Women Wartime Spies by Ann Kramer

Author:Ann Kramer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781844683826
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2011-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

FANYs

In 1944, at the peak of its operations, SOE employed some 13,000 people in a wide variety of roles, as secretaries, administrators, trainers, dispatch riders, explosive experts, engineers, wireless operators and – of course – agents. SOE recruited civilians and people from the military; about 3,000 of the total personnel were women. Most of the people attached to SOE had staff roles doing clerical work, helping to train and look after agents, decoding messages, producing forged documents and creating false identities for agents and liaising with agents in the field. Because of the extreme secrecy surrounding SOE, recruitment could not be done openly. Instead, suitable candidates were invited to join the SOE: men were usually found through public schools, universities, industry and, of course, the ‘old boys’ networks. Women tended to be recruited from the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), although they also came from other services.

The FANY – its members never seem to have objected to the acronym – was a civilian voluntary organization, which was first created in 1907 as a first aid link between front-line fighting and field hospitals. Mounted on horseback, FANYs had a medical combat role, rescuing and treating the wounded directly from the front line. They were taught cavalry techniques, as well as signalling and first aid skills. To this day the FANY remain a fiercely independent all-woman organization whose members are always volunteers; until and during the Second World War they tended to be a very exclusive and rather dashing group of women from privileged upper-class backgrounds, often from Army families. During the First World War, sometimes dressed flamboyantly in fur coats and boots, FANYs drove ambulances, ran field hospitals and set up soup kitchens and troop canteens, often under highly dangerous conditions. Their bravery won them several decorations, including seventeen Military Medals, one Légion d’honneur and twenty-seven Croix de Guerre.

When the Second World War broke out there was a move to combine the FANY with other services but the FANY preferred to remain independent. They formed the nucleus of the Motor Drive Companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) but many were recruited for SOE, following an approach to their commandant by Colonel Gubbins who arranged with her to provide personnel for SOE. Most uniformed FANYs worked on signals, coding and decoding and liaising with agents in the field. Gwendoline Lees was one of the FANY signal planners. She, like many other FANYs, was ‘responsible for working all the wireless sets and dealing directly with agents in the field, listening for and receiving their “skeds” as they were known, their schedules and sending messages’. FANYs, also provided administrative and technical support for SOE’s Special Training Schools (STS) and from time to time looked after and provided some hospitality for male agents preparing to leave for covert action behind enemy lines, a task they carried out with great efficiency. Some male agents remembered, with great fondness, the hospitality and sophistication of FANYs who, resplendent in ball gowns, organized eve-of-departure parties.

Obviously FANYs did far

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.