A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War

A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War PDF Author: Bernd Horn
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459732804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Created by Winston Churchill to sabotage and subvert the enemy in WWII, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was an innovative and at times infamous group, a band fanatically devoted to the Allied cause and willing to do whatever it took to advance it and hamper the Axis — even operating within North America.

A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War

A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War PDF Author: Bernd Horn
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459732804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Created by Winston Churchill to sabotage and subvert the enemy in WWII, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was an innovative and at times infamous group, a band fanatically devoted to the Allied cause and willing to do whatever it took to advance it and hamper the Axis — even operating within North America.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare PDF Author: Damien Lewis
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623659191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
From the award-winning historian, war reporter, and author Damien Lewis (Zero Six Bravo, Judy) comes the incredible true story of the top-secret "butcher-and-bolt" black ops units Prime Minister Winston Churchill assigned the task of stopping the unstoppable German war machine. Criminals, rogues, and survivalists, the brutal tactics and grit of these "deniables" would define a military unit the likes of which the world had never seen. When France fell to the Nazis in spring 1940, Churchill declared that Britain would resist the advance of the German army--alone if necessary. Churchill commanded the Special Operations Executive to secretly develop of a very special kind of military unit that would operate on their own initiative deep behind enemy lines. The units would be licensed to kill, fully deniable by the British government, and a ruthless force to meet the advancing Germans. The very first of these "butcher-and-bolt" units--the innocuously named Maid Honour Force--was led by Gus March-Phillipps, a wild British eccentric of high birth, and an aristocratic, handsome, and bloodthirsty young Danish warrior, Anders Lassen. Amped up on amphetamines, these assorted renegades and sociopaths undertook the very first of Churchill's special operations--a top-secret, high-stakes mission to seize Nazi shipping in the far-distant port of Fernando Po, in West Africa. Though few of these early desperadoes survived WWII, they took part in a series of fascinating, daring missions that changed the course of the war. It was the first stirrings of the modern special-ops team, and all of the men involved would be declared war heroes when it was all over. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare focuses on a dozen of these extraordinary men, weaving their stories of brotherhood, comradely, and elite soldiering into a gripping narrative yarn, from the earliest missions to Anders Lassen's tragic death, just weeks before the end of the war.

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare PDF Author: Giles Milton
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250119049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.

The War We Won Apart

The War We Won Apart PDF Author: Nahlah Ayed
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735242062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER Love, betrayal, and a secret war: the untold story of two elite agents, one Canadian, one British, who became one of the most decorated couples of WWII. On opposite sides of the pond, Sonia Butt, an adventurous young British woman, and Guy d’Artois, a French-Canadian soldier and thunderstorm of a man, are preparing for war. From different worlds, their lives first intersect during clandestine training to become agents with Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. As the world’s deadliest conflict to date unfolds, Sonia and Guy learn how to parachute into enemy territory, how to kill, blow up rail lines, and eventually . . . how to love each other. But not long after their hasty marriage, their love is tested by separation, by a titanic invasion—and by indiscretion. Writing in vivid, heart-stopping prose, Ayed follows Sonia as she plunges into Nazi-occupied France and slinks into black market restaurants to throw off occupying Nazi forces, while at the same time participating in sabotage operations against them; and as Guy, in another corner of France, trains hundreds into a resistance army. Reconstructed from hours of unpublished interviews and hundreds of archival and personal documents, the story Ayed tells is about the ravaging costs of war paid for disproportionately by the young. But more than anything, The War We Won Apart is a story about love: two secret agents who were supposed to land in enemy territory together, but were fated to fight the war apart.

A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War

A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War PDF Author: Bernd Horn
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459732812
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
An examination of the SOE, its accomplishments, and the Canadian connection to the organization. During the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to conduct acts of sabotage and subversion, and raise secret armies of partisans in German-occupied Europe. With the directive to “set Europe ablaze,” the SOE undertook a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Nazi Gestapo. An agent’s failure could result in indescribable torture, dispatch to a concentration camp, and, often, a death sentence. While the SOE’s contribution to the Allied war effort is still debated, and many of its files remain classified, it was a unique wartime creation that reflected innovation, adventure, and a fanatical devotion on the part of its personnel to the Allied cause. The SOE has an important Canadian connection: Canadians were among its operatives and agents behind enemy lines. Camp X, in Whitby, Ontario, was a special training school that trained agents for overseas duty, and an infamous Canadian codenamed “Intrepid” ran SOE operations in the Americas.

No Ordinary Men

No Ordinary Men PDF Author: Bernd Horn
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459724143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The first in-depth book that sheds light on Canada’s elite warriors who operate in the shadows. In 2001, the Canadian government sent elements of its Joint Task Force 2 counterterrorist unit to Afghanistan to assist the Americans with Operation Enduring Freedom and the global war on terror. Withdrawn a year later, after a brief hiatus JTF 2 returned to Afghanistan in 2005, beginning a continuous tour of duty for Canadian Special Operation Forces (CANSOF) up to the cessation of Canadian combat operations in 2011. This book reveals six untold special operations that CANSOF personnel undertook in their desperate struggle in the shadows to capture or kill Taliban leaders, facilitators, and bomb-makers, as well as efforts to mentor Afghan National Security Forces from 2005 to 2011. The missions highlight that the nation’s SOF were no ordinary men.

The Hidden War in Argentina

The Hidden War in Argentina PDF Author: Panagiotis Dimitrakis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786725533
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Though officially neutral until March 1945, Buenos Aires played a key role during World War II as a base for the South American intelligence operations of the major powers. The Hidden War in Argentina reveals the stories of the spymasters, British, Americans and Germans who plotted against each other throughout the Second World War in Argentina. In Buenos Aires, Johannes Siegfried Becker – codename 'Sargo' – was the man responsible for organizing most of the Nazi intelligence gathering in Latin America and the leader of 'Operation Bolivar', which sought to bring South America into the war on the side of the Axis powers. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the US state department pressured every South American country to join it in declaring war on Germany, and J Edgar Hoover authorized huge investments in South American intelligence operations. Argentina continued to refuse to join the conflict, triggering a US embargo that squeezed the country's economy to breaking point. Buenos Aires continued to be a hub for espionage even as the war in Europe was ending – hundreds of high-ranking Nazi exiles sought refuge there. This book is based on newly declassified files and details of the operations of MI6, the Abwehr, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the FBI, as well as the OSS and the SOE. Most significantly, The Hidden War in Argentina reveals for the first time the coups of Britain's MI6 in South America.

Ian Fleming's Inspiration

Ian Fleming's Inspiration PDF Author: Edward Abel Smith
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526757702
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
“A journey through Fleming’s direct involvement in World War II intelligence and how this translated through his typewriter into James Bond’s world.” —The Washington Times Secret agent James Bond is among the best known fictional characters in history, but what most people don’t know is that almost all of the characters, plots, and gadgets come from the real life of Bond’s creator, Commander Ian Fleming. This book goes through the plots of Fleming’s novels—explaining the experiences that inspired them. Along with Fleming’s direct involvement in World War II intelligence, the book notes the friends who Fleming kept, among them Noel Coward and Randolph Churchill, and the influential people he would mingle with, including British prime ministers and American presidents. Bond is known for his exotic travel, most notably to the island of Jamaica, where Fleming spent much of his life. The desk in his Caribbean house, Goldeneye, was also where his life experiences would be put onto paper in the guise of James Bond. This book takes us to that island, and many other locales, as it traces the adventures of both 007 and the man who created him.

The Wrecking Crew

The Wrecking Crew PDF Author: Bernd Horn
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459743407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The incredible details of the bold, near-disastrous first Allied airborne commando raid. Audacious to the extreme, Operation Colossus was a raid in the early, dark days of the Second World War, when Britain stood seemingly alone. After the country's defeats in western Europe in 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted on an aggressive raiding campaign. Conducted on February 10, 1941, Operation Colossus was one such raid, meant to steal back the initiative and create as much chaos for the Axis powers as possible. However, bad luck stalked the mission, as one mishap after another seemed to foredoom the operation. In the aftermath, there were recriminations as well as accolades. Few military operations have proven as controversial.

Special Operations Forces in the 21st Century

Special Operations Forces in the 21st Century PDF Author: Jessica Glicken Turnley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351802674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
This book sets out the major social scientific approaches to the study of Special Operations Forces. Despite consistent downsizing, over the past two decades the armed forces of the industrial democracies have seen a huge growth in Special Operations Forces (SOF). Through increasing numbers of personnel and more frequent deployments, SOF units have wielded considerable influence in conflicts around the world, with senior SOF officers having led major strategic operations. This increased presence and unprecedented expansion for SOF is largely a result of the ‘new’ kinds of conflicts that have emerged in the 21st century. At the same time, even with this high profile in the military, policy and media and popular cultural arenas, there is relatively little social scientific research on SOF. This volume aims to fill this gap by providing a series of studies and analyses of SOF across the globe, since the end of World War II. Analysing SOF at the micro, mezzo and macro levels provides broad and diverse insights. Moreover, the volume deals with new issues raised by the use of such forces that include emerging modes of civilian control, innovative organizational forms and the special psychological characteristics necessitated by SOF operatives. It concludes with a discussion of a question which continues to be debated in today’s militaries: what makes SOF ‘special’? Filling a clear gap in the literature, this book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, civil-military relations, irregular warfare, security studies, and international relations.