Commemorating long time Winchelsea resident - Vera Atkins CBE.

The Special Operations Executive – also known as “Churchill’s Secret Army” or “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” – is tasked with espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in Europe in World War Two. Women are regularly recruited and sent behind enemy lines. As a wireless operator, their life expectancy is 6 weeks.

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“Madeleine” is the codename for one such agent. Flown by moonlight into occupied France in 1943, her job is to keep her circuit of agents connected with London. She cannot trust anyone. Josef Kieffer, a Major in the Gestapo, is on her trail – and she doesn’t know how much time she has left. The net is closing.

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Now the war is over. Vera Atkins is on a quest to find the truth. Of all the cases of her 12 missing women agents, there is one that haunts her the most – “Madeleine” – the Indian princess, Noor Inayat Khan.

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