The White Lady

A major new history of the two most important British secret service networks in the First and Second World Wars

Intelligence gathering was essential to both sides in the First and Second World Wars. At the heart of MI6’s efforts were two key networks in Belgium. Agents in The White Lady acted as couriers, saboteurs, and spies to facilitate the end of German control. And, when war broke out again two decades later, the leaders of the network regrouped and established a successor: The Clarence Service.

Helen Fry charts the history of these pivotal intelligence networks for the first time. Drawing on recently declassified information, Fry examines who the agents were, how they were recruited, and how the intelligence they gathered directly impacted the outcome of both wars. Operators in the field sent over eight hundred radio messages to London and delivered more than a thousand reports, including groundbreaking information on Hitler’s secret weapon the V-1. This is a compelling account of the agents who risked their lives and found ingenious ways to smuggle intelligence out of occupied Belgium.