8 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
Krystyna Skarbek, a Polish countess, was one of the first and longest-serving Special Operations Executive agents. She parachuted into Nazi-occupied Poland and crossed the Tatra mountains to reach Hungary, delivering intelligence. During an SOE missi…
Ukrainian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko had 309 confirmed kills during the Siege of Odessa and the defense of Sevastopol — the most kills by a female sniper in history. She started the war as a university student studying history, and volunteered for t…
The Comet Line (Reseau Comete) was a Belgian-French escape network that helped nearly 800 Allied airmen escape from occupied Europe to neutral Spain. It was founded and run almost entirely by young women. The leader, 24-year-old Belgian Andrée de Jon…
The 588th Night Bomber Regiment, composed entirely of women pilots, flew over 23,000 sorties during WWII. They flew obsolete wooden Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes — crop-duster designs — and attacked by cutting their engines and gliding to their targets at…
Virginia Hall, an American socialite from Baltimore with a wooden prosthetic leg (which she named 'Cuthbert'), became arguably the most effective Allied agent in occupied France. Her work with SOE was so effective that Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of L…
Australian-born Nancy Wake earned the nickname 'White Mouse' from the Gestapo for her uncanny ability to evade capture. After witnessing Nazi persecution in Vienna in 1937, she began working as a journalist and later became a courier for the French R…
Noor Inayat Khan was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the last ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, and was a published children's author before volunteering for the SOE. She was the first female wireless operator sent into occupied France, operating i…
British woman Pearl Witherington was rejected by the SOE three times for field work before finally being sent to France in 1943. Working undercover as a lingerie saleswoman, she built one of the most effective sabotage networks in Occupied France. Wh…