The Woman With the 5 Million Franc Price on Her Head

In researching my book The Light Over London I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

One of my favorite bars in London is called the American Bar in the Stafford Hotel on St. James Place. You can imagine my delight then when I realized that the American Bar was also a favorite haunt of Nancy Wake, one of the most dynamic, fascinating spies of World War II.

Born in New Zealand in 1912 and raised in Australia, Wake ran away from home at 16. She used £200 that she’d inherited from an aunt to get herself to New York City and London where she trained as a journalist. In the 1930s, she was a European correspondent for the Hearst newspaper group, and while she was working in Vienna she witnessed the rise of the Nazi party and its terrorism of Jewish people.

Wake was living in Marseille with her French industrialist husband, Henri Edmond Fiocca, when Germany invaded in 1940. As an interned person, she quickly became involved in the fight against the Germans as a courier for the French resistance. At this time, she also began to work for Captain Ian Garrow’s escape network, which smuggled Allied internees, POWs and other people out of France to Britain.

Wake’s status as the wife of a wealthy industrialist afforded her privileges others didn’t have including the ability to travel more freely than most people. However, Wake also freely admitted to using her sexuality to move through German checkpoints, calling herself “a flirtatious little bastard.”

“A little powder, a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’”

Wake was so successful as an agent that the Gestapo began calling her the “White Mouse” because, despite suspecting her of working for the resistance, the Germans could never catch her doing anything criminal. To try to catch her, they tapped her phone and began to intercept her mail. Wake was eventually arrested in Toulouse but released after four days after one of her fellow resistance fights lied about her being his mistress, claiming that they needed to hide her identity from her jealous husband. (None of which was true.)

By November 1942, Wake was the most wanted person in Marseille with a 5 million franc price on her head. Garrow had been betrayed and arrested, but he was able to escape France into Spain. Wake continued his work, but eventually her life was in so much danger that became necessary for her to flee. She also escaped from France into Spain through the Pyrenees after seven attempts. (For those who have read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, this is the crossing that is described in harrowing detail during parts of that narrative.)

After her escape, Wake made her way to Britain. However, her husband stayed behind and was captured. Despite being tortured, he refused to betray her, and the Gestapo executed him. Wake didn’t learn of his death until after the war.

In Britain, Wake joined the Special Operations Executive. She was a good shot, fearless, and fiesty. Vera Atkins, who oversaw all SOE agents in France, called her “a real Australian bombshell” who “put the men to shame by her cheerful spirit and strength of character.”

““A little powder, a little drink on the way, and I’d pass their posts and wink and say, ‘Do you want to search me?’””

Wake would go on to prove that strength of character over and over. She once parachuted into Auvergne where she was discovered tangled up in a tree by Captain Henri Tardivat who ran a group of rural guerrillas fighting against the occupation (a maquis). He reportedly said, “I hope that all trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year.”

“Don’t give me that French shit,” she replied.

Wake recruited members to the maquis, and was involved in multiple attacks on key strategic points including bridges, convoys, and railway track. She once rode a bicycle 190 miles and back in 72 hours through German checkpoints in order to send a message to London when her wireless operator was killed. (She later called this “bike ride” her proudest moment.) She could also be ruthless, such as the time when she killed an SS man with her bare hands or when resistance men were dithering about killing a girl who was a German spy. Wake said she’d kill the girl herself if they wouldn’t. The men finally performed the execution themselves.

The maquis Wake operated in was such a thorn in Germany’s side that 22,000 soldiers were sent to defeat them. The maquisards suffered only 100 casualties. The Germans suffered 1,400.

After the war, Wake was widely decorated, receiving honors including three Croix de Guerre, the U.S. Medal of Freedom, and Britain’s George Medal. She continued to work in intelligence at the British Air Ministry—with a brief stint in Australia for a political career that never got off the ground—before marrying an RAF officer in 1957 and moving back to Australia.

Wake’s husband died in 1997, and in 2001 she moved back to London, taking up residence at the Stafford Hotel. It had been a haven for British servicemen and American GIs during the war, and the general manager of the American Bar at the time was a fellow resistance worker from Marseilles. She would visit the bar every morning for her first gin and tonic of the day, and there is now a plaque commemorating her in the bar.

At the end of her life, Wake moved to a home for ex-service men and women, where she lived until her death in 2011 at the age of 98. Her ashes were scattered at a ceremony in the woods outside Verneix in France. Determined that it should be a celebratory occasion, Wake left instructions that there should be a boisterous drinks party afterward.

Wake wrote about her extraordinary experiences in her autobiography The White Mouse. If you are interested in reading more about her and other women spies in World War II, I would recommend The Women Who Spied for Britain by Robyn Walker.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Women Who Defended Britain's Skies

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times

In April 1941, a new kind of job opened up for the women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the British Army. In order to be taken on, they needed to show great aptitude as well as quick reflexes and a natural courage. They were tested, assessed, and those who made the cut became Gunner Girls.

Also called Ack Ack Girls, these ATS women were given the rank of gunner as they were now attached to the Royal Artillery (RA). They were part of mixed batteries—units with women and men—and they took over some of the vital roles previously performed by men in an effort to free those men up for other jobs.

In an Ack Ack unit, a spotter would work the powerful tool used to locate and identify enemy aircraft. Two women would operate the height and range finder that would gather the information to properly aim the gun. Then that information would be sent over to the predictor, which would calculate and account for both the forward movement of a plane and the time it would take a shell to reach it in order to damage or shoot down the plane. Once trained, the Gunner Girls could do this all in a matter of seconds.

Gunner Girls learning how to use an identification telescope on September 24, 1941. (Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)

One thing the Gunner Girls didn’t do, however, was pull the trigger on guns. When arguing for the inclusion of women in Ack Ack units, General Sir Frederick Pyle, Commander in Chief of Air Defense, agreed to the government demand that women would not fire the guns. This is because, even in the middle of a war, the government didn’t believe it was appropriate for “life givers to be life takers.”

By the time the first mixed battery units were trained up and dispatched to their first assignments, the London Blitz was over. However, the Luftwaffe still conducted bombing raids in the capital and across Britain throughout the war.

In their book The Girls Who Went to War, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, record the story of Jessie Ward, a Gunner Girl. After the war, Jessie remembered speaking to a woman in a fish and chips shop in Aberdeen who sounded as though she was from Hull. Jessie told her that she’d been stationed in Hull during the war as part of an Ack Ack unit, and the woman said, “Oh, you don’t know what they meant to use in the city. Whenever we heard the guns open up, it gave us a bit of hope to hold onto.”

My own family, the Kellys, would’ve been familiar with the 33rd (Western) Anti-Aircraft Battalion that defended Liverpool throughout the war. Liverpool, a major port, was one of the cities bombed at the same time as the London Blitz, and it also experienced its own sustained bombing that came to be known as the Liverpool Blitz. Ack Ack units from the 33rd were stationed around the city and its outskirts and in surrounding towns like Stockport, Birkenhead, and Boodle to try to protect the buildings and people of Liverpool.

My grandparents’ house was one of the 6,500 homes bombed during one of these raids on Liverpool, although fortunately no one in our family was hurt. Family lore has it that my Uncle Nick was actually born during an air raid in the middle of the Liverpool Blitz.

The last air raid of Liverpool happened place in January 1942.

There is now a memorial to the women of the Ack Ack Command in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Women Who Rode Bikes for Britain

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

If you’re looking for bravery and glamor in equal parts, look no further than the motorcycle dispatch riders of the Women’s Royal Navy Service (WRNS), popularly known as the Wrens. This group of women played a vital role during World War II, providing reliable communication for the Royal Navy and admiralty in a time when technology could too easily fail. 

The history of female dispatch riders starts far earlier than World War II. The first group of Wrens who rode motorcycles for Britain was formed in 1917 during the World War I. They were disbanded in 1919, but the service was revived in 1939 when Britain again found itself at war. All able-bodied seamen were needed in the Royal Navy, and the women’s auxiliary adopted the famous slogan “Join the Wrens and Free a Man for the Fleet.” 

Seen a posh and glamorous with their flattering uniforms and upper-crust recruits, many girls who wanted to join up clambered to become a Wren. But when it came to becoming a dispatch riders, only those women with prior motorcycle riding experience were initially selected. (This was in part because riders had to be able to maintain their bikes as well as ride.) That meant that before World War II, which so many of us see as a turning point in the activities that were acceptable for women, women were riding bikes—including some well-known competition riders from local race circuits. 

The primary role of a dispatch rider was to ferry orders and messages between the Royal Navy and admiralty’s offices and bases. They worked in sometimes harrowing conditions, during Blitz conditions and in all weather. 

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

One story of a Wren’s bravery is that of Wren McGregor. She set out to deliver a message to her commander in Plymouth, which was under a bombing raid. En route, her motorcycle was hit by a bomb. Incredibly, she was uninjured and left the destroyed motorcycle by the side of the road, running a half mile to her headquarters to deliver the message with bombs falling around her. With her task complete, she volunteered to go back to work. Unsurprisingly, McGregor was awarded a British Empire medal for bravery.

The accomplishments and importance of the dispatch riders was so great that they became the subject of parliamentary debate on July 6, 1943. Lord Brabazon of Tara criticized the Royal Air Force (RAF) for not making use of women as dispatch riders. “We, who live in London, see many members of the W.R.N.S. going about on motor bicycles in all sorts of weather,” he said. “We see them on the streets of London every day. Figuratively, whenever I see one I take my hat off to her—but only figuratively.

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

More than 100 Wrens who were motorcycle dispatch riders lost their lives riding through the Battle of Britain and other conflicts. The subjects of photo spreads and press interest just as they were the recipients of medals for bravery, they became famous across the world as an example of the work women did during the war. 

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Women Who Delivered Planes

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

The men of the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm were not the only pilots who flew during World War II. Thanks to the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), a group of civilian flyers otherwise considered unsuitable for service because of age, ability, or gender made an incredibly important contribution to the war. 

While the ATA may have originally been conceived of as a support group to transport personnel, mail and medical supplies, it soon became clear that pilots were needed for a serious role: transporting the RAF’s aircraft from factories to bases. They were delivering the planes that protected the Home Front in the Battle of Britain and fought over seas.

Before the outbreak of the war, there was major resistance to the idea of women flying planes. Although women could and did fly before the war, critics believed that they would be taking men’s jobs f they were used for this purpose in the ATA. However, a few months into the war, in December 1939, the ATA caved. Pauline Gower was appointed to head up a newly formed women’s section of the service. An accomplished circus pilot between the wars, Gower was firm in her belief that women could and should fly. 

The first female pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

“Some people believe women pilots to be a race apart, and born ‘fully fledged,’” she said. “Women are not born with wings, neither are men for that matter. Wings are won by hard work, just as proficiency is won in any profession.”

Gower selected the first eight women to be appointed to the ATA. They were accepted on January 1, 1940, and were trained up at Hatfield. Over the course of the war, their numbers swelled to include over 160 female pilots. Nicknamed the “Attagirls,” these women hailed from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the U.S., the Netherlands, Poland, Argentina, and Chile. 

Although they were restricted to non-combat roles in their duties as trainers and transporters, the Attagirls flew every time of aircraft used by the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm. This included some of the war’s most famous planes, Hurricanes and Spitfires. 

ATA personnel Lettice Curtis, Jenny Broad, Audrey Sale-Barker, Gabrielle Patterson, Pauline Gower.

While their roles might have been restricted, that didn’t mean that the danger was any less. The women in the ATA were flying aircraft in open skies, and 15 of them lost their lives during the war.

If you’re interested in the incredible Attagirls and the work they did, British Airways has created a photo gallery featuring archive images of them.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Woman Who Was “The Real Force Behind Churchill”

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

She was married to the most famous man in the world during World War II, but Clementine Churchill did far more than stand by her husband. She was an active, dynamic part of his war efforts from handling informal diplomatic duties to managing the man himself.

Born April 1, 1885, Clementine Ogilvy Hozier was the daughter of Henry Montague Hozier and Lady Blanche Hozier, although there is question about her actual paternity given her mother’s well-known affairs. (Lady Blanche is reported to have managed ten lovers at once, although verifying this is, understandably, somewhat difficult.)

Clementine was educated at home and then at schools before attending the Sorbonne in Paris. At 18, she became secretly engaged to Sir Sidney Peel—twice—who had fallen in love with her. However, she would not marry him. 

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) with fiancée Clementine Hozier (1885-1977) shortly before their marriage in 1908, Wikimedia Commons

Clementine met Winston Churchill in 1904 at a ball at Crewe House. Winston thought her beautiful at this first meeting. But in 1908 they would meet again, this time at a party hosted by one of her distance relatives, and this time he recalled that she’d become an intelligent woman of character. He proposed five months later at Blenheim Palace, and they were married just over a month later on September 12.  

During World War I, Clementine distinguished herself with her efforts on the home front. She organized canteens for munition workers in London and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 in gratitude for her work.

When World War II broke out, Clementine resumed her war work with the Red Cross, serving as chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund. She was also the President of the Young Women’s Christian Association War Time Appeal (YWCA) and the chairman of the Maternity Hospital for the Wives of Officers, Fuller Chase. She was also a fire watcher during the Blitz and was held up as an example of how British women could pull together and help their country.

The wife of the Prime Minister, Mrs Clementine Churchill, inspects members of the ATS at the Royal Artillery Experimental Unit, Shoeburyness, Essex, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

However, some of her most important work during the war came when Winston became prime minister on May 10, 1940. Judith Evans, the house and collections manager at the Churchills’ home Chartwell, offered perspective on Clementine’s role in an interview in the Telegraph. [LINK] “She was quite a big player,” said Evans. “She helped maintain difficult relationships and worked quietly behind the scenes for the war effort.”

Not only did Clementine act as a hostess and a de facto diplomat, she was her husband’s confidant. So close was their relationship that she had a room of her own in his War Rooms, a bunker just to the east of St. James Park in London that became the nerve center of Britain’s wartime strategy.* She was called to comfort Winston the night before the D-Day landings when her husband was sitting despondent in the operations rooms. Although they presented a united front in public, she was also one of the few people who could openly criticize his ideas in private. She held him accountable and supported him during one of the most uncertain times in British history.

Winston’s chief of staff, General Ismay would later say that the “history of Winston Churchill and of the world would have been a very different story” without Clementine.  And Winston Churchill wrote that, Clementine made “my life and any work I have done possible.”

Lady Clementine Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill and a life peer in her own right, outlived her husband by 12 years. She died in 1977 in her London home at the age of 92.

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*The Churchill War Rooms are fascinating. The underground bunker that was the nerve center of Britian’s war effort was mothballed after the war ended in 1945. The Imperial War Museum has made considerable effort to restore and display it as it would’ve appeared during the war. If you choose to go, which I highly recommend, time your arrival for the opening as a limited number of people can be in the exhibition space at a given time. Plan to give yourself a couple of hours to go through the maze of rooms. 

The Woman Who Held Paris

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

Noor Inayat Khan was one of the most well-known female spies of World War II, but little about her background makes her the obvious choice for espionage. Yet an artless personality hid a steeliness that led her to defy her superiors and remain at her station in Paris during the height of the war, continuing the dangerous work of operating a radio to enable the British to continue to supply the French Resistance and save the lives of downed pilots.

Born on New Year’s Day in 1914, Khan was the daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Amina Sharada Begum (originally known as Ora Ray Baker). After living in Moscow, the family moved to France and then to Britain where Harat Inayat Khan would become leader of the Sufi Order, a form of Islam that preached love, tolerance, and pacifism. 

Hon. Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan (code name Madeleine), courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

It’s hardly surprising then that Harat Inayat Khan’s daughter would grow up to become a pacifist herself. However, in 1939, as Germany began to invade its neighbors, she decided that she needed to act. After enrolling to train as a Red Cross nurse in France but narrowly escaping the German invasion on one of the last boats to evacuate British citizen, Khan enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAFs). She was not British, and neither did she accept Britain’s policies wholesale; she told her recruitment officers that when the war ended she would campaign for Indian independence. However, she was accepted and selected to train as a wireless operator. Then, in October 1942, she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), likely for her radio skills and her fluency in English, French, Spanish, and German. 

While Khan excelled at all aspects of radio operation, there were concerns about how well she would hold up in the field. Her superiors believed she was too artless to be an agent, and she frightened easily. One of her officers recalled her reaction when she was put through the paces in a mock interrogation:

She was so overwhelmed, nearly lost her voice. As it went on she became practically inaudible. Sometimes there was only a whisper. When she came out afterwards, she was trembling and quite blanched.

However, despite some reservations about her suitability, the 29-year-old Khan was parachuted to Occupied Paris where wireless operators were desperately needed in 1943. She was given the code name Madeline and became the first female wireless operator stationed in France.

She initially made contact with PROSPER, a network bringing in arms from Britain for the French Resistance. However, shortly after she arrived, a double agent betrayed PROSPER and almost all of the high-level members of the network were arrested. The SOE ordered Khan to return to Britain, but she refused, going rogue and continuing to broadcast. Soon she was the only active wireless operator in the area surrounding Paris. 

Life on the run meant zipping around on a bicycle, hanging her conspicuous aerial wherever it might be reasonably hidden, transmitting her information, and quickly breaking her radio down before the Germans could track her signal and find her. Her broadcasts mostly concerned drops of arms and money, as well as the status of the resistance networks. She is also believed to have been “instrumental in facilitating the escape of 30 Allied airmen shot down in FRANCE,” according to a posthumous commendation.

Khan’s bravery was unquestionable. Wireless radios were large and bulky, and not discreet even when broken down into their parts. One story goes that she was riding the Metro in Paris when she was stopped by two German officers who wanted a look at her case. She told them that her radio was a film projector, and even opened it up to let them see. Incredibly, they didn’t recognize the radio in front of them or the woman named Madeline whom the Germans were so eager to find.

Ultimately, Khan was betrayed by another woman who sold Khan’s address to the Germans in October of 1943. When Khan got back to her apartment, the Gestapo was waiting for her. Not only did they find her transmitter, but they also found a school copybook in which she’d meticulously recorded all of her transmissions and security checks. This was directly against SOE orders, although there is some dispute about whether she misunderstood the SOE instruction, “Be very careful in the filing of your messages” to mean recording them down rather than transmitting, or “filing” them.

Either way, the German’s arrested Khan and interrogated her. They would go on to use her notebook to transmit messages as her until early 1944 when the SOE realized that something was amiss. Khan tried multiple times to escape from her prison in Paris but each time was captured and returned to her cell. Eventually she was taken to Pforzheim, a German prison, where she was badly mistreated and spent most of her days heavily shackled. 

On September 11, 1944, she and three other female prisoners were sent to Dauchau. Two days later, Khan and the other women were executed. Her last reported word was, “Liberte.”

No one knew what happened to the operative known as Madeline until after the war when Vera Atkins, a woman who had worked with Khan in the SOE, went searching for the agents who had gone missing in the war. Atkins realized that Khan had been mistakenly identified as a woman who had actually been killed at Natzweiler. Atkins was able to learn the truth of Khan’s death and inform the War Office which, in turn, told her family.

Khan was posthumously honored with an MBE, the British George Cross, and the French Croix de Guerre with gold star. Although her months operating in France were short, the information she was able to broadcast was considered invaluable during a time of extreme danger. Her incredible bravery and dedication to the cause is as remarkable as her death was tragic. 

Today she is remembered with a memorial bust of Khan—the first dedicated to an Asian woman—stands in Gordon Square in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of in London, as well as a number of plaques and other commemoration across Britain.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Women Who Ran Towards Bombs

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

The London Blitz saw 56 out of 57 days of German attacks on the capital city, claiming an estimated 17,500 lives. People learned to shelter in basements, purpose-built spaces, church basements, and Underground stations. But every night, at least one group was out on the streets.

The air raid wardens in London, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, and all over the United Kingdom, were responsible for both keeping the British public safe and acting as first responders. Most were civilian volunteers who also worked a day job, although there were some full-time air raid wardens. But most of all, their jobs were incredibly dangerous and important.

Air raid wardens were covered by the Air Raid Precautions (later the Civil Defence). Their ranks were varied. Some of the men were World War I veterans who were unable to fight or were deemed too old. About one in every six warden was a woman. 

Elaine Kidwell, who served as an air raid warden in Swansea, told Wales Online in 2009, “We were a family of volunteers so I joined up as a civil defence messenger and when I was 17 years and two months old I asked to be an air raid warden even though you had to be 18. The man in charge could see I was young and when I told him my true age he said ‘In war we bend rules’. So I was in.”

Each warden had a post which covered a certain area and certain sectors within that area. At the start of the war, with no major German air attacks, they were tasked with registering everyone in their sector. They also made sure everyone “did the blackout”, which meant blocking out all visible light in a home either through blackout curtains or by turning off all lights after dark. The wardens were easy to spot with the bright white W painted on the tin helmet they were issued, but they weren't always welcome in those early months. Some saw them as busybodies or pests who demanded to know why a family's blackout wasn't up to scratch.

When the London Blitz started on September 7, 1940, all that changed. When the air raid sirens would sound, everyone else was meant to shelter. The wardens, however, helped people into shelters, touring their sectors to make sure that no one was out and in danger. That exposed them to the possibility of being hit themselves, either by a bomb, falling bricks, shrapnel, or other debris.

Kidwell recalled a close encounter while on one of her shifts: “I suddenly saw a parachute mine drift down a few yards away and it went off, blowing me backwards until I hit a wall. Amazingly, I was alright so I dusted my jacket down and applied my lipstick. My lipstick was like my armour so I felt safer."

All-in War Worker- Everyday Life For Mrs M Hasler, Barnes, Surrey, 1942, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

At sixteen, Dorothy Lee volunteered to become a part-time warden like her father. In an interview with the website Memories of War, she recounted her what it was like to be out on the streets when the bombs were falling, saying, "I don’t think I was ever that scared. But then again maybe because you’re young."

If a bomb were to fall in a sector, a warden was often the first on the scene—long before the fire brigade, police, or ambulances arrived.

"You all have something you must do," said Lee. "You’re not running around which—you had to be orderly and do these things and I think that kept me sane in as much as I was panicking that day."

The wardens performed what first-aid they could and put out smaller fires. When a building collapsed, they might be one of the people digging survivors out. It was just as possible that they would find they were too late.

At the end of a shift, when the all clear sounded, wardens would submit information on bomb strikes in their sectors including the size of the damage. Then they would go back to their normal day jobs until their next shift.

"It’s amazing what you can endure if you’ve got a job and you stick to it," said Kidwell.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Woman Who Broke the Story of World War II

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways women contributed to the war effort in Britain during World War II. The Lightseekers is an ongoing series of articles that highlights some of their work and the ways they brought light to Britain in one of its darkest times.

The biggest scoop of World War II belongs to an extraordinary journalist at the dawn of her career. 

A woman with such a colorful life and career that it almost would be hard to believe if it wasn’t true, Clare Hollingworth’s early life is relatively unextraordinary. She was born in Leicester and raised on a farm. After attending domestic science college and spending some time working, she won a scholarship to London University and then went to Zagreb University to study Croatian. 

Hollingworth began working as an activist for a charity in Europe that would be credited with saving the lives of thousands of refugees from pre-war Nazi Germany. According to her obituary in the New York Times, her work secured visas for between 2,000 and 3,000 people before it came to an end in July of 1939.

After she returned to London, she talked her way into an assignment working as a stringer for the Daily Telegraph. On August 28, 1939, just three days after she was sent to Poland, she borrowed a British diplomat’s car and drove to the border with Germany. According to the New York Times, “Alone on the road from Gleiwitz…she watched as the wind lifted a piece of the tarpaulin that had been erected on the German side to screen the valley below from view,” and saw hundreds of German tanks. It was the invasion of Poland that would mark the start of World War II.

Hollingworth raced back to Poland to call her editor. Her story ran on the front cover of the Daily Telegraph with no byline under the headline: “1,000 tanks massed on Polish border. Ten divisions ready for swift strike”. It would prove to be one of the biggest scoops in the history of journalism. 

Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlin warned Germany that it had until September 1, 1939, to withdraw from Poland or face war. At dawn on the day of the deadline, Hollingworth found the story coming to her. She woke up to German bombers and artillery fire near her hotel in Katowice. When she called a friend at the British embassy in Warsaw to warn him, he didn’t believe her so she held her phone receiver out the window so he could hear it all unfolding. Britain and Germany were at war.

Hollingworth would go on to cover the war from multiple fronts in Europe and North Africa. She would report on major breaking stories and conflicts like the Vietnam War, the Cambridge spy ring, various conflicts in the Middle East, and multiple wars. 

“Often under fire, occasionally arrested and possessed of such a keen nose for covert information that from time to time she was accused of being a spy—both by local governments and by the British—Ms. Hollingworth was friend, or foe, to seemingly everyone in a position of power in the world at midcentury,” the New York Times obituary recalls.

Hollingworth slept on the floor of her Hong Kong flat well into her 90s in order to keep from going soft. She carried a revolver, wore a safari jacket most of her life, and hated housework thanks to her years in domestic science college. 

Her first husband divorced her after 15 years, citing desertion because she was always out reporting. “When I’m on a story, I’m on a story—to hell with husband, family, anyone else,” she said in an interview with the Guardian in 2004.

Hollingworth was not universally liked but, in reading her interviews, one gets the sense that hardly mattered. She was respected, a doyenne of conflict journalism in the twentieth century. 

Clare Hollingworth died in her Hong Kong flat in January of 2017 at the age of 105.

Read every story of the The Lightseekers in the series archive. You can also learn more about their stories by following the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The Lightseekers

In researching my upcoming release, The Light Over London, I was continually amazed at the many—often unsung—ways British women contributed during World War II.

The Ack-Ack Girls manned the anti-aircraft guns defending Britain from Luftwaffe attacks. 

Spies got valuable information out of Germany, occupied France, and other enemy territories.

Land Girls worked the farms and fed the country.

Factory girls braved dangerous conditions to make the munitions necessary to fight battles on all fronts.

All of these women were instrumental to achieving the ultimate goal: winning Britain the war.

“After the greatest darkness... there is light.”

— The Light Over London

As I kept reading about these ordinary women rising to the challenge and doing extraordinary things, I realized that I didn't just want to tell the story of The Light Over London. I wanted to tell all of their stories. I wanted to show their bravery and single-mindedness, hoping to teach just a few more women their stories as I told them.

I call these women The Lightseekers, and over the coming months I'm going to endeavor to tell their stories both here and on social media. You can follow stories of The Lightseekers on my blog and in The Lightseekers archive which will grow as articles are released. And for more information, you can follow the hashtag #TheLightseekers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.