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Better article, scroll down to the "From the Archives - Interview with Pippa from 2009" - https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/63516307/pippas-astonishing-story-re

Better article, scroll down to the "From the Archives - Interview with Pippa from 2009" - https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/63516307/pippas-astonishing-story-recognised https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/63516307/pippas-astonishing... "Germany was far more advanced with their DF (direction finding or radio detecting apparatus) than the Allies. They were about an hour and a half behind me each time I transmitted. Each message might take me about half an hour so I didn't have much time. It was an awful problem for me so I had to ask for one of the three DF near me to be taken out. They threw a grenade at it. A German woman and two small children died. I knew I was responsible for their deaths. It was a horrible feeling." Leo Marks - "Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945" - "Clearly disappointed that he couldn't see a problem, he said that silk codes could easily be camouflaged in toothpaste tubes with special compartments, in shoelaces with soft tubes inside, and in an infinite number of conventional objects which would certainly stand up to random street searches, and might even be safe under close examination"

robocat 4y ago
The article does contain good details: With just one blue cotton dress to her name she pedalled around the countryside selling soap to mostly German soldiers, crossing fields on foot to where she had hidden another bicycle. The Gestapo and SS were everywhere. And to add to the confusion and danger a double agent was working in the area. The SOE operative was friendly and talkative whenever she met German soldiers – "I'd talk so much about anything and everything, trying to be 'helpful' and they'd get sick of me" - and was constantly moving through the countryside where she was transmitting the information so urgently needed by the Allied Command. "I always carried knitting because my codes were on a piece of silk – I had about 2000 I could use. When I used a code I would just pinprick it to indicate it had gone. I wrapped the piece of silk around a knitting needle and put it in a flat shoe lace which I used to tie my hair up." Once she was loaded into a truck along with other locals and taken to the police station for questioning. "I can remember being taken to the station and a female soldier made us take our clothes off to see if we were hiding anything. She was looking suspiciously at my hair so I just pulled my lace off and shook my head. That seemed to satisfy her. I tied my hair back up with the lace- it was a nerve-wracking moment."
- aaron695 4y ago
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robocat 4y ago

The article does contain good details: With just one blue cotton dress to her name she pedalled around the countryside selling soap to mostly German soldiers, crossing fields on foot to where she had hidden another bicycle. The Gestapo and SS were everywhere. And to add to the confusion and danger a double agent was working in the area. The SOE operative was friendly and talkative whenever she met German soldiers – "I'd talk so much about anything and everything, trying to be 'helpful' and they'd get sick of me" - and was constantly moving through the countryside where she was transmitting the information so urgently needed by the Allied Command. "I always carried knitting because my codes were on a piece of silk – I had about 2000 I could use. When I used a code I would just pinprick it to indicate it had gone. I wrapped the piece of silk around a knitting needle and put it in a flat shoe lace which I used to tie my hair up." Once she was loaded into a truck along with other locals and taken to the police station for questioning. "I can remember being taken to the station and a female soldier made us take our clothes off to see if we were hiding anything. She was looking suspiciously at my hair so I just pulled my lace off and shook my head. That seemed to satisfy her. I tied my hair back up with the lace- it was a nerve-wracking moment."

aaron695 4y ago
[dead]