They Also Serve

"They Also Serve" is a fascinating account of one woman's experiences during World War Two within the Special Operations Executive and the WRNS. At the Scandinavian Section of the SOE Dorothy Baden-Powell was engaged in sending Norwegian saboteurs into occupied Norway and debriefing them on their return to London. After spending a year and a half with the SOE, at the age of twenty-one, she was given an assignment in the WRNS to try to break a ring of enemy spies. They were based on HMS Raleigh, a naval training camp at Plymouth and were sending information to Germany about the movements of British warships from nearly every port in the United Kingdom. She had already sniffed out one spy - a pro-German Norwegian naval officer - at the SOE. Charles Hambro, Chief of the Scandinavian Section of the SOE (as well as Chairman of Hambro's Bank) had put Dorothy Baden-Powell forward for the assignment but neither he nor she had much idea just what was involved.
During those three months she endured the privations of life on the lower deck, assaults by drunken sailors ashore, the unwelcome scrutiny of a particularly unpleasant WRNS Superintendent, and a trumped-up charge and subsequent court-martial. Finally, once Dorothy Baden-Powell had been drafted to HMS Raleigh she uncovered an enemy agent trying to be taken on as a sailor, and, by a combination of bravery, sheer determination and luck, she narrowly managed to avoid being murdered and to succeed in having him captured. With her assignment successfully completed she gladly returned to her job with the SOE. "They Also Serve" is a remarkable story of bravery and dedication and, moreover, is a tribute to all those men and women who served their country during the Second World War.