“d-Day Girls” by Sarah Rose

Courageous women who helped win the war.

I openly admit that I picked this book thinking it was a fiction novel based on true facts.

I was certainly wrong - it is 100% non-fiction, and its main characters are real and very courageous women who helped the Allies win World War II.

Andrée Borrel, Lise de Baissac, and Odette Samson were three of the thirty-nine women who joined the British underground Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization as special agents. The SOE was created in 1940, with the objective of coordinating and carrying out acts of sabotage against German forces in occupied countries, such as France. By 1942, the Allies were losing the war and it seemed that nothing would be able to stop Germany. With a large number of men fighting on the front lines, the SOE then decided to recruit women in order to train them as spies and be able to - among many things - gather intelligence, destroy train lines, blow up power lines, and help set up the stage for the Allies' invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944, also known as D-Day.

The story focuses mostly on these three women, but also portrays other female agents, such as Yvonne Rudellat and Marie Herbert. All of them risked their lives every day for years in order to help the cause. I do wonder then… why did the author choose to use the word "girls" in the title? To me, it somehow downplays what these women sacrificed and accomplished, but maybe that's just me.

 In addition to appreciating what these brave women did, what I appreciated the most  from “D-Day Girls” is how much I learned while reading it - I found myself often googling facts and names. At times I found it a bit challenging to keep track of the story - maybe due to the fact that there's barely any dialogue in it - however, it is a good read, rich in historical facts, and a commendable recognition to the important contributions of these women to history.