This is a very readable history of the women who were recruited into the Firm, the name attached to Churchill's Special Operations Executive,and the training they went through before being dropped into France by parachute, boat or plane. Their role was to organize an underground resistance to the Germans by training French men & women in weapons use, sabotage, radio and signaling skills and how to keep themselves and their activities secrete from the Nazis and the Vichy French.

Many of these agents were arrested and tortured with some being turned by the Gestapo to be counter agents for the Nazis. This in turn led to many other agents being arrested to the point in1943 that the Resistance structure was almost completely wiped out. Only the persistence and clever efforts of some of the women kept the movement viable. General Eisenhower acknowledged that their efforts probably was the equivalent of 15 Divisions and shorten the war by six months.

All the incidents covered in this book have been verified by research in available documents. ( )

I think I appreciate the idea of this book more than the book itself. It sells pretty hard on the title, but it just didn't hit the mark.

I think it would have benefitted from a bit of a narrative to pull us through the stories of the women. It kind of jumped from woman to woman abruptly, and bounced back and forth between them. It lacked depth, not only in the impact these women had but also in the women themselves. It didn't really dive into these women as individuals, so I never felt connected with them or their stories. As opposed to Radium Girls, where I felt connected and sympathetic to the women of that story, and I was eager to keep reading to find out what they went through and how it affected the nation. I finished Radium Girls feeling satisfied. I finished D-Day Girls wishing I had read a more detailed and researched book.

Also, the audiobook was narrated by the author, and it wasn't great. At times I was very distracted by hearing her breaths before each line. ( )

In the midst of my May Re-Reading Binge, I did manage to finish one new book, and it’s one I’ve been trying to get from my libraries for the last year, at least.

D-Day Girls chronicles the experiences of some of the first women who joined the British war effort in WWII as spies and collaborators with the French Resistance.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite all I’d hoped. Part of the reason might have been the audio format. While the author gave a solid performance, she reads aloud the same way I do, and I don’t like the way I read aloud, because I’m trying to add life to the words and I suck at it. I’m not saying Sarah Rose sucks, but it definitely seemed as though she wasn’t totally comfortable doing it, either. The book’s narrative also jumps around a lot between people, times and places, something I can take in stride when I read, but when I listen, becomes a lot more challenging.

What definitely hurt my rating of this book was the fact that I’d already read/listened to A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, which chronicles the life of Virginia Hall, another woman who served Great Britain, and then the US, organising and running French Resistance. Purnell covers a few of the other players, but only as they were connected to Virginia Hall, and her time jumps were far less frequent, making it an easier book for me to fall into and one that affected me deeply.

Those two caveats aside, the book is a worthwhile read and Rose’s dedication to her subject comes through clearly in her writing. These women meant something to her beyond being historical subjects, and her efforts to bring them to life for the reader (or listener) shine through, audio or not. While Virginia Hall made it through the war relatively unscathed, these women were not so fortunate, and what they experienced and persevered through (especially Odette), made me want to go fetal in a corner and rock.

Books like this are widely considered Pop History, but I’ve never thought that was an insult; books like these are as important as the academically important History Books, because they remind us that history isn’t just about the wars and the battles and the generals who fought them. It’s about the cultures and societies and people who live through them, and Pop History books about women remind us that women have been stepping up, getting it done, and often giving their lives in the effort, long before Feminism became A Thing, and they’ve been doing it in spite of mens’ efforts to hold them back. That’s what I love about the women of historical importance: they never asked for permission or validation, they just did what needed to be done. And I love these books for bringing them out of obscurity.

I have many heroes of both genders, but almost without exception, the women who are my heroines are the ones that stepped up and led by example, and the D-Day Girls join their ranks. ( )

I was so disappointed in this book. Yes, it was informative but it was also dull as dishwater. A better writer would have brought these women to life. I felt as though I was reading a history textbook that left me wanting more. I was appalled by the number of men in this book who were captured and turned traitors. I would have liked to know what happened to all of those jerks. And I was also alarmed by how all of these people kept losing or accidentally turning over uncoded lists of members of the resistance. I'm surprised the Allies won with some of these people in charge! ( )