
18/06/2025
British spy legend Elaine Marie Madden, codenamed "Imogen," was one of only two women parachuted into N**i-occupied Belgium by the Special Operations Executive (SOE)—and the only one to complete her mission successfully.
Around February 1944, when this photo was taken, Madden was 20 years old and had just been recruited as a Cadet Ensign in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, a unit often used as cover for female SOE agents. After six weeks of intense training, she parachuted into Belgium’s Ardennes region from a US Army Air Forces plane on the night of August 5, 1944. It was a perilous moment for SOE operatives—just weeks earlier, four agents had been captured, tortured, and beheaded.
As a "fast courier," Madden’s role was to be the “ears, legs, and mouth” of her superior, star T Section agent André Wendelen, who was already a high-value target for N**i intelligence. She recalled: “I did most of his legwork—meeting contacts and so on—so he didn’t have to go out. One part of our mission was to find any V1 or V2 rocket sites in Belgium, though I didn’t know the full scope at the time.”
Madden also carried out a top-secret political mission. She was tasked with safeguarding a charming man she knew only as “Monsieur Bernard,” who the SOE intended to extract to England via Lysander aircraft. They spent long hours in a safe house playing cards—“He was a terrible cheat,” she said. Only later did she learn his real identity: Prince Charles, brother of the disgraced King Leopold III, and future Regent of Belgium.
Her mission ended when Allied forces liberated Belgium in September 1944—but not before she faced countless dangers. She endured frequent document checks, evaded German tailing squads, and remained composed even when a German officer gave her a ride to Brussels while she carried a radio transmitter in her suitcase. Nothing rattled her.
Following her SOE service, Madden was among the first women to enter newly liberated concentration camps, helping rescue political prisoners. The trauma she witnessed left a permanent mark on her.