The Last Secret Agent

An incredible story of courage, peril, secrecy and resistance. ''You know you can change your mind, don''t you? Even now. Even when you are halfway across the English Channel. Any time before you jump.'' ''Yes, I know,'' I quickly reassured her, ''and I won''t.'' In June 1940, a covert new force - the Special Operations Executive (SOE) - was set up to wage a secret war. Its agents were tasked with sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines, and over the course of the next five years, 470 special agents would be sent into France. Only 25 female SOE agents would return. None before have told their story in their own words. This is the astounding true story of Phyliis "Pippa" Latour, one of the last female SOE agents to get out of France alive after its liberation in WWII. Born in 1921, Pippa''s was an unusual childhood, followed by an even more extraordinary early adult life as she was parachuted into France aged 23. Incredibly brave, she travelled around the rural French countryside, concealing her codes in a hair tie and her Morse key underneath her bicycle seat, and sending crucial information back to Britain in the lead-up to D-Day. More than once she came frighteningly close to being discovered. For decades, Pippa told no one - not even her family - of her incredible feats. Now for the first time, her story can be told in full.

Autorentext

Following the war, Pippa settled in New Zealand where she raised four children. For decades, Pippa told no one - not even her family - of her incredible f**eats during WWII.

For seventy years, Pippa's contributions to the war effort were largely unheralded, but she was finally given her due in 2014 when she was awarded France's highest order of merit, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Pippa was the last surviving F (France) Section Special Operations (SOE) agent from World War II.

In the final months of her life, Pippa finally decided to tell her remarkable story, written with the assistance of award-winning historical documentary producer and writer Jude Dobson. Pippa died in 2023, at the age of 102.

Klappentext

The extraordinary untold story of Pippa Latour, who parachuted into occupied France in 1944 as an undercover agent and sent secret messages back to Britain.