THE Princess Royal will visit Hampshire today to salute the bravery of secret agents who risked torture and death during the Second World War.

The princess will open a major exhibition about the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a courageous group of spies and saboteurs who were trained at Beaulieu in the New Forest.

The trainees were known locally as the "hush-hush troops" because their activities in the area were shrouded in mystery.

Agents who completed their course and parachuted into Nazi-occupied territory faced a one-in-three chance of being captured, tortured and possibly executed.

More than 3,000 personnel passed through Beaulieu, which was regarded as SOE's "finishing school".

The exhibition will be held at Palace House, ancestral home of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.

The Princess Royal will be joined by former SOE veterans including Joachim Ronneberg, one of the saboteurs who blew up a Norwegian factory involved in the production of heavy water.

The raid prevented Germany manufacturing an atomic bomb and was later immortalised in the film The Heroes of Telemark.

Lord Montagu said: "Nine houses at Beaulieu were used as important training centres for secret agents, whose covert operations in continental Europe made a great contribution to the defeat of Germany. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the closing of the school.

"We intend to pay tribute to their bravery and sacrifices by opening an exhibition about the Special Operations Executive, to be called Secret Army.

"The exhibition, which has the co-operation of the Imperial War Museum and the Special Forces Club, will run for several years."

FACTFILE:

SOE was formed by Hugh Dalton, minister of economic warfare, who was told to "set Europe ablaze".

Recruits were taught how to use guns and explosives and live secretly in occupied countries. They also had to master the techniques of unarmed combat and silent killing.

SOE inventors devised a wide range of gadgets and weapons, including miniaturised radios and explosives disguised as animal droppings.

The duties of female SOE members were initially restricted to producing passports, ration cards and other forged documents.

In 1942 Winston Churchill approved plans to send women agents to France on the grounds that they would be less conspicuous than men.

SOE personnel were taught that if captured and interrogated they must attempt to stay silent for at least 48 hours.