Skip to 2:12 if you don’t want to see the spoilers.
This episode the students will be going to the finishing school, the last phase before being send out on operation.
Another amazingly gorgeous location.
That rack and the coathangers in one of their rooms doesn’t look very 1940s but apart from that the location is pretty well dressed.
One group will be learning to work with a rather nice looking wireless set while the other group gets to master picking locks.
Again, lots of nice props, although that matchbox doesn’t look like a proper 1930s one.
It is probably just a modern one with a nice label glued to it, a nice old wooden box would have been more fitting.
One I could have provided them with, I have hundreds.
That is some good training, if you want to get out of the room, you better learn to pick that lock!
Lizzie Jeffreys has no experience whatsoever, but again she manages to impress everyone by being the first to finish the key and actually managing to get it to work.
The wireless group gets to play wiht a wonderful wireless transmitter in a suitcase, I’ve seen these in museums.
This is either an amazing reproduction or an oiginal.
It actually seems to work although of course I don’t know if they actually transmit and receive like the original.
It is an emotional moment for Magda because her grandfather used one of these during the war.
I love how much this still means to her, how emotional the war memories make her, how close that war still is.
Like with me.
Funny to see them learn how to get out of handcuffs with a hair pin, I actually tried that myself many years ago and was quite surprised that it really works.
Don’t ask.
The historical bits we see inbetween remind us of how big the impact of the real SOE (and resistance) their actions was.
One mistake they make during the handcuff test is that they don’t help Lizzie Jeffreys escape first, she is the most talented of the group when it comes to lockpicking so they should help her first so she could get to work on the door while the others are still escaping from their handcuffs.
But they don’t even let her try till the very end.
It is no surprise that Stanley is the man for the job when it comes to being a radio transmitter, he has the brain for it.
The wireless test needs to go out into the field and send a transmission.
I wonder if the transmitter actually works, if HQ really receives their message or if they’re just pretending.
Selwyn Jepson, one of SOE’s “most skilled craftsmen”, and senior recruiting officer said; “In my view, women were very much better than men for the work. Women, as you must know, have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage than men.”
I concur.
A historical segment briefly touches on the Englandspiel, giving the official SOE line stating that they didn’t know agent Lauwers was caught.
Lauwers himself and quite a few Dutch historians, myself included, have trouble believing that the SOE didn’t know.
A more likely story is that they sacrificed Dutch agents to play a game with the Abwehr, hoping to one day use this to pass the Germans some essential mis-information.
The dirty tricks and spy toys subject is always fun.
The students get to play with the Minox, a famous spy camera, I’d love to own.
Learning how to create and maintain a cover story is possibly the most important lesson they’ll get.
If you do this right and are a bit lucky, you may never need to use your knowledge of how to pick locks, kill people, etc.
They get their paperwork and story they need to remember.
The ID cards all looks good, nice reproductions although they of course look rather new and I doubt they have all the right additional paperwork, like the right ausweis to keep them from being picked up for forced labour.
Testing their knowledge of French culture with a little party is something that would make a dozen alarm bells ring in my head.
The perfect situation for gathering intelligence and even set a honey trap.
Ah I was right, they’re being tested!
Copsy knows, but too late.
Interrogation time.
Nice to see them finally coming face to face with someone in an actual German uniform.
Of course this is nothing compared to what they would really experience at the hands of the Gestapo, but you can’t replicate that.
Even the quite horrific examples mentioned in this show is still quite mild compared to what else would happen.
A shame they didn’t have a real German doing this though.
There’s nothing quite like having a German in a German WW2 uniform shouting at you in German.
They did quite well, it is not easy.
Ali and Rahini didn’t do well enough though and are lifted from their beds at night to be send home.
The team is now complete, the 6 who made it this far will get their final test.
Historical Reality Television 