The stories so far ....

“I help the old to remember, and the young to understand.”

The following list represents the heart and soul of this project - the constantly updated list of the interviewees, whose reminiscences and opinions have been specially filmed, and their wartime photographs and documents carefully scanned.

For many of these WW2 veterans their work had been top secret and remained so for many years after the war. Others carried out roles that had been more in the public eye yet have never been sufficiently recognised in books and documentaries.

Even though it's so long since WW2 many had never spoken so openly and comprehensively on camera about both their operational and personal wartime experiences. We're very privileged to have met them, and proud to have finally put their unique and fascinating stories 'on the record'.

SOE / FANY - Female F Section 'agents'

Lise de Baissac  Légion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre, MBE   [now deceased]

Yvonne Burney   Légion d'honneur, Croix de Guerre, MBE [née Baseden]

SOE / FANY - Coders, W/T operators, and trainers in UK, Massingham [Algeria], Cairo, Italy, & Far East

Baroness Daphne Park

Lady Pamela "Pammie" Niven

Lady Betty Norton

Ann Bonsor

Elvira Burbeck

Margaret Pawley

Elizabeth Ward

Barbara O'Connell

Paddy Sproule

Marian Jones

Jill Lewis

Elizabeth Austin

Eileen Simpson

Pauline Payne

Mildred Schutz

WW2 FANYs on the Home Front - [FANY ATS]

Ambulance, lorry, and staff car drivers, and also with blood transfusion service, anti-aircraft regiments, and bomb disposal squads. One was a radar technician and another stationed in Belfast during the Blitz.

Barbara Dalzell

Mary Soames

Dorothy Sarson

Phyllis Norman

Patience Maxwell

Mary Clive

Eileen King

Ann Forbes

Mary Smythe

Diana Tennant [née Quilter]

Marjorie Inkster

In Scotland helping support the exiled Polish army [30,000 men]

Peggy Jacobsen [now deceased]

Norah Grajnert

WW2 FANYs in Kenya

Moira Smiley

Juanita Carberry

Male SOE agents in occupied France

Robert "Bob" Maloubier DSO - F Section sabotage specialist

Marcel Jaurent-Singer   Légion d'honneur, MBE – F Section wireless operator

Henri Fiacono - F Section wireless operator

Leslie Fernandez  MM, OBE - SOE trainer at Beaulieu and F Section agent

SAS in occupied France

Prof M.R.D. Foot - SAS intelligence officer / served in Northern France / captured & POW / official historian of the SOE

SOE, Royal Air Force, and Admiralty

Peter Lee - SOE security officer in Algeria & Italy

Norman “Paddy” Davies RNVR - MTB skipper in Corsica/Italy

Noreen Riols [née Baxter] – civilian SOE trainer at Beaulieu

Group Captain Hugh Verity DFC, DSO, Légion d'honneur - [now deceased] Sq Leader of Special Duties Squadron

John Austin - Special Duties Squadron pilot, based in England and Algeria

Patricia Davies – civilian working at the Admiralty and part of the Operation Mincemeat team - aka “The man who never was”

Comète Line and Evaders

Andrée Dumon OBE - “Nadine” - Comète Line organiser and courier

Fred Gardiner - RAF crew member - shot down over occupied Belgium and evaded capture before repatriation from France in an SOE Lysander

Bob Frost - RAF crew member - shot down over occupied Belgium and, aided by members of the Comète Line, evaded capture while making his way through France to Spain & Gibraltar

Stan Hope - RAF evader - shot down over Belgium and, aided by members of the Comète Line, reached the Pyrénées before being captured along with the late Andrée De Jongh (aka "Dédée")

Edward “Eddie” Hearne DFC - RAF evader who was shot down over Normandy after D-Day

Bletchley Park - aka 'Station X'

Mavis Batey [née Lever] - Enigma decrypter in 'The Cottage'

Doreen Page [née Sear] - civilian German translator in 'Hut 8'

Whaddon Hall - HQ of communications division of the Secret Intelligence Service [SIS]

Geoffrey Pidgeon - SIS [MI6 Section VIII] and author of "The Secret Wireless War"

Y Service

Marge Arbury

Daphne Brookes

Kay Wingate

Kay Staddon

Marjorie Lilley

Pamela Elliott

Jean Cleminson

Vera Morgan

Joan Nicholls - historian and author of "England Needs You: The Story of Beaumanor Y Station in World War 2"

The Royal Observer Corps

The ROC was, by 1942, spread right across mainland Britain, involved a hugely diverse membership, and had people in control rooms, out on posts (in a very wide variety of places) and, in 1944, placed specially trained Observers onboard naval ships. Those interviewed represent this diversity:

Joyce Shrubbs joined the Royal Observer Corps on her 17th Birthday at the Bedford Group HQ.

Tony Foster was in the Oxford HQ and remembers being on duty when the announcement was made that the Observer Corps was becoming the Royal Observer Corps.

Leslie Leney volunteered to serve on board an American ship during the D-Day operation to help prevent accidents from "friendly fire".

Bill Harford was recruited as a schoolboy who was "very keen on aircraft spotting".

Arthur Lyne remembers plotting a German bomber flying straight over the Truro Operations room whilst he was on duty there.

Eileen Brush recalls the busy atmosphere in the Ops Room in Truro.

Joe James love of aircraft grew as the number of planes in the skies above Cornwall grew.

Joy Cooper recalls serving with the Royal Observer Corps despite food shortages and bombings in Lincoln.

Ross Luke talks about the challenges of working fulltime, and then having to fit in ROC shifts too.

Norman Leigh recalls chatting with "the chaps on the posts" when things were otherwise quite.

Molly Metz remembers how well the members of the crew in the Truro Ops Room "gelled", regardless of their outside occupations and backgrounds.

Denise Chapman describes the challenges of being a woman who wanted to join an ROC Post.

Philip Chapman describes the different locations of posts that he served on in the Watford group.

Ted Rawston recalls how RADAR provided the post Observers with some brief warning of approaching aircraft from the sea.

Interviews with WW2 ROC veterans filmed by Andrew Denyer for his ‘sentinels of Britain’ project. For more information click HERE.

Additional interviewees:

Ten current FANYs have been interviewed including Joan Drummond - currently FANY 2iC - Jessica Beattie who recently returned from Iraq - and the Corps’ next CO Annie Hamilton. We have also talked to five currently serving female officers from the Royal Corps of Signals who have recently served in Iraq & Afghanistan

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Lord Montagu of Beaulieu - re. SOE’s ‘finishing school’

Major-General John Stokoe CB CBE - the FANY’s Honorary Colonel

Lynette Beardwood - former FANY, archivist and historian

Sarah Helm - author of “A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE”

Ken Follett – author of ‘Jackdaws’, a WW2 novel inspired by SOE FANYs

Anne de Courcy - journalist, and author of "Debs at war"

Claire Rayner - author of 'The Poppy Chronicles' in which the "Flanders" book features a fictitious First World War FANY

Det Supt Smith - City of London Police Casualty Bureau, Bishopsgate Police Station

Lucy Hannah - author of a children's book on Nancy Wake

Tania Szabo - daughter of Violette Szabo GC

Dr Juliette Pattinson – SOE/’Women at war academic

Kate Adie – trustee of the Imperial War Museum and author of 'Corsets to camouflage'

Virginia McKenna - portrayed Violette Szabo in film “Carve her name with pride”

Lewis Gilbert – director of “Carve her name with pride”