12. SOE Training
Accepting the risks, Odette began her training as an SOE operative. As cover, she was enrolled in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) – a charity active in nursing work, and which supplied the SOE with support personnel. Her real training, however, commenced with field craft, radio message coding and decoding, weapons, and physical fitness and strengthening. She became proficient in explosives, and with virtually all firearms she was likely to encounter in occupied Europe. She was also trained in hand to hand combat, and taught how to kill with close in weapons such as knives, and pen pistols that could fire a single bullet or an asphyxiating gas cartridge.
She was then sent to more advanced training, where her espionage skills were further honed, and she was prepared for life in occupied France. Details that a local would know, but that might trip up somebody who had not spent years living under German occupation, were drilled into her time and time again. She had to memorize her cover story, and become who she claimed to be. She needed to understand the fine points about ration cards; identity papers; how to deal with and talk her way through checkpoints; how to interact with German soldiers; how to spot and avoid secret police, informers, and snitches, etc.
