Fifteen years ago, Phyllis "Pippa" Latour Doyle finally told her children about her past as Genevieve, Paulette, Plus Fours, and Lampooner — all code names from her time as a British spy during World War II.
The mission was personal for her: The father of her godmother had been shot by the Germans, and her godmother killed herself when she was taken prisoner. "I did it for revenge," Doyle said in a 2009 interview. A cat burglar was released from jail specifically to teach Doyle how to sneak into places unnoticed; he showed her how to go down drain pipes and climb over roofs without getting caught. Once inside France, Doyle posed as a poor 14-year-old girl. She had 30 minutes to send her messages; it took the Germans 90 minutes to trace the signal, and she had just enough time to get out of the danger zone.
After the war, Doyle settled into a normal life, and said that if one of her sons hadn't discovered information about her past on the internet, she might have never told her family.
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