The REAL femme fatales who made Black Doves look tame: From the 'Queen of Spies' to the woman dubbed 'the most dangerous of all' by the Gestapo

As spy Helen Webb in new Netflix thriller Black Doves, Keira Knightley proves to be adept with a pistol while juggling family life.

The show, which also stars Ben Whishaw, has already won a Golden Globe nomination with its all-action scenes.

But, although some of Webbs exploits might be stretching credulity, the actions of real female spies - including several Second World War heroines - proved just as incredible.

Queen of Spies Daphne Park rose to become one of the most senior controllers at MI6 after proving her worth in the fight against Nazi Germany.

And the efforts of fellow agent Nancy Wake in the war inspired the 2001 film Charlotte Gray.

And although Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo were murdered by the Nazis, their bravery still proved immensely valuable to the British war effort.

On the other side of the equation are the likes of Cynthia Murphy (real name Lidiya Guryev) and Anna Chapman, who were unmasked in 2010 as Russian spies. 

As we reveal below, whilst the history of espionage has largely been dominated by men, female spies have more than held their own when sent behind enemy lines.  

As spy Helen Webb in new Netflix spy thriller Black Doves, Keira Knightley proves to be adept with a pistol while juggling family life

Daphne Park 

Dubbed the Queen of Spies, Daphne Park rose to become one of the most senior controllers at MI6.

She ran agents in Moscow during the Cold War, infiltrated Hanoi in Vietnam and smuggled men out of Congo in the boot of her car when the country descended into anarchy after achieving independence.

Dubbed the Queen of Spies, Daphne Park rose to become one of the most senior controllers at MI6

Baroness Park, who died aged 88 in 2010, described herself as a cheerful fat missionary and said her plain appearance was the secret to her success.

Her favourite drink was Earl Grey tea, which she joked - in an allusion to James Bond - was best served stirred, not shaken.

As the daughter of a coffee farmer and gold prospector, she grew up in the jungles of what is now Tanzania in Africa.

Baroness Park never married or had children, instead devoting her life to her career as a spy.

She graduated from Oxford in 1943, when the the Second World War was still raging.

After volunteering for service, Baroness Park trained Resistance fighters who were parachuting into Nazi-occupied France in the lead-up to D-Day. 

When the war was over, Park was sent to Berlin to track down German scientists before they fell into the hands of the Soviet Union.

In 1954, the year after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died, she was posted to Moscow.

She later said that she spent her time there doing the usual things, which included gathering secrets and having clandestine conversations in public parks.

In the Congo, she posed as writer researching the countrys civil war. And in Hanoi, she was appointed Consul-General.

In that role, she filed her secret spying reports by leaving the country every few weeks in the back of an old Dakota aircraft. 

She later recounted: They were not supposed to shoot at it, but sometimes forgot, so it was rather a dicey trip. 

After retiring from MI6, Baroness Park served as a BBC governor between 1982 and 1987, before becoming a Tory peer in 1990.      

Noor Inayat Khan

During the Second World War, Noor Inayat Khan was one of the top agents of Winston Churchills elite Special operations Executive

During the Second World War, Noor Inayat Khan was one of the top agents of Winston Churchills elite Special operations Executive.

She was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France.

For three months, she single-handedly ran a cell of spies across Paris until she was betrayed and captured.

For ten months she was tortured by the Gestapo desperate for any information about SOE operations.

But she stood firm and was eventually executed at Dachau concentration camp on September 13, 1944, aged just 30.

Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949 and the French Croix de Guerre. 

Khan was born on New Years Day 1914 in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother. 

In November 1940, she joined the Womens Auxiliary Air Force, and two years later her quiet dedication and training in radio transmitting attracted the attention of the SOE.

Noor Inayat-Khan, left, with her mother. She was eventually betrayed by a Frenchwoman, supposedly the jealous girlfriend of a comrade

Despite doubts about her suitability, she was flown to France in June 1943 to become the radio operator for the Prosper resistance network in Paris, using the codename Madeleine and with the famous instruction to set Europe ablaze.

Many members of the network were arrested shortly afterwards but she chose to remain in France and she spent the summer moving from place to place, trying to relay messages back to London.

She was eventually betrayed by a Frenchwoman, supposedly the jealous girlfriend of a comrade. 

After a campaign by her biographer Shrabani Basu, Khans bravery was recognised with a bronze bust near her childhood home in Bloomsbury. It was erected in 2012. 

Violette Szabo 

Her fluent French and evident courage made Violette Szabo an ideal candidate for the Special Operations Executive.

She volunteered for service after her husband was killed by the Germans at El Alamein in 1942.  

Her first mission in April 1944 - two months before D-Day - involved her being parachuted over Cherbourg.

Mrs Szabo undertook a highly-dangerous solo mission to assess the fate of an SOE network of agents and gathered information about factories producing war materials for the Germans so the Allies could bomb them.

Her fluent French and evident courage made Violette Szabo an ideal candidate for the Special Operations Executive

During her undercover mission she was arrested twice by the Germans but released on both occasions after they believed her cover story.

She was picked up and flown home but not before a daring shopping trip to Paris to buy her daughter Tania an expensive dress.

Her second and last operation took place two days after the Normandy landings in June 1944 when she was parachuted into south west France. 

It is said she kissed the entire crew of the Liberator aircraft before making her exit.

She and local resistance fighter Jacques Dufour hastily drove to the Dordogne to with a band of comrades to sabotage Nazi communication lines but were stopped by a German checkpoint near Limoges.

Their cover blown, the couple made a run for a nearby wheat field, firing at the guards with their Sten guns.

Mrs Szabos daring feats were re-created in 1958 film Carve Her Name With Pride, in which she was portrayed by Virginia McKenna

They crawled through the field until Violette was unable to go any further due to exhaustion and an injured ankle. She told Mr Dufour to make his escape.

Mrs Szabo continued to engage the enemy for nearly half an hour but was captured after running out of ammunition. Hauled up before an SS officer, she was seen to spit in his face by a local witness.

Taken to Limoges, and then to Paris, Mrs Szabo underwent terrible torture prior to being transferred to Ravensbruck concentration camp in northern Germany in August 1944.

She remained defiant throughout her ordeal, discussed escape and, to the consternation of her brutal guards, led fellow prisoners in a rendition of The Lambeth Walk to boost morale - for which she was placed in solitary confinement for a week.

She and agents Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe, also from the SOE, were executed by a shot to the back of their necks between January and February 1945. Their bodies were cremated.

Mrs Szabos daring feats were re-created in 1958 film Carve Her Name With Pride, in which she was portrayed by Virginia McKenna.  

Nancy Wake 

Nancy Wake topped the Gestapos wanted list after her daring exploits behind enemy lines.

Her efforts in the war inspired the Sebastian Faulks novel Charlotte Gray, which in 2001 was turned into a film starring Cate Blanchett.

Ms Wake, who died aged 98 in 2011, was codenamed White Mouse by the Nazis, due to the ease with which she escaped capture.

Nancy Wake topped the Gestapos wanted list after her daring exploits behind enemy lines

She once said that she was sorry I didnt kill more Nazis.

The spy, who had no children and was the widow of British fighter pilot John Forward, helped to arm and lead 7,000 resistance fighters in weakening German defences before the D-Day invasion in 1944.

In Britain, she was awarded the George Medal, whilst France decorated her with  its highest military honour, the Legion dHonneur, as well as three Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de la Resistance.

The United States awarded her its Medal of Freedom.

Her efforts in the war inspired the Sebastian Faulks novel Charlotte Gray, which in 2001 was turned into a film starring Cate Blanchett

Virginia Hall

As a spy working behind enemy lines, Virginia Hall was branded the most dangerous of all by the Gestapo.

An agent for the SOE, she slipped back and forth between London and France, wreaking havoc wherever she went.

Ms Hall, who had a wooden leg, was considered such a top level operative that Gestapo chief Hermann Göring put out Wanted posters offering a reward for her capture.

She lost her foot in a hunting accident in Turkey, when her shotgun slipped from her grasp and fired when she grabbed it. 

As a spy working behind enemy lines, Virginia Hall was branded the most dangerous of all by the Gestapo. Above: Ms Hall receiving the Distinguished Service Cross in 1945

Always able to see the funny side of things, Miss Hall immediately named her wooden leg Cuthbert. 

She was in Paris when war broke out in 1939 and joined the ambulance service.

When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, she fled to London, and with her language skills, was soon recruited by the SOE.

After training in the clandestine arts of killing, communications and security, she went to Vichy France to set up resistance networks under the cover of being a reporter for the New York Post.

After the November, 1942, North Africa invasion, German troops flooded into her area and things became too hot even for her.

She hiked on her artificial leg across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter to Spain.

During the journey she radioed London saying she was okay but Cuthbert was giving her trouble.

Forgetting this was her artificial leg, and knowing her value to the Allied cause, her commanders radioed back: If Cuthbert troublesome eliminate him.

Ms Hall, who had a wooden leg, was considered such a top level operative that Gestapo chief Hermann Göring put out Wanted posters offering a reward for her capture 

She later returned to London, but headed back to France in 1944 to set up a series of resistance fighters to target Nazi communications and blow up bridges.

One of the adept spys key lieutenants was Germaine Guerin, a brothel owner who ran an establishment popular with German officers and government officials.

The 37-year-old made parts of her brothel into flats available for safe houses, encouraged her girls to spike their clients drinks and got some clients addicted to heroin to make them incapable of fighting.

Ms Hall, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in 1945, went on to marry one of the men shed fought with in France, French-born OSS agent, Paul Goilott.

Cynthia and Richard Murphy

In June 2010, New Jersey couple Richard and Cynthia Murphy were arrested at their home by the FBI.

They had been unmasked as Russian spies Vladimir and Lidiya Guryev.

Since the 1990s, the couple had been gathering information for Russias spy agency the SVR - all the while living as an ordinary American couple.

Lidiya worked for New York City bank, whilst Vladimir was a stay-at-home dad.

In June 2010, New Jersey couple Richard and Cynthia Murphy were arrested at their home by the FBI. They had been unmasked as Russian spies Vladimir and Lidiya Guryev

Lidiya worked for New York City bank, whilst Vladimir was a stay-at-home dad

The couples two daughters are believed to have been entirely ignorant of their spying activities.

They were caught when US authorities cracked a secret code they had used to to communicate with Moscow.

This allowed the FBI to learn more about the Guryevs activities. 

A deal was struck to allow the Guryevs - who were among 10 Russian spies arrested - to return to Russia, in exchange for four alleged Western spies who were in prison.

The couples daughters were eventually allowed to join their parents. 

The couples two daughters are believed to have been entirely ignorant of their spying activities

Anna Chapman 

Another Russian spy who was recruited by the SVR was Anna Chapman, who lived in London and Manhattan.

The daughter of a Russian diplomat, she married British man Alex Chapman, who was found dead at a house in Southampton in May 2015. 

Dubbed by the media as Russias most glamorous secret agent, Chapmans nefarious activities were uncovered while she was living in New York.

Along with the Guryevs, she was one of the ten Russian spies who were sent back to Russia in 2010. 

Another Russian spy who was recruited by the SVR was Anna Chapman, who lived in London and Manhattan 

Another Russian spy who was recruited by the SVR was Anna Chapman, who lived in London and Manhattan. Above: Chapman posing for the cover of Maxim 

Among the Western spies who went in the other direction was double agent Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned along with his daughter with nerve agent novichok in Salisbury in 2018. 

Alex Chapman caused his ex-wife huge embarrassment after revealing details of their sex life following her arrest.

He produced a picture of Anna wielding a whip and another toy and wearing nipple clamps. 

The couple had met in 2001 at a rave in London while Anna was still a student and Alex described her as the most beautiful woman he had ever met. 

After they split Anna relocated to New York, where with the aid of a $1m cash injection from the Russian Government she set up an internet property business.

Chapman has just released a book in which she portrays herself as a real-life female 007. 

She claims she was recruited by a young London-based Moscow spy who witnessed her expert networking skills, particularly among wealthy and influential men. 

Dubbed by the media as Russias most glamorous secret agent, Chapmans nefarious activities were uncovered while she was living in New York