Paul McCue
Paul was born in Yorkshire and educated there, in Surrey and at the University of Birmingham, from where he graduated in International Studies.
He has been a military historian and author for over 35 years. He has authored five books to date and regularly gives talks and presentations in the UK and overseas as Executive Trustee of SECRET WW2, a UK-based educational charity specialising in clandestine warfare and special forces, special operations, intelligence services and resistance organisations in the Second World War.
Lilian will be his sixth book and he is currently drawing up the roll of honour for 104 agents of French Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). In addition to French Section, SOE his specialisations include the SAS Regiment in wartime France and Italy and aspects of the British wartime military presence in Mandate Palestine, now Israel. He acts as an historical consultant and guide for the UK military, including special forces and special operations units.
He retired as Managing Director of a London-based leisure and culture company in 2018 and now devotes his time to research, presentations and writing from his home in Hampshire. He is a former Armed Forces Advisor to a London Borough, a member of the Greater London Reserve Forces and Cadets' Association, a member of the Royal United Services Institute and Executive Trustee of SECRET WW2-The Secret WW2 Learning Network, which has delivered projects in Britain, France, Austria, Australia and Israel.
Lilian: SOE Secret Radio Operator in WW2 France
Lilian Rolfe was born and educated in Paris. When her British father, George, was posted to work in Brazil, Lilian, her twin sister, Helen, and mother, Alexandra, went with him to a glamorous lifestyle in Rio de Janeiro.
In 1943 Lilian was one of several hundred volunteers from South American countries to come to Britain to join the war effort. Her dramatic journey involved one of the biggest attacks on an Atlantic convoy by a Wolfpack of German U-boats.
On reaching Britain she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and trained as a radio operator. It was this skill, and her fluent French, that then saw her accepted when she again volunteered–for F (French) Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Further trained as a radio operator and as a secret agent, she was flown to a clandestine landing ground in Nazi-occupied France in April 1944. Captured later that summer, she was deported to the horror of Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany–and to her tragic end.
