Talk:Vera Atkins

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Nihil novi in topic First missions of the Second World War

"Miss Monypenny' edit

Miss Moneypenny resembles Vera Atkins in no way shape or form. She is in fact generally believed to have been based on the secretary of Menzies the real-life "C", or on Ian Fleming's own secretary. I have deleted this sentence until some respectable citation can be found for it.

Post WWII edit

Didn't Vera Atkins continue tracing the missing members of SOE after the war when there was no official interest and SOE had been disbanded? I seem to remember reading that she received a lot of unofficial help from SAS who were also tracing missing people. Quite a number of German war criminals were brought to trial because of her determination. Perhaps someone with more knowledge (or better memory) can add something to the main page. --jmb 21:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Date of birth edit

The lead says 16 June, as does the infobox, but Early Life says 2 June. I'm assuming someone's tried to do a conversion between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and got it wrong. The gap was 13 days, so 2 June Julian would equate to 15 June Gregorian; or, 16 June Gregorian was derived from 3 June Julian. Either, but not both. Which is correct? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

mordi edit

hu va tøfft ja —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.168.94.17 (talk) 10:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

married ? edit

was she married ? did she marry after the war ? any children ? do they still live local in sussex ?

rob — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.19.38.134 (talk) 21:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Incompetente o traidora edit

Vera Atkins desempeñó un papel muy extraño en el SOE. Lo menos que se puede decir de ella es que fue incompetente, aunque es más probable que lo suyo fue la traición. Mandó a la muerte -sabiéndolo- a demasiados agentes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.55.121.2 (talk) 08:40, 14 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Muriel Byck edit

Byck is not mentioned in Sarah Helm's biography of Vera Atkins. Can anyone give a citation for Atkins finding out Byck's fate? Perhaps her fate was already known, in which case the reference to her in the Atkins article should not suggest Atkins did the research. Aslo what evidence is there of how Byck died? The article on Byck gives no citations.Exbrum (talk) 21:18, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Possible plagiarism and not encyclopedic edit

Not sure if this needs to be said, but the majority of this page is not written in an encyclopedic format, and seems to heavily rely on a single source. I will put up a notice warning against this, but an editor should probably come by and check to make sure this isn't plagiarism. ChunyangD (talk) 01:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Massively improved sourcing edit

Just wanted to say thanks to any editors who have provided sources recently to help bring this page up to WP:MOSBIO standards! :D Techhead7890 (talk) 04:18, 14 July 2019 (UTC)Reply

First missions of the Second World War edit

I am wondering about the accuracy of the involvement of Vera Atkins in the escape of the Polish agents who worked on the Enigma code. Wikipedia pages in relation to this event give a different version, for example Marian Rejewski, Cipher Bureau (Poland) I came across it while checkingthe French version but I don't know the procedure here ... --Mellonne (talk) 13:58, 6 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Mellonne, you are right. The present "Vera Atkins" account is based on Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II, Arcade Publishing, 2006, by William Stevenson, who tends to embroider the careers of some individuals.
Władysław Kozaczuk's book Enigma (1984) gives a different account of how Rejewski, Różycki, Zygalski, and other key Polish Cipher Bureau personnel were evacuated by special Polish government train to Romania, where the cryptologists visited Allied embassies in an effort to obtain assistance in getting to France. Kozaczuk's account, based on Rejewski's detailed recollection, mentions that Colin Gubbins tried to make contact with them but was unable to, and they got out of Romania without his help. The British embassy told the trio of cryptologists to "come back in a few days", while the French embassy immediately contacted Gustave Bertrand in France, who facilitated their travel to Paris.
Best, Nihil novi (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply
The "Colin Gubbins" article, "Second World War" section, says:
"When British forces were mobilized in August 1939, Gubbins was appointed Chief of Staff to the military mission to Poland led by Adrian Carton de Wiart. Gubbins and some of a contingent from MI(R) arrived in Warsaw on 3 September, within hours of the British declaration of war, but after only a few days the mission was forced by the rapidly deteriorating situation to abandon Warsaw. They finally crossed into Roumania in late September."
No mention of Gubbins' escorting the Polish Cipher Bureau personnel; no mention of Vera Atkins.
The Polish cryptologists were evacuated to Romania on 17 September 1939, apparently well before Gubbins reached Romania.
Nihil novi (talk) 06:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)Reply