Disclaimer. This story contains descriptions of Nazi war crimes that some listeners may

find upsetting.

Welcome to True Spies. Week by week, mission by mission. You'll hear the true stories behind

the world's greatest espionage operations. You'll meet the people who navigate this

secret world. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their

position? This is True Spies. We kept lists of the missing.

This is True Spies. Episode 41. Seven female spies.

The Second Wild War didn't end in 1945. Well, not for everyone. Not for Vera Akkins.

This week's True Spies died 21 years ago and the age of 92. She's voiced here by an

actor and we've used research to tell her story as we think she might have told it.

During the war, Vera Akkins worked for the Special Operations Executive. If you're a regular

listener to this podcast, you'll be familiar with the Special Operations Executive. But

here's a refresher. The SOE was a top secret arm of British intelligence, had courted in

Central London. It sent its agents a mixture of British and European citizens on perilous

missions behind enemy lines. Tragically, many never returned. This is the story of one woman's

Tyler search for the agents who didn't come home. It was early March in 45. The Russians,

the French, the Americans, they were liberating camps. Not all of them, of course, but enough

for information to begin trickling through. Thousands of POWs on the move, mostly traveling

east. And I received a note from the French about John Hopper. John Hopper was a spy who

had been captured in occupied France. He was imprisoned and later transferred to Germany.

When the French liberated the prison, they found an unusual note next to his name in the

prison records. N and N. Naturally, I asked my sources to confirm the meaning when they

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