In the summer of 1940, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler in World War Two, as Nazi Germany occupied Europe from Poland to the Pyrenees.

It was in this context that, on 16 July 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to take the fight to the enemy, and 'set Europe ablaze'.

They did their level best. And in 1944, as the Allied armies massed in Britain in readiness for the D-Day invasion of Europe, agents of the SOE were still working behind enemy lines alongside the Resistance in France. Their mission: to support the D-Day landings.