Women In Espionage
Growing up, I am sure that all of us have seen a lot of spy cartoons, shows, movies, and even read books about them. I personally loved female spies defeating the bad guys. Totally spies was one cartoon that I clearly remember. It is a show about three young female spies, who go on epic adventures throughout the world. They strengthened my belief in female power defeating the odds.
In my teenage years, I came across a lot of other shows and movies: Olivia Mansfield (a.k.a. “M”) in Bond films; MI6 agent working in Berlin during the Cold War in Atomic Blonde; the famous and gorgeous Charlie’s Angels; Agent 99 in the classic Get Smart; Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation introduced Ilsa Faust, an MI6 agent; the iconic movie Red Sparrow; my favourite movie Salt, starring the stunning Angelina Jolie; And then of course, Russian spy turned Marvel superhero- Black Widow.
Bollywood too has its fair share of bad-ass spy movies. My favourite has been ‘Ek Tha Tiger (2012)’, in which Katrina Kaif plays a Pakistani spy who falls in love with an Indian RAW agent during an investigation in Dublin. Another notable movie with a sole woman lead is ‘Kahaani’ (2012). In this mystery thriller, Vidya Balan pretends to be a pregnant woman, searching for her husband, but is actually involved in an operation.
As I approached my last teenage year, I began to realise that spies have always fascinated us — and the image of a female agent is particularly compelling. But while the popular image of a glamorous woman using her wiles to extract secrets from enemies certainly permeates popular culture, the reality extends far beyond that. I learnt that in the world of espionage, women played a major part at the front lines as well as behind the scenes.
The first female spies that we know of, were those who served Britain during World War I. They showed both the powerful cultural images of women as well as the reality of the challenges, and contradictions of intelligence service. Between the founding of modern British intelligence organizations in 1909 and the demobilization of 1919, more than 6,000 women served the British government in either civil or military occupations as their intelligence.
The most famous female spy I came across is Mata Hari. This Dutch-born exotic dancer was a legendary femme fatale. She began her dancing career in Paris in 1905, and soon became a hit with the audiences from Berlin, Vienna, Madrid. That power led her to have affairs with many notable names in military and royalty. With the outbreak of WWI, Mata Hari came under the scrutiny of the French authorities due to her international connections. They believed that she was a double agent, passing information to a German consul. After a tip-off from British intelligence, she was arrested by the French government. Since the exact details of her crime remain a mystery till date, most scholars would think of Hari as the most tragic figure in espionage; as ‘the spy that never was’.
By the advent of WWII, espionage had become essential in times of war. There were two main organisations that oversaw intelligence activities; they were the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Their aim was to recruit ordinary men and women alongside traditional spies. Leading apparently normal lives, these men and women gathered information on strategic activities and locations, relaying it back to their relevant sources. The British SOE were active in every occupied country within Europe, and the American OSS helped to overlap the SOE. These women were trained to handle guns, explosives, memorize complex codes, organize munitions and supplies drops, endure harsh interrogation, and, in some cases, were in charge of thousands of men. To follow their stories is to follow the trajectory of the war.
Vera Atkins was born to a Jewish family in Romania. In 1941, she joined the French section of the S.O.E. After the war ended, Atkins went to Germany on a self-appointed mission to investigate the fate of the 118 French SOE agents, who had disappeared in enemy territory. Her mission was successful. In 1987, she was appointed Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur and is known as the Most Powerful Woman in the History of Espionage.
Virginia Hall’s dream to become a diplomat was shattered when she lost a part of her leg in a riding accident, and had to use a wooden prosthesis. In England, she joined the SOE and was sent back to France to help with the resistance. When she had to flee France, she walked to Spain with her prosthetic leg. She helped the resistance movement with the training of agents, gathering intelligence and founding safe houses to move stranded allied troops. The Germans declared her one of the most wanted spies of the war, calling her the ‘woman with the limp’ hence she trained herself to walk without a limp. In 1945, Hall received the Distinguished Service Cross by General William Donovan for services rendered in France and Spain. She is the only civilian woman to have received this award in all of WWII.
Nancy Wake, a New Zealander known to the Gestapo (German secret state police) as “The White Mouse”, for her ability to evade capture, helping hundreds of soldiers escape, oversaw a force of 7,000 guerrilla fighters and reportedly killed a Protection Squads guard with her bare hands. She was Gestapo’s most-wanted fugitive, with a price of 5 million francs on her head.
Women played an important role in the Indian freedom struggle too. We all remember the big names like Bhagat Singh or Subhash Chandra Bose but how many of us know some of the unsung heroes who supported them by remaining behind the curtains. Some women and their contributions to this country are exemplary yet unknown. One such woman that I was astounded by is Durga Bhabhi. After losing her husband at a very young age, she became very closely attached to the freedom struggle. She also had a deep influence and connections with the members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. This allowed her to be a prominent female spy. Once, on a mission she introduced herself as Bhagat Singh’s wife in order to save him. On another mission, to dupe over 500 policemen travelling in the same train, Bhagat Singh and Durga acted like a couple.
In this way, female secret agents and spies completed some of the most daring and duplicitous missions in history, using everything in their power to gain information, and risking it all for causes that they believed in. Each of these female agents should be brought out from the shadows of time, and applauded for their contribution. The woman in espionage, that arose in the Indian freedom Struggle and the World Wars proved to be highly intellectual, courageous, and extremely interesting characters. Their work was invaluable to the allied resistance movements and the freedom struggle. They did what men did. If it hadn’t been for their sacrifices and contributions, the world would be very different today.
