This bronze bust of Violette Szabo, on the Albert Embankment, just yards from the Headquarters of the British Special Intelligence Service (MI6), commemorates the secret agents who led covert operations against the Nazis.
This monument was commissioned by the Public Memorials Appeal.
S. O. E.
The Special Operations Executive was secretly formed for the purpose of recruiting agents, men and women of many nationalities, who would volunteer to continue the fight for freedom, by performing acts of sabotage in countries occupied by the enemy during the Second World War.
This monument is in honour of all the courageous S.O.E. Agents: those who did survive and those who did not survive their perilous missions. Their services were beyond the call of duty. In the pages of history their names are carved with pride.
The Heroes of Telemark.
In 1943 Norwegian resistance commandos sponsored by the S.O.E. raided the enemy occupied Norsk Hydro Plant in the Telemark region of Norway.
This successful raid sabotaged the machinery that was producing heavy water, which is used in the manufacture of the Atomic Bomb.
Thanks to those Norwegian Commandos the enemy's attempt to develop the Atomic Bomb was thwarted.
The Maquis French resistance fighters.
470 S.O.E. agents were sent on sabotage missions to occupied France where they fought with networks of French resistance fighters who played an important part in the liberation of France in 1944.
Violette Szabo.
Violette Bushell was born in Paris, France, in 1921, before her family moved to England. At the outbreak of World War II, she joined the Women's Land Army and the Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she met Étienne Szabo, a Free French corps soldier. They were married and she bore him a daughter, Tanis, in 1942. That same year Étienne was killed in action at the battle of El-Alamein.
It was this event that led her to join the Special Operations Executive intelligence agency, which, at the time, had its headquarters on Baker Street.
