Women: Special Operations Executive

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I join the thanks to my noble friend Lady Crawley for this opportunity to recognise the very brave women in the Special Operations Executive. I have a particular interest as I am a trustee of the Imperial War Museum and the author of a study in the late 1980s into whether women ought to be employed in Royal Navy ships, which led to them taking up such employment in the early 1990s. During that study, one of the issues often raised with me—many points were raised with me to the effect that it should not happen—was the ability of women to cope with conditions of combat. It is interesting that the SOE had addressed those issues more than 50 years before. Initially, there was a great deal of opposition to their being employed, as some noble Lords have said, but authorisation to use them came finally from Churchill himself, according to Selwyn Jepson, who was the recruiting officer for the French section of SOE. Interestingly, after the war, Jepson recalled:

“In my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women … have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men”—

something to which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred. That was an interesting reflection.

Of course, most of us have heard of Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, and Noor Inayat Khan—probably less of her. They were all George Cross winners, and two of them were killed. Feature films were made of two of them, as has been said. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, touched on Nancy Wake. How many have heard of her—the White Mouse? She led a band of 7,000 French Resistance maquisards in the Auvergne, and that was just before and during the liberation of France. She killed an SS man with her bare hands—a horrifying thought—and now she lives in the Star and Garter home in Richmond. It is quite incredible.

Of course, we must not forget that 67 years ago tonight more than 1 million men were fighting on the beaches of Normandy, in the air over Normandy and in some 5,500 Royal Navy ships—sadly nowadays we have rather fewer—off the coast of Normandy, but women were doing so in France. I mention one who was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton: Pearl Witherington. She ran the Wrestler network, as was said, fielding about 1,500 men. The Germans put 1 million francs on her head, and during that crucial D-day period it was estimated that her network killed 1,000 Germans and took 1,800 prisoners. It is quite remarkable and almost unheard of. She was recommended for a Military Cross, but because she was a woman she could not have one. I am glad to say that that has now changed.

The murder of 13 such women in Germany, even though they were members of the FANY—the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry—and the Women’s Royal Air Force, which should have protected them, was an appalling crime. I end with a verse from a poem that put words in the mouth of Violette Szabo by a man called Leo Marks, who was a cipher officer, which I think encapsulates these women:

“The life that I have

Is all that I have

And the life that I have

Is yours”.

I believe that we owe these very brave and formidable women recognition. It is not too late, but it is over to you.