There are some female spies who carried maps through minefields, and there are some who hid codes in their hair, but either way, they did their jobs pretty well.
Yvonne Cormeau
400 radio messages in 13 months sounds like a lot, but that was Yvonne Cormeau’s tally. She did it all while working in occupied southwest France. The German detection crews kept trying to track illegal transmitters, yet still, she worked under the codename Annette.
Yvonne helped to arrange weapons drops for the Wheelwright resistance network. It was a tense and repetitive job. And, of course, very dangerous, but she still did it. There was actually a moment when she was struck by a bullet and it was only slowed by coins in her pocket.Â
Velvalee Dickinson
Velvalee Dickinson was someone who had to deal with all sorts of difficult codes. A broken doll, that meant a damaged warship. A doll hospital, that was a naval repair yard. The New York doll-shop owner had to use the codes while mailing information about American naval activity.
It took a long time for her lies to be figured out. It actually took until several of her letters were returned for the truth to come out, as postal inspectors took a closer look. Dickinson was arrested in 1944 and given a ten-year prison sentence.
Elvira Chaudoir
German intelligence recruited her because they thought they’d found a useful source, but no. She went to the British and became a double agent nicknamed Bronx. In fact, she helped pass along false information before D-Day about where the Allies would land.
Whether it was casinos or expensive hotels, even diplomatic parties, Elvira Chaudoir worked them all. She didn’t seem like someone involved in any kind of deception because she appeared to be a wealthy socialite. That kind of worked in her favor.
Olga Gray
Sometimes, being a spy involves a lot of slow work, just ask Olga Gray. She was sent by the British intelligence forces to join British Communist circles during the 1930s, under the name Miss X. It worked. She gained the trust of Percy Glading, who used an apartment she rented.
Gray watched and listened to his every move. She reported them all back. She was so fearless, in fact, that in 1938, she gave evidence from behind a screen in court to convict members of the spy ring. She did it all without publicly showing her face.
Nathalie “Lily” Sergueiew
Nathalie Sergueiew traveled around Germany as a journalist and even interviewed Hermann Göring before the war. She eventually persuaded German intelligence to train her as an agent. But it seems that was a lie because she offered herself to MI5 instead, once on British shores.
Her codename was Treasure, because really, there was no better secret name. Sergueiew sent Germany false reports that included fake Allied threats away from Normandy.Â
Jeannie Rousseau de Clarens
Jeannie Rousseau de Clarens was in occupied France during World War II. But she had one huge advantage, her German was excellent. Yes, she worked as an interpreter and was often near officials with loose lips, so she heard a lot of juicy details that she passed on.
She asked questions and attended social gatherings. She picked up details about Germany’s military weapons and, under the codename Amniarix, she gave that info onto the Allies. Her 1943 report reached London before Britain bombed the Peenemünde rocket-creation site.
Phyllis “Pippa” Latour Doyle
Phyllis Latour Doyle might’ve only been 23 years old, but she used her age to her advantage. She parachuted into Normandy and pretended to be a French teenager, displaced by the war.Â
It was a great trick. Now, she could move around without drawing quite as much attention. Carrying radio equipment was not safe or anything, but still, she sent 135 coded messages to Britain.
How? By writing codes on silk and hiding them inside a hair tie. She had to keep disappearing because German radio-detection vans were looking for secret transmitters.
Josefina Guerrero
There was a reason why Japanese soldiers tended to avoid Josefina Guerrero. She had Hansen’s disease, commonly known then as leprosy. But she turned that fear into cover, and while working in occupied Manila, she carried supplies for the resistance.
She was able to make it past checkpoints without being searched closely because of her disease. That kind of prejudice worked in her favor sometimes. She actually strapped a map of Japanese minefields to her back and walked it to American troops. What a woman.
Pearl Witherington
She entered France as a courier in 1943. She ended up commanding roughly 2,000 resistance fighters. Pearl Witherington worked tirelessly as a spy in Nazi-occupied France, right up until the Gestapo arrested her network leader, Maurice Southgate. So, Witherington took over.Â
She worked under the codename Pauline and ran the Wrestler network in central France. Britain initially offered her a civilian medal instead of a military one.
ElĹĽbieta Zawacka
Elżbieta Zawacka reached London in 1943. She’d managed to make her way out of occupied Poland, all thanks to a string of false identities and secret routes. She was known as Zo. Her work for the Polish Home Army involved carrying reports and cash, along with orders.
She also had to carry tiny rolls of microfilm, right across Europe. It’s not like her work ended after London, though. She met the Polish government-in-exile and pressed for women to receive military status before parachuting back into Poland. Talk about drama.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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