, she also moved from Nell Gwynn House, where she had lived since 1940, to a small but airy new apartment on the top floor of a stucco-fronted terrace in Rutland Gate, just off Knightsbridge, which was convenient for the Special Forces Club, as well as Harrods.’

Stevenson had no references to Chelsea or her work in ARP in his biography.

In her oral interview with the Imperial War Museum, Vera did recollect about her time at the beginning of the Second World War:

‘I was doing ARP at the time, which kept one extremely busy during the Blitz. I started in August [19]40 to be precise and September [19]40 was the big Battle of Britain.’

Vera Atkins- ARP Warden in Chelsea

At the time of the late September 1939 National Register, Vera was staying in a house called ‘Magazine’ in Winchelsea, Sussex which was the home of her mother’s sister Auntie May Mendl. They were attended to by a housekeeping couple Siegfried and Ludmilla (Anna) Bauer.

Vera believed that as she was not a British national, unlike her mother, her applications to work for the British Red Cross, Postal Censorship and Land Army had been rejected on this ground.

It is likely that the ARP connection with fellow warden Pat Holberton, meeting her friend, SOE secretary Elizabeth Norman, at the Bridge party, and her previous intelligence connections with a Major Leslie Humphreys whom she had known in Bucharest, led to her receiving on 2nd April 1941, the invitation to meet the Special Operations Executive in Baker Street.

The brilliance of Sarah Helm’s research set out in A Life In Secrets at pages 6-7 turns on tracking down former SOE officer Peter Lee who was able to consult his diary for 10th March 1941: ‘Played bridge – Blitz – Beedles hit – windows out of Brooks – shaking like a jelly. Bridge at Elizabeth Norman’s house in Thurloe Square.’

Helm continued with her interview with Peter Lee: ‘Elizabeth often held bridge parties at her house and on one occasion a mutual friend brought Vera along to make up a four. “None of us knew who she was. But I remember she played a very good hand at bridge, probably because she carried everything in her head.’

Helm even managed to interview Elizabeth Norman who provided a description of a younger Vera Atkins who was as discreet and careful as she was in later life, would clearly say the least and harbour her secrets more securely than the Crown Jewels: ‘…she covered herself in mystery. And she was gracious – rather too gracious in a way that none of us really were. I think a friend of mine had met her on an ARP patrol and just brought her along when we were short of a fourth person. She seemed to have come from nowhere. You see, she was much older than us other girls. She had no context at all that I discovered. And we didn’t ask – one didn’t then. We had a sort of code, you know.’

Vera also kept the letter from SOE with the cover address of the ‘Inter-Services Bureau, 64 Baker Street, London W.1., Telephone Welbeck 7744’ in her private papers:

‘Dear Miss Atkins, Could you please get in touch with me as soon as possible, as I would like you to come and seen an Officer here as I think we have found a vacancy for you. Yours faithfully, For (Mrs) P.R. Stanier.’

Vera later said in the IWM oral history recording that the interview with Mrs Stanier was ‘strange’, and she did not like her because she was ‘a bad interviewer.’

Sarah Helm’s research and Vera’s personal papers, therefore, indicate that it was Vera’s application and acceptance and early work with Chelsea’s ARP services which more than likely led to her recruitment into F Section of the Special Operations Executive.

It would seem that Vera was officially and formally confirmed in her post as a Chelsea ARP Warden on the 15th October 1940 because that is the date she receives at her flat, 725 Nell Gwynn House, the letter from Geoffrey Square- Wardens’ Officer with the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea at the Town Hall in the King’s Road:

‘Air Raid Wardens’ Organisation

Dear Madam, I have to acknowledge with thanks the National Service Enrolment Form recently completed by you, and, on behalf of the Council, to express appreciation of your kind offer of Service.

I understand from the Post Warden (Mr. Vick) that you have arranged duties to your mutual satisfaction, and that you are now attached to Post “G”.’

Vera was in the ARP during the worst times of the London Blitz and bombing of Chelsea during the late autumn and winter of 1940 and spring of 1941.

The Head Warden of Post G when she joined was Richard J Vick. He was 49 years old and a ‘Timber Importer’ living at 36 Ovington Street in South Kensington. His housemate Peter Sparks, then 46, and an antiquarian expert in Chinese Art, was also an ARP Warden, along with their housekeeper and ‘manservant’ Leslie Williams, who was in Chelsea ARP’s First Aid Service.

The documentary evidence is that Vera Atkins was as professional, committed and hard-working in civil defence as she was in the intelligence field.

‘Post G’ in the Hanstown Ward district of East Chelsea would have its fair share of serious bombing and casualties- the worst on the night of 16th/17th April 1941, known as ‘The Wednesday’ when one of the seven parachute mines dropped on Chelsea that night directly struck one of the blocks of apartments in nearby Cranmer Court killing and severely injuring many of its residents.

Cranmer Court was another 1930s series of mansion blocks opposite Nell Gwynn house in Sloane Avenue and running parallel to Petyward Street and Whiteheads Grove.

Vera left no diary or recollection of her London Blitz experiences, but they would have been challenging and frightful to attend to.

It is more than likely she would have been called to the devastation in Basil Street on 10/11th May that year when another more powerful and sophisticted G-type land mine scored a direct hit on the SOE boarding house accommodating recently trained agents about to be flown to operate undercover in France.

Three were killed. Others were severely injured. It pleased Vera immensely to later recall that one of the SOE agents in the building to emerge unscathed would successfully operate in France with the codename ‘Bomb-Proof.’

Vera Atkins’ patrolling area from the G Warden’s Post at Nell Gwynn House took in the King’s Road in the south from Markham Street in the west to Sloane Square and Sloane Street in the east.

She was in the team responsible for the Peter Jones Department Store. The northern boundary of Post G’s area took in the Fulham Road at the junctions of Elystan Street, Lucan Place, Sloane and Draycott Avenues and Walton Street all the way to Lennox Gardens. The eastern boundary would then run along Moore Street, Cadogan Gardens, and Cadogan Terrace joining Sloane Street.

Post G also covered the late 19th century Guinness Trust Buildings estate on Draycott Avenue behind Cadogan Court with six blocks of flats (A to G) and a Warden’s shelter in block A.

During the war what is now Wiltshire Close was largely an open area traversed by the now deleted Cadogan Avenue, Smollett and Orford Streets and used by the Royal Engineers bomb disposal squads as ‘a dump’ for their equipment and de-activated Luftwaffe and RAF anti-aircraft ordnance. The more dangerous and powerful unexploded bombs (UXBs) would be transported to Hackney Marshes for detonation.

The Post G ARP Wardens area in Chelsea street maps published in 1937 and late 1940s. By 1947, the Council estate Wiltshire Close has replaced Cadogan Avenue, Smollett Street and Orford Street.

The western boundary ran from the King’s Road north along Markham and Elystan Streets to the Fulham Road.

The Post G Wardens also had responsibility for any bombs falling on the new Chelsea Police Station at the junction of Lucan Place and Pettyward and Makins Streets.

They would have been aware that Chelsea Police Station was where the Home Office Civil Servant responsible for all Civil Defence in Chelsea, Herbert Dunk, was based. He was the government official responsible for inspecting ARP operations, efficiency and effectiveness.

There were thirteen public shelter locations in their area. Several brick-built and concrete roofed covered public shelters had been constructed in the flats between Bulls Gardens and Richard’s Place. Cranmer Court had a basement shelter accessed from Sloane Avenue.

More public shelters were located in Elystan Street in Sutton Dwellings, the junction of Draycott Avenue and Walton Street, in the Congregational Church in Markham Square, at Thackeray Court in Elystan Place, in the Peter Jones and John Lewis depot at the junction of Mossop and Milner Streets, in Ives Street, in Halsey Street and at the junction of Hasker and Walton Streets.

The nearby Marlborough Elementary School with exits and entrances in Draycott and Sloane Avenues accommodated an Auxiliary Fire Service station and an Emergency Feeding centre- thus utilizing the school’s kitchen which had provided hot meals for children in more peaceful times.

There was another AFS station in the garage at the junction of Cadogan Gardens and Pavilion Road. There were three Animal First Aid centres- one based at the top of Bywater Street, and two more in Ovington and Ives Streets.

Vera and her fellow ARP Wardens knew where the doctors in their area lived, the locations of chemists, fire hydrants, gas detectors- usually yellow strips on the top of post boxes which would change colour with the presence of gas used in chemical warfare, and the street telephone boxes.

Nell Gwynn House in Sloane Avenue- the Chelsea home of Vera Atkins between 1940 and 1946

(By Tim Crook 2022-24)

Vera attended special training courses held at Chelsea Town Hall and at Post G in Nell Gwynn House for fire-fighting, first aid, and ‘Gas Canister Safety Precautions.’ She received a First Grade Civil Defence Certificate for First Aid on the 24th April 1942 signed by Chelsea’s Town Clerk and ARP Controller E.W.J. Nicholson.

She was fully trained in how to extinguish incendiary bombs, how to operate sprinkler systems and hydrants, and general fire-fighting techniques: opening and closing of doors; searching a house; moving inside a building on fire; dealing with smoke; dealing with clothing on fire; ‘rescuing insensible persons’, and first aid for burns injuries.

She was trained in advising the public in the event of invasion under the topics of ‘Stand Firm’, and ‘Carry On.’

The orders to ARP Wardens were: ‘You should give all the help you can to our troops, Do not tell the enemy anything, Do not give him anything, Do not help him in any way.

Under the question: ‘Should I defend myself against the enemy?’ Vera was instructed:

‘The enemy is not likely to turn aside to attack separate houses. If small parties are going about threatening persons and property in an area not under enemy control and come your way, you have the right of every man and woman to do what you can to protect yourself, your family and your home.’

By the end of May 1943 Vera’s responsibilities and work pressures in SOE meant that carrying on additional ARP duties put her under intolerable strain. She applied to be released from Civil Defence service.

On 2nd of June 1943 the journalist Harold Harbour, who was by then the Deputy Chief Warden, wrote her the following letter:

‘Dear Miss Atkins, Your letter to Mr. Hannay, dated 23rd May, has been passed to me, and I have noted your comments resulting from a suggestion that you should apply for release from the Wardens’ Service.

I note from the certificate accompanying your letter that your office hours “do not fall below 55 per week:, but this could be said with equal truth of a large number of our part-time wardens, many of whom, in addition to long hours at their business and their obligations as wardens, are also fulfilling Fire Guard duties on Business Premises, and some are even members of the Home Guard as well.

However, having regard to all the circumstances, the Controller has agreed to release you from the Wardens’ Service as from the date of this letter, and I am to convey his thanks for the services you have rendered in the past.’

Vera also received a handwritten note from the Head Warden of Post G, Mr John Hannay:

‘Dear Miss Atkins, Many thanks for returning your equipment so promptly. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your good services to this Post in the past.’

John Hannay was one of the true Chelsea village characters. A chiropodist by profession, and poet and connoisseur of Scottish Heritage at all other times, he lived in nearby Chelsea Cloisters. He would become one of Chelsea’s prominent local politicians after being elected as one of the councillors to represent Hanstown Ward. He became Deputy Mayor of Chelsea before his untimely death in 1963 at the age of 58 and shortly before Chelsea Borough Council was abolished to be joined with Kensington in local government reforms; something he vehemently opposed.

Hannay sought to revive the Scottish clan Hannay and amassed a collection of more than 400 tartans. The local weekly newspaper The Chelsea News would enthusiastically publish his poems and devoted a full editorial obituary tribute to him after his death following an operation at the Brompton Hospital.

Although nominated for an MBE immediately after the end of World War Two, Vera Atkins was not included in the Honours list. She had a post-war career with UNESCO until retiring to Winchelsea in 1961.

She was appointed CBE in the 1997 Birthday Honours, awarded Belgium’s Croix de Guerre in 1948 and made a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French government in 1987.

She passed away at the age of 92 on the 24th of June 2000 at a hospital in Hastings- not a bad innings for an inveterate smoker of strong cigarettes who in her working life invariably put in a shift of well over 60 hours. week.

Vera had steadfastly remained a proud and robust defender of SOE F Section’s wartime record.

Despite all the hazards of double agents, traitors and the considerable skill of German counter-intelligence, the proportion of casualties of SOE agents in her Section who did not survive the war was in the region of around 23 per cent- 14 out of 53 [MRD Foot’s 1966 SOE In France tabulated 12 executed out of 53 in addition to one who had died of meningitus while in France, and another murdered in London in 1952]; substantially less than the proportionate loss of RAF servicemen in Bomber Command or sailors who perished at sea in the Merchant Navy during the Battle of the Atlantic.

All SOE agents sent to France had been warned that there was only a one in two chance of their returning from their missions alive. The actual total proportion of men and women who did not come back from SOE operations in all theatres of war was roughly one in four.

Vera Atkins cared for her women agents.

She was determined to achieve justice for those who had been murdered by the Nazis.

She ensured every one of the twelve women who had died in the Nazi concentration camps of Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau and Ravensbrück would be properly commemorated by memorial plaques close to where they had been killed.

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All the SOE Women agents from F-Section sent to occupied France during the Second World War and a record of what happened to them. [From SOE In France by M.R.D. Foot, Crown Copyright 1966. A total of 53 are profiled with their real names and codenames, service unit name, intelligence circuit codename, date and method of entry (plane landing or parachute), and under ‘Destiny’ their fate in enemy territory and whether they came back.]

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The Chelsea Blitz: Chelsea at war between 1939 and 1945 by Tim Crook is coming soon with publication by Kultura Press in 2025.

The book will contain in narrative form all of the postings on Chelsea Blitz history posted and in continuing development in Chelsea History and Studies. Publication is by popular demand from people and online readers wanting to have a book form of this remarkable story of the people’s history of Chelsea during these dramatic years.

It is expected to be the most comprehensive history of Chelsea during the Second World War years to date.

The online postings will remain on open access though with all rights reserved.

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Media, archive and online resources on the life of Vera Atkins and her intelligence work during the Second World War

Wikipedia entry on Vera Atkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Atkins

Imperial War Museum. Private Papers of Squadron Officer V M Atkins CBE. See: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030021612

Imperial War Museum. Oral History interview recorded with Vera May Atkins. Three sound reels.

[Apologies that the Imperial War Museum has unnecessarily encoded an ‘Accept All Cookies’ pop up prompt with their embedded links to their audio files. Clicking on the Accept button will remove them.]

Reel One:- ‘Background in Galați, Romania, France, Switzerland and GB, 1908-1939: family; education in France and Switzerland. Aspects of period as civilian in Winchelsea, GB, 1939-1941: reaction to declaration of Second World War, 3/9/1939; problem of sandbagging local post office; reaction to arrival of evacuees from East End, London. Recollections of period as civilian and officer with F Section, Special Operations Executive at Headquarters, Baker Street, London, GB, 1941-1945: recruitment to Special Operations Executive, 2/1941; personnel at headquarters; death of agents awaiting despatch during German air attack on London; promotion and posting to Norgeby House; code letters used by officers; knowledge of Colonel Leslie Humphreys; early organisation of headquarters and recruitment of agents; daily routine.’

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Reel Two: ‘Continues: pattern of training for recruits; qualities looked for in recruits and losses; opinion of Odette Sansom; opinion of Harry Rée; sending coded messages to expectant fathers in the field; memories of Major Roger Landes; background to recruitment of female agents; opinion of Maurice Buckmaster; intensity of work including duties, hours worked and night work.

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Reel Three: ‘Continues: contact with next-of-kin; documentation of section’s actions; destruction of records; question of security; question of reactions of agents’ relatives; attitude towards outgoing and returning agents; attempts to ascertain fates of agents during war crime trials in Germany, from 1/1946; physical condition of returning agents; nature of work in Paris, France, 1944-1945.’

Into The Dark– a short film by Genevieve Simms on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/33965059)

Short film about Vera Atkins, Intelligence Officer with Special Operations Executive, during World War II. She was involved deeply in the secret work of inserting secret agents into Occupied France, and was particularly responsible for the welfare of the female agents – her ‘girls’.

Using original sound recordings of an interview with Vera Atkins, Into the Dark recounts the last journey of agents. Subscription to Vimeo required.

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Learning on Screen links engage if you or your educational institution has a subscription to Learning on Screen (Box of Broadcasts) and you log in to the relevant account.

Secret War: The Spymistress and the French Fiasco, Monday, 20 Jun 2011, 21:00 60 mins, Yesterday.

Synopsis: WWII documentary series. Intelligence officer Vera Atkins – said to be the influence for James Bond character Miss Moneypenny – traced the fate of 118 missing SOE agents following the end of World War II

Learning on Screen Citation: Secret War, The Spymistress and the French Fiasco, 21:00 20/06/2011, Yesterday, 60 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/01C82ED5?bcast=66215629 (Accessed 13 Dec 2024)

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Nazi Hunters (2011) Justice – SAS Style, Friday, 13 Dec 2013, 17:00 60 mins, Yesterday

Synopsis: An investigative look is taken into the SAS war crimes when the secretive search for Gestapo officers led to their violent deaths without questioning for several years after the war until the remaining executioners were brought to justice.

Learning on Screen Citation: Nazi Hunters, Justice – SAS Style, 17:00 13/12/2013, Yesterday, 60 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/013394CB?bcast=104725386 (Accessed 13 Dec 2024)

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WW2: Women on the Frontline (2024), Behind Enemy Lines, Saturday, 3 Aug 2024, 19:00 60 mins, Channel 4

Synopsis: This first episode tells the remarkable stories of women who fought the Nazi invaders in occupied Europe, as well as an Austrian spy who successfully infiltrated the United States.

Learning on Screen Citation: WW2: Women on the Frontline, Behind Enemy Lines, 19:00 03/08/2024, Channel 4, 60 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/3C2FBD66?bcast=141531706 (Accessed 13 Dec 2024)

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Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), Saturday, 25 Jun 2016, 08:15 115 mins, BBC2 England

Synopsis: True story of young English war widow Violette Szabo, who became a secret agent in occupied France during the Second World War. Exposed to the brutality of the Gestapo and the degradation of the concentration camps, she found herself facing a continual struggle for survival. But through sheer courage and grim determination, she eventually became the first woman to be awarded the George Cross

Learning on Screen Citation: Carve Her Name with Pride, 08:15 25/06/2016, BBC2 England, 115 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/00006C59?bcast=121937318 (Accessed 13 Dec 2024)

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The Princess Spy: Timewatch, The Princess Spy, Thursday, 27 Aug 2015, 00:05 50 mins, BBC4

Synopsis: Documentary about Noor Inayat Khan, who in 1943 became the first woman wireless operator to be sent into war-torn France. It was the most dangerous job in SOE, Churchill’s secret army, and she was not expected to survive long. The daughter of an Indian mystic and a writer of children’s stories in pre-war Paris, she was a curious choice for a secret agent, but became London’s vital link with Nazi-occupied Paris. Betrayed, captured and tortured, Noor revealed nothing before she was executed.

Learning on Screen Citation: The Princess Spy: Timewatch, The Princess Spy, 00:05 27/08/2015, BBC4, 50 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/0AB4B779?bcast=116328742 (Accessed 13 Dec 2024)

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A Call To Spy 2019  Amazon Prime and video streaming services.

Synopsis: ‘Inspired by incredible true stories. At the beginning of WWII Churchill orders his new spy agency to recruit women as spies to build a resistance. SOE’s “spymistress” Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), recruits Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas), an ambitious American with a wooden leg and Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte), a Muslim pacifist, who leave an unmistakable legacy in their wake.’

Wikipedia profile of ‘A Call To Spy’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Call_to_Spy

[Apologies that the embedded links from the Imperial War Museum of the archived interview with Vera Atkins require you consent to accept their cookies. The prompts for each embed pop up every time you may refresh the page.]

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Special thanks to Karen White and Chris Pain whose families lived in Chelsea during World War Two, and Malachy John McCauley, also brought up in Chelsea, who have very kindly encouraged and assisted my research. Special thanks to Marja Giejgo for editorial assistance. Research and archive facilities from Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council library services, The Imperial War Museum and National Archives at Kew.

If you would like to protect the history and heritage of Chelsea do consider applying to be a member of The Chelsea Society which ‘was founded in 1927 to protect the interests of all who live and work here, and to preserve and enhance the unique character of Chelsea for the public benefit.‘

I am also a great believer in the importance of local libraries for preserving the memory of community and local history. Royal Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council library services were my refuge and temples of learning when I was brought up in Chelsea. They continue to provide outstanding lending and archive services, have been invaluable in my continuing research and writing about the people of Chelsea. I give tribute to all who work in them, use them and support them.

Congratulations to The Chelsea Citizen, a dynamic new hyper-local newspaper launching in the spring 2025. Founder & Editor Rob McGibbon, Chelsea resident for 30 years and 40 years a respected and campaigning journalist. This is a significant and important development in the history of newspapers and journalism in Chelsea. Whole-hearted support from Chelsea History and Studies. Sign up for the Chelsea Citizen Newsletter.

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