The objective of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany.

[1] The family travelled and lived around Europe, so as a result Baseden was educated at schools in England, France, Poland, Italy, and Spain in addition to being bilingual (English and French), she also spoke a basic level of many other languages.

[2] On 4 September 1940 (aged 18), Baseden joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a General Duties Clerk (Service No 4189).

She was commissioned in 1941 (later promoted to the rank of Section Officer) and worked in the RAF Intelligence branch, where she assisted in the interrogation of captured airmen and submarine crews.

[1] Following the largest daylight air drop of the war to that date, during a routine search by the Gestapo on 26 June 1944, she was trapped in a cheese factory with seven colleagues from the network.

Baseden spent her first nights of freedom on a mattress on the floor of the Malmö Museum of Prehistory, sleeping under the skeletons of dinosaurs.

[1] She was awarded the MBE by Britain and the Legion of Honour; the Resistance Medal and the Croix de Guerre avec Palme by France.

She also appeared in a French documentary (Robert et les Ombres) in which she met, 60 years after the events, two of the Resistance fighters who were in the field when she was dropped.