The White Lady by Helen Fry review: ‘fascinating' account of wartime spying
Helen Fry’s new book shows the vital role Belgium played in gathering intelligence for the Allies during the First and Second World Wars, writes Vin Arthey
It is not easy to make sense of a world war, or to understand fully the changing commitments of nations and individuals within the two which occurred in the first half of last century. Helen Fry accepts this in her fascinating book about the part Belgium played in Allied intelligence in both wars, by focusing on one particular service, MI6, and on the work undertaken by those of its agents who were recruited primarily in Belgium, by Belgians. The White Lady was the name these agents gave to their network in World War One – coming from a German legend that, should the ghost of a white lady appear, the ruling royal family of Prussia would lose power.
The agents were essentially watchers, particularly of railway trains, in order to track troop movements. Many of these were women, between the ages of 18 and 80. One spycraft technique they used, as they sat apparently absent-mindedly knitting scarves by their windows, was to knit in code, knitting particular stitches, purl or plain, to represent regiments or troop numbers. Other watchers wrote their information in code, in invisible ink, and hid the messages in buttons or tubes inserted into potatoes. Couriers got the information over the Dutch border and thence to France, where it was decoded.
In World War Two, the network, with many of the original agents still in place, became the Clarence Service, and in a faster moving war was collecting information about targets for air raids, the details of Allied aircraft losses and, as before, enemy troop numbers, their morale and ration details. This time, the information was radioed back to the UK, by operators and kit parachuted into occupied Belgium. As the war progressed, the type of information coming out of occupied Europe became even more vital, including details of U-boat manufacture and intelligence about the V1 and V2 rockets programme.
Fry notes how important women were in both wars, in supervisory roles as well as being agents. They had military status and rank, which was not possible in the UK at that time, and were even heads of intelligence regions in World War Two - something which was useful, as the German forces did not expect women to be engaged in this type of work. The fact that women were so important is relevant to Fry’s research. They have service records, as such, and as well as being identifiable in some cases through declassified documents in both the UK and Belgium, some left correspondence and diaries. It is also noticeable that Catholic Christianity features: priests were involved in the services in both wars, and many of the agents expressed their faith and belief as the foundation of what they were doing. This is a useful book in helping us understand these wars, and it is also a tribute to the bravery of those who risked everything.
The White Lady: The Story of Two Key British Secret Service Networks Behind German Lines, by Helen Fry, Yale University Press, £20
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