Overview

The story of Violette Szabo is one of the most extraordinary in the annals of World War II espionage and covert operations. Totally fearless and a dead shot, Violette Szabo volunteered to become part of the Special Operations Executive, Britain's premier sabotage and subversion organization of the time. On June 7, 1944, Violette left behind a two-year-old daughter to parachute into France on a special mission. Szabo and other British agents were assigned to organize French resistance fighters to hinder the advance of the SS Das Reich Division to the Normandy beaches. Unfortunately, Szabo's party was soon ambushed by the SS. Unable to walk due to a twisted ankle, Szabo covered the retreat of her comrades with machine-gun fire. Captured, she went through a series of interrogations and changes of confinement before ending up at Ravensbruck, the German all-women's concentration camp. She was finally executed on January 26, 1945. She was twenty-three years old. This exceptional work has been written with the assistance of Violette Szabo's daughter Tanya and unravels fact and fiction about one of the most fascinating characters of World War II.

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Susan Ottaway has had a lifelong enthusiasm for airplanes, books, and twentieth century history. She worked for four different airlines over a period of twenty years, mainly in the UK but also in Germany and Australia, and wrote her first book, a biography of Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, before leaving the world of aviation. She has since written seven more books, including the acclaimed Fly with the Stars, a history of British South American Airways with her brother and coauthor Ian Ottaway, and the bestselling Sisters, Secrets and Sacrifice, the story of Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne, who were agents with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. She lives in Hampshire with Nick and their dog and three cats. Esther Wane is a British actor and voice-over artist. After a career in finance Esther fulfilled a childhood dream of going to drama school in London, and her life as an actor began at age forty. She has a lifelong passion for literature and can often be found browsing bookshops at any spare moment. She owes her career in audiobooks to her impression of Joanna Lumley and has since narrated books in many genres, including memoir, politics, romantic fiction, and children's literature. She enjoys taking her listeners on a journey in time and space and bringing the characters on the page to life in their imagination. She lives with her family and collection of books in Hertfordshire, just outside London, where she has built a professional voice studio in the bottom of her garden.

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