Revealed: the secret female army that spied for Britain

They were housewives, misfits, ex-public schoolgirls, a princess, linked by bravery and a woman who became the model for Miss Moneypenny. By Jonathan Thompson and David Randall

They were Britain's most unlikely secret weapon of the Second World War: a clandestine army of unconventional women. Among them were newlyweds, housewives, former public schoolgirls and even an Indian princess. But they all had one thing in common: they were ready to go far behind enemy lines, link up with local resistance fighters, organise sabotage, help escaping POWs, radio information back to London and, ultimately, were prepared to die to help liberate Europe.

Women such as Yolande Beekman, the Hampstead-educated bride of a Dutchman parachuted into France and whose story is told in File HS9/114/2. Women such as Odette Hallowes, File HS9/648/4, a London mother whose work with the French resistance ended with her capture by the Gestapo. And women such as Noor Inayat Khan, an Indian princess whose "clumsiness" and "timidity" in training did not stop her being one of the first female agents sent to France.

The full story of their heroism and that of hundreds of their male counterparts is about to be revealed in a huge tranche of secret documents released this week by the National Archives.

Masterminding the whole network, from London, was Vera Atkins, a woman whose very name exuded ordinariness but who was, in reality, anything but. She is often said to be the model for Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films, but the connection between the lovesick bit-part player of the movies, and the woman whosupervised one of the most extraordinary ventures of the war, is not great.

Atkins was the principal assistant to Major Maurice Buckmaster, director of the French section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), set up by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze" by sabotage and subversion.

One of the primary tasks of the section was to locate, prepare and brief agents before sending them into occupied France, a process in which Atkins swiftly became indispensable. Born in 1908 to an English mother and Romanian father, Vera Atkins was brought up in Bucharest before moving to England with her parents in 1933. Like the majority of SOE operatives, she had no military background – her fellow agents included a drag artist, a racehorse trainer, a chef and Lewis Gielgud, brother of the actor John Gielgud. The only thing each of them had in common was an ability to speak perfect French – and it was Miss Atkins's job to prepare these unsuspecting civilians to spy in occupied territory.

She went to extraordinary lengths to establish and protect her agents' cover, even sending one to a dentist to have his fillings redone in the French manner. She displayed formidable skills as an interrogator, questioning a number of high-profile prisoners of war, including Rudolf Hess. The files also include details of Atkins's post-war quest to discover the fate of 118 British agents who never returned from behind enemy lines. Through exhaustive investigation and interrogation of witnesses over a number of months, she managed to uncover the fate of all but one. The 118th, a compulsive gambler, was last seen in Monte Carlo carrying three million francs of secret service money.

The fate of some of those she had selected, coached and sent to France made for painful discoveries. She had a total of 39 female agents in France and 13 of them never returned. Among those was Yolande Beekman who, after working as a radio operator for three months in late 1943 near Tours, was captured by the Gestapo, interrogated, imprisoned and shot at Dachau in September 1944.

Executed with her was Noor Inayat Khan, a princess by birth and children's author by occupation. After working for five months in the Le Mans area, helping Allied airmen escape and sending back vital intelligence, she was detained by the Germans and, after an escape attempt was foiled by an air raid, was taken to Dachau and shot on 13 September.

One who did pull through was Odette Hallowes, who survived capture by the Gestapo, interrogation and, according to the documents, torture in the notorious Fresnes prison in Paris. She was transferred to Ravensbruck concentration camp in northern Germany where, her file records, "she was told that she would have no food to eat ... at the end of five days, Source [Odette] was found on the floor delirious".

Hallowes was liberated in 1945 and returned to England, but suffered from the effects of her ordeal for many months. She died in 1995 at the age of 82 in her home at Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

Vera Atkins was demobilised in 1947, and moved to Winchelsea in East Sussex, where, until her death in 2000 at the age of 92, she lived just across the Channel from the country whose liberation she had done so much to aid.

Additional reporting by Genevieve Roberts

Children's author who saved lives of 30 airmen

Noor Inayat Khan

Born in Moscow, she grew up in England and France. Before the war, Khan was a published children's author, and arranged a children's hour for Radio Paris.

Her files show that she was not an obvious candidate for espionage, saying that she "hadn't the foggiest idea what the training was going to be about". She is also described as "pretty scared of weapons" and "not overburdened with brains" (a scrawled comment in the margin says "we don't want them overburdened with brains"). Khan's "natural clumsiness" is also cited as a drawback in explosives training.

Despite these reservations, she was given the alias "Madeleine" and flown to Le Mans in June 1943. She went on to help 30 airmen escape, often putting herself in great personal danger. One official form reads: "Ensign Inayat Khan had several narrow escapes and on one occasion returned to her house to find the Gestapo awaiting her. Through her presence of mind she succeeded in evading them."

Khan's papers also give details of her death. Initially she was thought to have died in Natzweiler concentration camp, but investigations by Atkins proved that she was executed in Dachau on 13 September 1944, along with Yolande Beekman and two others.

'She had contempt for danger'

Odette Hallowes

Born in Amiens, France in 1912, she settled in London during the 1930s and joined the SOE in 1942.

Hallowes' official papers reveal that her superiors suspected she had "little experience of the outside world" but commendable "patriotism and keenness to do something for France".

She was sent to occupied France by sea on 2 November 1942 to work as a clandestine courier and radio operator.

Her secret file reads: "She was frequently stopped and searched by police and Gestapo, and always showed outstanding coolness and complete contempt for danger. She arranged for several parachute deliveries of arms and equipment, and was always present on the ground to direct the operations."

Hallowes was finally caught by the Gestapo in April 1943. Medical papers from after the war indicate that during her imprisonment she was subject to torture, including having her toenails torn out.

Liberated in 1945, Hallowes found herself a national heroine upon her return to England, and was awarded the George Cross in November 1946. Later, she became the subject of both a book and a feature film.

'Great courage in face of risk'

Yolande Beekman

Born in Paris in 1911, she moved to London when she was still a child and by adulthood could speak English, German and French fluently. She joined SOE in February 1943, and that September was transferred to Tours as a radio operator.

Beekman's file contains extensive details of her work and her subsequent arrest by the Gestapo in January 1944.

One of the documents reads: "For four months she carried out her hazardous work in this very difficult and dangerous region, and by her efficiency and devotion to her work made possible the delivery of arms and explosives to the resistance forces ... She showed great courage and coolness in face of the constant dangers and risks she underwent."

The file also contains correspondence between Yolande's mother and the spy network's "mastermind", Vera Atkins, including claims by the former that her daughter was pregnant when she was sent to France. The assertion was refuted by the SOE.

Of Beekman's death alongside other female F Section agents in Dachau, the secret papers say: "They were handed over to some camp official and spent the night in the cells. Between 8 and 10 the next morning (13 September 1944) they were taken to the crematorium compound and shot through the head and immediately cremated."