Carpetbagging the women of SOE
This week in the Lords there was a debate about the need to recognise the ‘women of SOE’. As Baroness Crawley put it:
In this Question for Short Debate, I am revisiting the history of the women of the Special Operations Executive F Section, while acknowledging the tremendous debt that we owe to all members of the SOE. I am asking out loud whether the Government agree that not enough has been done to commemorate them formally.
Baroness Crawley is a former MEP and Chair of the Womens National Commission. She highlighted a few current initiatives:
I will mention those who, over the years and up to the present day, work to keep alive the memory of these outstandingly brave women. In this respect, I mention Shrabni Basu and the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust, currently raising funds to build a statue to her in Gordon Square in London. I mention the Violette Szabo Museum in Herefordshire, run by Miss Rosemary Rigby, who I had the pleasure of meeting recently. I also mention the efforts mounted by Madame Szabo’s daughter Tania, who has commemorated her mother in a wonderful book and website. More generally, we know, of course, of the work done every day by the Royal British Legion and other bodies, such as the Allied Special Forces Association. Plenty of people care very deeply about this.
Is it just me who thinks this is being laid on slightly too thickly, and that there’s a bit too much politics going on in the search for convenient heroes? I’ve read most of the SOE books over the years, and I think I can recall the names of more SOE female agents than male.
Only in 2009 we had a new memorial to SOE created on the Albert Embankment, where the bust was of Violette Szabo, sculpted by Karen Newman:
And, as the Baroness stated in the Lords, there may soon be a memorial to Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square.
In addition, we have museums and memorials scattered around the UK, Europe and the world, from plaques in concentration camps:
(Source: Memorialgrove.org.uk)
and the Valencay memorial in France, to specific museums in the UK and elsewhere, at places such as the National Memorial Arboretum, and memorial plaques at places where they lived.
So I disagree with Baroness, there is no danger of the “Women of SOE” being neglected.
There is more a danger that they will be given a walk-on-part by modern figures in search of visual aids.
That, I do not like.
Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon’s burrow.
June 10, 2011 at 16:35
- June
10, 2011 at 09:07
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I have always felt that Vera Atkins never got the full recognition she
deserved, for it would be fair to say that without the endeavours of this
truly wonderful and modest woman, it is unlikely that SOE would have been half
the potent fighting force it turned out to be.
- June 9, 2011 at 05:50
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Dear Reader,
All members of the SOE should be remembered, male and female.
In 2006 a small fir tree was planted in the Allied Special Forces Grove,
situated within the National Memorial Arboretum. It was grown from a seed
found in a cone brought back from Natzweiler Concentration Camp.
In 2010 we raised enough money to install a Star of David metal base frame
around the tree. This year we are creating a seat made from Ash and Pine in
the same shape as the base of interlocking triangles and then fixing stainless
steel plaques with the names of 15 SOE women agents and that of Vera Atkins
their controller on the seat.
The Vera Atkins and women of SOE memorial seat will be dedicated on the
24th September 2011. This is the 69th anniversary of the first parachute drop
by women agents. One was captured and executed and one survived.
We are pleased that our work is recognised by the house of Lords and duly
recorded in Hansard. We would have completed the memorial sooner but preferred
to wait and see how well the tree would grow first. Any financial help towards
the dedication on the 24th would be most welcome.
Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Mike Colton
Secretary
Allied Special Forces Association
P.O. Box
32, Hereford HR1 9DF
MemerialGrove.org.uk
mikecolton@hotmail.com
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June 9, 2011 at 08:39
- June 9, 2011 at 01:58
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Are there many statues etc in memory of the males involved?
Or is this
to become a victim group thing – gays, jews , blacks, ethnics etc?
And , of
course , why chose the SOE.
- June 8, 2011 at 23:53
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Instead of statues or memorials to ladies who served within the S.O.E.,
perhaps the good Baroness could give a lecture, with appropriate visual aids,
on a European tour which includes such well known tourist spots as Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glanes, which might demonstrate what
these ladies fought and in some cases died to guard against.
Instead of
erecting more statues, perhaps the good Baroness would wander down toLiverpool Street Station, and admire the statuary already
erected to commemorate some early arrivals into the Democracy which those
ladies helped preserve!
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June 8, 2011 at 21:03
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Irather agree with Matt’s view – I too can probably recall more female than
male names from SOE (and this despite a Great Uncle who was involved with it)
and I fear an ambush here.
Span Owls also makes a good point, but one which is a touch at a tangent to
the issue. The monstrous background ignorance (I have even heard it suggested
that Hitler was a British General) is true, but the intervention by the
Baroness smacks of the running up the flagpole of a non-issue. The only
question I have is – why? Role models? Well, they already are…
- June 8, 2011 at 20:38
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IMHO with this sort of issue it is never a case of too much recognition: we
know that 80% of people in the UK would hardly ever have heard of SOE let
alone know what it did or when, where or how or who or why: when history
graduates at university can’t answer the simplest questions that earlier
generations knew at primary school you have to wonder; this situation will
only get worse as too high immigration and poorer education is not sorted
out.
That said I am sure you are on to something with your coment ” There is
more a danger that they will be given a walk-on-part by modern figures in
search of visual aids.”
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