A House For Spies Sis Operations Into Occupied France From A Sussex Farmhouse 194144 Reissue Edward Wakewalker by Edward Wake-walker 9781913518011, 1913518019 instant download after payment.

From 1941 through to 1944, Bignor Manor, a farmhouse in Sussex England provided board and lodging for men and women of the French Resistance and SOE before they were flown by moonlight into occupied France. 

Barbara Bertram, whose husband was a conducting officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), became hostess for these daring agents and their pilots during their brief stopovers inside her house, before leaving to complete their hazardous assignments in Occupied Europe.

But who were these men and women that passed through the Bertram’s house? 

And what activities did they conduct whilst in France that meant that so many of them never returned?

Edward Wake-Walker charts the experiences of numerous agents, such as Gilbert Renault, Christian Pineau and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, and the networks of operatives that they created that provided top-secret intelligence on German defences and naval bases, U-boats, as well as Hitler’s devastating new weapons, the V-1 and V-2.

A House For Spies provides a fascinating insight into the lives of SIS agents and their Lysander Pilots who provided invaluable intelligence to Allied forces. 

This is a much-forgotten aspect of the Second World War that is only now being told.

“Utterly fascinating, very moving and funny. I couldn't have enjoyed it more.” — Hugh Grant

Originally Published in 2011, reissued in 2020 (this version).