This month’s #WEDReads comes from Kate Palmer, Senior Subcontract Manager at Leidos, who shares a powerful and inspiring read: Agent Zo by Clare Mulley.
Agent Zo tells the extraordinary true story of Elżbieta Zawacka, one of the bravest yet least-known resistance fighters of the Second World War. It’s a compelling account of courage, leadership, and quiet defiance in the face of overwhelming risk.
This month’s pick is a timely reminder of the often-unseen contributions of women in defence, resistance, and security, and why their stories matter as much today as ever.
A must-read for anyone interested in history, resilience, and the power of individuals to shape outcomes against the odds. ✨
Let’s hear what Kate thought about this book:
I first discovered Agent Zo through the We Have Ways podcast with James Holland and Al Murray and their 3-episode series with Clare Mulley, The Women of SOE. Which highlighted how many women carried out extraordinary wartime work yet remain largely absent from mainstream history. That conversation led me Agent Zo and early in the book Mulley’s use of the phrase, “chauvinist myopia,” immediately resonated. It captures the structural blindness that shaped both Elżbieta Zawacka’s world and the way her story has been remembered.
Growing up in Prussian-occupied Poland — a nation erased from the map for 123 years — Zo learned early to live a double life: outwardly conforming to German expectations while fiercely guarding her Polish identity. This tension between enforced invisibility and inner defiance became the foundation of her wartime brilliance. Determined to push beyond the passive roles assigned to women, she fought for strategic inclusion long before the war demanded it.
Her operational record is astonishing. As a courier for the Home Army, she crossed borders more than a hundred times, built a vast intelligence network of women in Silesia, travelled from occupied Warsaw to London as an emissary, trained in Britain, and became the only female member of the Cichociemni, parachuting back into Poland in 1943. During the Warsaw Uprising, she worked in the “Zagroda” communication department and drafted a decree granting female fighters official military status.
Much of her testimony survives thanks to interviews recorded in 1992 over reused communist-era tapes — a fitting metaphor for a voice nearly erased by politics and prejudice.
Mulley’s use of survivorship bias underscores how women’s wartime contributions have been distorted or lost entirely. Agent Zo restores one of those missing stories with clarity and force.
Kate concludes that ‘for anyone committed to recognising women’s leadership in defence, Agent Zo isn’t just recommended — it’s required’.
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