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The Lost Women Spies S01E03 (2025) [Full Movie] [Hot 2026]Full EP - Full
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00:03In the Second World War, British spy agency, the SOE, send more and more female agents behind enemy lines.
00:20With D-Day on the horizon, these women, handpicked by spymaster Vera Atkins,
00:27make daring attacks against Hitler's troops from deep inside Nazi-occupied France.
00:41But, as the Allies push towards Paris,
00:46the Gestapo brutally cracks down.
00:50Unfortunately, some of your agents had to be shot.
00:57What the hell are they playing at?
00:59One by one, Vera's women disappear.
01:03We can't be captured.
01:08Hide what you can, then hide yourself.
01:13We go now. Move!
01:15Halt!
01:29You go. I'll send them off as long as I can. Go! Go!
01:39But, with France liberated, and the Nazis defeated, many are still missing.
01:47Vera's mission was to send these women to war.
01:52Now, she'll do whatever it takes to find them and bring them home.
02:12The Allied invasion of Europe, to recapture France from the Nazis, has begun.
02:17The Allied invasion of Europe, to recapture France from the Nazis, has begun.
02:36Across France, the French resistance, supplied and coordinated by SOE, launch into action.
02:49in london f-section monitor the sabotage activity
02:56there's palpable excitement buckmaster and vera are watching as these messages come in
03:03there's already been acts of sabotage trying to disrupt the train lines trying to disrupt
03:08communication lines blow up bridges blowing up telephone exchanges to try and disrupt the
03:14Germans as much as possible it's chaotic but it's exhilarating in the flurry of messages coming
03:24in from their agents they receive one that is unusual sir message from Paul sign Leopold Leopold
03:37Leopold is inactive he was arrested in 43
03:42thank you for the large delivery of weapons and ammunition incredibly grateful for the
03:47information on your plans and objectives
03:52signed the gestapo
04:00it's not the only message f-section received that day from the nazis feared secret police
04:11another thank you for the supply drop equipment gratefully received unfortunately some of your
04:18agents had to be shot others were more open to do what we asked the gestapo what the hell are
04:28they
04:28playing at send a reply sorry to see your nerves are shot and your resilience isn't as strong as ours
04:54still SOE circuits and french resistance fighters continue their clandestine attacks against the nazis
05:06and the allied soldiers fight their way ashore
05:10but their position is precarious they need to firm up their hold of the beachhead
05:18and be ready for when german reinforcements hit back
05:30work at f-section doesn't stop wireless messages of german targets being hit continue to stream in
05:42sabotage by those SOE networks was absolutely crucial during d-day and the germans were so angry at the
05:52this success that an order went out to hunt down vera's agents
06:00just days after d-day f-section received news on one of their agents recently parachuted into france
06:10fuck
06:13violette sabo has been captured
06:17violette is already a widow she's got a two-year-old daughter
06:21and the thought that violette might not come back is just unthinkable
06:28where
06:31the report is brief
06:36does it say where she's being held
06:41just says captured
06:43nothing else
06:58in the limousine region of france resistance fighters pull off an audacious mission
07:05they have kidnapped the commander of the second ss panzer division
07:10that's right
07:12and of course the nazis are furious about this they want their commander back
07:17and so they start to ramp up their control of the area they put in roadblocks
07:23trying to capture resistance members and they start to punish the resistance for what they've done
07:30the nazis are out for revenge and choose the village of uradour sur glen to send a bloody message to
07:38the french people
07:44in london f-section monitor sabotage attacks across france
07:50they've hit another fuel depot
07:53good
07:54their tanks are thirsty beasts
07:56they'll be running on fumes by the time they reach normandy
07:59if they may get that far
08:03but soon
08:04news of the massacre reaches buckmaster
08:07sir a report from france
08:10you need to read it now
08:11thank you
08:19buck
08:25what is it
08:29the ss
08:33the resistance captured their commander
08:41they massacred a village
08:44what?
08:48over 600 dead
08:50women
08:52children
09:01i thought the germans had honor
09:03that they acted like gentlemen
09:08look
09:12i never thought they'd do something like this
09:22the news of the massacre at orador sur glen
09:25really is shocking for buckmaster
09:28that the germans have sunk so low
09:30that they'll massacre innocent women and children
09:35where did this happen
09:39buck where did this happen
09:50limousine
09:53limousine
09:55limousine
10:09limousine
10:13but no further information on violette has come through
10:27in northern france the allies consolidate their foothold in normandy
10:33and prepare to push out deeper into the country
10:37and prepare to push out deeper into the country
11:02the scholar circuit are requesting a supply drop to the juror region
11:10and she's been operating in france for about three months in the juror region which is to the east of
11:15france
11:16authorize the drop
11:20on the 25th of June 1944 32 flying fortresses were flown over by the RAF
11:29and they released 440 parachutes and attached to those parachutes were
11:35canisters full of weapons and explosives and arms and equipment needed by the
11:43resistance
11:44it's the largest daylight parachute drop of the war
11:48hidden at the drop zone
11:49is Yvonne with a team of resistance fighters
11:55it took 48 hours for those canisters to be emptied and for the equipment to be stored
12:01meaning that every minute and every hour that went by they were more and more at risk of being caught
12:07but Yvonne was so excited when this happened and she said as every one of those parachutes opened hope was
12:14attached to them
12:21after a frantic two days on the ground
12:25Yvonne and her team are exhausted
12:28with the last container collected they leave the drop zone and head back to their headquarters
12:46at F section messages from the circuits flood in
12:51targets are being hit the resistance are taking the fight to the Germans across the country
13:00but that's tinged with uncertainty
13:04what about the agents how many have survived how many have the Germans managed to capture
13:13then F section finally receives the report they've been waiting for
13:21Eva, what is it?
13:26Eva, what is it?
13:37They're driving to meet other SOE leaders
13:40but what they don't know is the resistance have caught one of the SS commanders of the second panzer division
13:47and the Germans are frantic to get him back
13:49They start mounting roadblocks and they start searching people asking everybody for their papers
13:55where were they when this happened
14:00What?
14:01What?
14:03I thought you said this road was clear.
14:07It was.
14:09What?
14:09It was.
14:10It's a new checkpoint.
14:12They can't search us.
14:13I know.
14:14They can't search us.
14:15If they search the car, they'll find our weapons.
14:17We have British weapons.
14:19If they search the car, they'll know we're resistance.
14:26We can't be captured.
14:28Stop the car.
14:40We'll make for the woods.
14:42Try to lose them.
14:44We go now.
14:46Move.
14:49Halt!
15:10As Violette's escaping, she twists her ankle.
15:14It was already damaged from the parachute drop she'd done during training as an SOE agent.
15:30Are you hit?
15:31No.
15:32It's my ankle.
15:33Can you walk on it?
15:34No.
15:35You go.
15:36I'll fan them off as long as I can.
15:39Go.
15:40Go!
15:42She's basically immobile at this point.
15:45So she provides cover fire for the resistance men so that they can get away.
15:51Go.
15:55Go.
15:57Go.
16:05Go.
16:07Go.
16:08Go.
16:10Go.
16:10Go.
16:10Go.
16:10Go.
16:38The report ends.
16:42Violette was held by the SS in the French city of Limoges, but has since disappeared.
16:52She is one of many agents, now missing.
17:06Since D-Day, Allied forces have made steady gains against the Germans.
17:14Two months after the Normandy landings, the Nazis are forced to abandon the French capital.
17:26The liberation of Paris was the moment everybody had been waiting for.
17:31The relief of finally being able to be in the city and not be under German occupation just must have
17:37been phenomenal.
17:39With the Allies pushing deeper into France,
17:43what's left of SOE's circuits begin to lose their importance.
17:50Boddington is travelling, he's lecturing to Allied forces on the conditions in France.
17:57Buckmaster himself has set up in the Hotel Cecil in Paris
18:01and he will then very quickly start a tour of the surviving circuits.
18:08At F section, work begins to slow down and staff start to leave.
18:16But disturbing reports are coming in about the fate of SOE's agents.
18:22Vera is tasked with making sense of them all.
18:37But Vera, no longer a civilian and now commissioned in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, stays in London.
18:50Paris is back in Allied hands, but the victory came at a huge cost to SOE's agents.
18:59It was understood that the casualty numbers would be quite high, particularly surrounding the D-Day landings.
19:09Many more female agents had been sent out in 1944 than before, and this was Vera's responsibility.
19:17she's the one who's sent them to France in the first place.
19:21With Paris liberated, the human toll of this decision comes into focus.
19:29Of the more than 400 SOE agents dispatched to France,
19:34one hundred and eighteen are missing.
19:37Sixteen of them are Vera's women.
19:58After the liberation at the hotel where F section have set up a new office,
20:03a man turns up and he's angry.
20:06He's furious.
20:09Marcel Rousset, an F section agent with the code name Leopold,
20:14demands to see anyone in the British Secret Service.
20:22I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you think you could fetch someone from SOE for me?
20:26Now!
20:27He had been captured by the Gestapo,
20:29and in fact it was even his radio that was used by the Gestapo
20:33to send the taunting signals to SOE headquarters on D-Day.
20:40Hello, I'm Nancy. How can I help?
20:42He is angry.
20:45He's absolutely furious at mistakes that SOE has made,
20:50that so many agents have been captured.
20:53Please take a seat here, sir.
20:56An SOE officer sits down with Rousset for a debriefing on his time in captivity.
21:02He might know who has actually been arrested by the Gestapo.
21:06He might know who has survived.
21:09So, Buckmaster...
21:11Rousset says how stupid everyone at F section had been,
21:16particularly Buckmaster and Vera,
21:18and how they had risked agents' lives.
21:22I would love to meet him.
21:23The SD, Sicherheitsdienst,
21:26forced him to relay radio messages back to London.
21:30And he quite deliberately, totally follows SOE protocol,
21:34which is that he doesn't include special code words as a warning to SOE,
21:40but they just ignored this and continued to accept the messages that came from his radio as genuine.
21:50His interrogation report is explosive
21:53and provides Vera with important leads to the whereabouts of her missing agents.
22:06At F section, Vera receives Rousset's interrogation report.
22:15After his arrest, he's taken to the SD headquarters in Paris,
22:21at 84 Avenue Foch.
22:27The SD is the SS intelligence agency and worked hand in hand with the Gestapo.
22:36Here, Rousset is confronted with Prosper's wireless operator,
22:41Gilbert Norman, codenamed Butcher.
22:45It was Norman who told the Germans that Rousset was SOE wireless operator Leopold.
22:54And he also tells Rousset that the Gestapo know everything about SOE and their activities.
23:06So Suttel, who was the organiser of that circuit,
23:10and Norman had given up everything about the Prosper circuit in Paris
23:16in order to try and save his life and maybe other agents' lives as well.
23:22Rousset is advised to do the same.
23:26Had he given up every piece of information?
23:29What had he told them?
23:31Can you imagine how awful it was for Vera?
23:33Just finding out that they could have revealed so much
23:37that every time Vera sent a woman over,
23:40she was just basically feeding them straight into the German prisons.
23:46In the Gestapo's cells, Rousset is held in solitary confinement.
23:53But by tapping on the wall in Morse code,
23:56he manages to communicate with an SOE agent in the cell next to his.
24:02Rousset learns that a wireless operator with the codename Madeleine
24:07is also being held by the Nazis.
24:09Nor Inyat Khan goes under the codename Madeleine.
24:16Nor hadn't surfaced after the liberation of Paris.
24:22Vera assumed she'd been captured,
24:24but no further intel had been discovered.
24:31Rousset's report suggests that Nor had been in the Gestapo's prison in Paris.
24:39His report continues.
24:43From Paris, the women prisoners were then transferred to Germany.
24:49This is news to Vera.
24:52She wasn't aware that any female prisoners have been transferred to Germany.
24:57Where were they? Where have they gone?
25:01Could those women have been her agents?
25:03Could one of them have been Nor?
25:07Frustratingly, Rousset's intel now dries up.
25:12He remains in the Gestapo's prison,
25:14working as a cleaner until two days after D-Day.
25:20Noticing a gate unlocked,
25:23he knocks out a guard and makes his escape.
25:26And the due window
25:47is being Undiesi.
25:48With
25:50Vera haunts the F-Section operations room,
25:54waiting for any news on her missing women's spies.
26:01Then a report comes in from a member of Yvonne Basden's SOE circuit.
26:11After Yvonne and her colleagues had hidden all the equipment
26:14that had come in on this daylight parachute drop,
26:17they headed back to their headquarters.
26:22But soon after they arrive, everything changes.
26:29The Germans, they're coming.
26:31What?
26:32We spotted a patrol of German soldiers. They're heading for us.
26:35Do we have time to move?
26:37No.
26:39Hide what you can, then hide yourself.
26:53The Germans who arrived, they just heard a tip-off that this building might be of some interest,
26:58and they're just going to do a cursory search.
27:25There is literally nobody in sight.
27:27They can't find anybody, so they leave, but they just leave behind one person.
27:33He's effectively watching it just in case something happens or somebody arrives.
27:37One can only imagine what would be going through the minds of Yvonne and her team
27:42as they are hiding, holding their breath, not moving, because they have to be totally quiet.
27:47And then the plumbing makes a noise.
27:57Hello?
27:59Is anybody in there?
28:08I heard something. Keep searching.
28:10I heard something.
28:12I heard something.
28:47In London, Vera scours Allied intelligence reports, searching for any clues to her agent's whereabouts.
28:57Who survived? Where were they being helmed? And where were they now?
29:03She has cause for optimism. Some agents are surfacing after the liberation of Paris.
29:13One of her agents, Mary Herbert, astonishingly has survived hiding in a farmhouse in France.
29:21It gives Vera hope that some of the other women might still be alive.
29:28But for those still missing, few details are known. F-section operations are all but wound down. But Vera remains.
29:43She is worried about her agents, about the women she sent into the field. She has to find out where
29:51they are.
29:55The work is all-encompassing. Searching for any trace of where her agents were transported to in Germany.
30:05And where they could be rescued from once the Allies are victorious.
30:12In October, British officials investigate 84 Avenue Foch, the Nazis' former intelligence headquarters in Paris.
30:27Some of her agents were held in captivity there. By piecing together what happened there, maybe she'll get some information
30:37about her lost agents.
30:40I visited the torture chamber at Avenue Foch, where Kiefer had an office.
30:52Hans Kiefer was the head of the SD in Paris during the German occupation.
31:00He's the man who convinced Gilbert Norman to reveal everything he knew about SOE operations.
31:08Hans Kiefer would have been personally in charge of the SOE agents who were held at that prison.
31:15Kiefer would have to have known, first of all, who was held in his prison and what happened to them.
31:25The report continues.
31:28I found a moving inscription from men and women who knew they had lost everything except their honour.
31:37But I was informed during the last few days before the departure of the Germans
31:41that several people had been taken downstairs into the courtyard and shot.
31:49It's a tragic revelation. Were her agents executed in this group?
31:57She has to track down Kiefer. He must know where Vera's agents are. He must know what's happened to them.
32:13In the meantime, she has the agonising task of updating the families of the missing agents on what is known
32:21about them.
32:25Before Noor departed for France, Vera had promised to send her mother periodic good news letters, which she had.
32:36But now, the tone of these letters has to change.
32:42From all the reports of Noor's training, everybody was saying that she wasn't ready.
32:47But Paris needed a wireless operator.
32:50And immediately, she'd put this young woman into the jaws of the Gestapo.
33:01Dear Mrs. Inayat Khan, I am extremely sorry to have to inform you that we have recently lost touch with
33:08your daughter.
33:09Due to the confused state of affairs in France, we were not unduly worried.
33:13But I am afraid now your daughter must be considered as missing.
33:19Although there is every reason to believe that she will eventually be notified to us as a prisoner of war.
33:26Just the idea of writing letters to the family, that's heartbreaking.
33:30But Vera's got other issues that she has to worry about.
33:33The British government was never very happy about sending women combatants overseas.
33:38Because they were not protected by the Geneva Convention.
33:40And that meant the Nazis could do whatever they liked with them.
33:45She also has fear about her own future.
33:48Because once it is revealed in the public that something has happened to these women,
33:52she's also fearful about the consequences for her as the person who sent them out.
34:02I would impress upon you, in the interests of your daughter's safety, that you make no inquiries with regard to
34:09her.
34:11Except through me.
34:23By January 1945, the Allies are making steady gains.
34:30And Nazi Germany is on its knees.
34:42But many agents are still missing.
34:47Despite combing through any and all intelligence documents, Vera's investigation finds no trace of them.
34:57She now lobbies inside SOE.
35:03What Vera wants to do, as the Allies are moving through Germany,
35:07is to give the names of her agents to the Allied troops,
35:10so that when they liberate camps and prisoners of war,
35:13they can see if any of her agents are prisoners.
35:16They can rescue them.
35:18At the height of F-section operations, Vera is Buckmaster's right-hand man.
35:23She's right in the centre of all of the major decisions.
35:26But once F-section is over and Buckmaster is gone,
35:30it becomes incredibly difficult to convince anybody that her plight within SOE is worth pursuing.
35:37Particularly, John Centre, the head of SOE's security division and a commander in the Royal Navy.
35:46Atkins.
35:47Yes, sir.
35:49A memo of yours just came across my desk.
35:53Yes, sir.
35:56A memo suggesting that we give out the names of our agents?
36:05Publish their names for the Red Cross, the American Army, the Soviet Army?
36:16Yes, sir.
36:17So that once those forces begin liberating POW camps,
36:21they will have a register of all of our missing agents.
36:27Atkins.
36:28You do understand what we do here.
36:31The work we did during the war.
36:34Yes, sir.
36:35But...
36:36Then you'll also understand the meaning of secret.
36:38Secret.
36:39As in the term secret agent.
36:43Sir, if I may...
36:44Flight Officer Atkins.
36:47Let me remind you, you are addressing a commander in the Royal Navy.
36:52Sir.
36:58The war is not yet over.
37:02How long do you think it would be before the Germans also got to see those names?
37:09Why should we advertise who our agents are?
37:13On a register.
37:15For our enemies to see.
37:17Sir, the Germans are spent.
37:20This is our best chance of finding our agents, women agents alive.
37:31Consider your request denied.
37:34On security grounds.
37:36He's wanting to find out where were the security leaks in SOE.
37:40He's not interested in the fate of the missing agents.
37:47Stick with the welfare work.
37:54Vera is stymied from trying to find her agents.
37:56All she can do is just pick up on intelligence reports to find out what's happened to these agents.
38:03Because unless she finds out, who will?
38:10In March 1945, Vera receives a report by French investigators searching Fren prison in Paris.
38:20This is the Gestapo prison where people were held when they were not being interrogated and tortured.
38:26And it indicates something really quite disturbing for Vera.
38:31Next to the name of one of the prisoners is N and N.
38:36This means Nacht und Nebel, or night and fog.
38:40The Nacht und Nebel order was decreed by Hitler that people who have been involved in espionage or resistance are
38:49to him so despicable that they have to be punished in an extraordinary way.
38:55Not only will they be captured, interrogated, tortured and then killed, but they're supposed to disappear without a trace.
39:03They will disappear as into night and fog.
39:07Time is running out to find her missing women alive.
39:20By April 1945, Germany is in total collapse.
39:27The Foreign Office, now they want to release the SOE agents' names.
39:32Vera is allowed to issue the names of her agents so that people liberating these prisoner of war camps can
39:40find them.
39:42If they are found, there is now a register for their return to Britain.
39:48If they survived.
40:06On the 30th of April 1945, with Berlin all but captured by the Red Army, Hitler commits suicide.
40:23By the 8th of May, the Allies accept Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender.
40:31The war in Europe is over.
40:48Amid the celebrations in London, Vera gets news that gives her hope her agents survived.
40:57On the 20th of May 1945, Yvonne Bazden, captured and missing, turns up at Euston Station in London.
41:12Miss Atkins, how did you get here?
41:31Where are we going?
41:34I'm taking you home.
41:36Your father is waiting.
41:37My father.
41:49From Euston Station, Vera takes Yvonne Bazden back to her family home in Brockwood Park in London.
41:56never again, never again.
42:07Yvonne.
42:18Please, come here.
42:36You look, um, weak.
42:41Let me make you something to eat.
43:05What happened after you were captured?
43:09Did you see anyone else?
43:11Other agents?
43:14Uh, Yvonne, I need you to think.
43:27Um, after I was caught, they sent me, uh, east to a, uh, to a prison, to a place called
43:39Saarbrocken.
43:41Um, there, there I started seeing some, some familiar faces, agents I'd been in training
43:52with.
43:54I saw, uh, they've got the hold of Baker Street.
44:02I didn't talk to them.
44:04I, I, I kept my distance.
44:09You see, uh, I told the Germans after they caught me that I was just an ordinary French
44:14girl.
44:16Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
44:18That was my cover.
44:20So I, I had to keep my distance.
44:23I, I couldn't let the Nazis know that I was an agent.
44:32Uh, uh, uh, then, then, then they moved us, um, all to a camp, uh, north of Berlin.
44:49Who went with you?
44:54I remember Violette.
44:57A, a, a couple of others from, from F section.
45:03Violette Szabo.
45:06Yes.
45:08Um, Violette and, and the others, we were all, uh, we were all sent to, um, um, RavensbrĆ¼ck.
45:15A, a concentration camp.
45:18It, it was a camp just for women.
45:24RavensbrĆ¼ck.
45:27A women's only concentration camp.
45:34Yes.
45:38At this time, very little is widely known about concentration camps.
45:43Very few people have heard about them.
45:44The idea of there being one just for women.
45:47I mean, it, it's completely horrifying.
45:52One day, Violette and the others just, um, just disappeared.
46:06I never saw them again.
46:13And then, um, the Russians came and liberated us.
46:17The Red Cross, uh, took me to Malmo in Sweden in a bus.
46:21The RAF flew me to Scotland.
46:25I found a train to use them.
46:31While horrific that Vera finds out her agents went to RavensbrĆ¼ck, the female concentration camp,
46:37she can place them somewhere, and she knows where they were.
46:57I'll leave you with.
46:59You have a lot to catch up on.
47:09There was incredibly happy to find Yvonne.
47:12It might be possible she's able to trace all of her missing agents.
47:19But had they survived?
47:21And where were they all now?
47:25There was no moans I can see.
47:28The new royalty was at the time.
47:31There was a lot of royalty in the world.
47:35There was a little thing in my life at the very beginning.
47:36There was a lot of royalty in the world.
47:38But is soaring.
47:44From a little Germany, we have one of them.
47:47A little necklace.
47:49Everything was very cool.
47:50You have one of them.
48:11Transcription by CastingWords
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