Agent for the Resistance

Agent for the Resistance PDF Author: Herman Bodson
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585442652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
As German pressure on Europe escalated in the late 1930s, a young Belgian pacifist completing his Ph.D. in chemistry watched with horror the preparation for the inevitable invasion of his country. In the face of advancing German troops, his passion for freedom and his growing hatred of Hitler led him and a group of his friends into the resistance movement and five years of privation, danger, and, for some, torture and death, at the hands of the Gestapo. This dramatic memoir traces Herman Bodson's transformation from a pacifist and scientist to, in his own words, "a cold fighter and a killer" in the Belgian underground, an expert in explosives and sabotage. Serving first in the OMBR (Office Militaire Belge de Resistance), he later formed a group of underground fighters in the Belgian Ardennes. They undertook blowing up military trains and installations-including the sabotage of a bridge which resulted in the deaths of some six hundred German soldiers-cutting German communication lines, and rescuing downed American fliers. Bodson also served as a medical aide to an American military doctor at Bastogne in the crucial days of the Battle of the Bulge. The powerfully told narrative follows him through the liberation of Belgium and his postwar efforts with the Belgian Special Force to unmask traitors and bring them to justice. This, then, is the story of a man who gets caught up in a war and rather quickly becomes an efficient and clandestine killer, avenging the Nazi murder of a comrade in arms and revolting against an intolerable regime. It is also the story of the heroic resistance movement-how it came to be and how it fought bravely for the cause of human dignity and freedom. Bodson's honest and absorbing inside account of the underground effort in occupied Belgium adds much to the record of World War II and provides insight into the intellectual and emotional responses that have led to the birth of underground movements in many nations. It is a compelling story of a people united in a comradeship in the defense of freedom.

Agent for the Resistance

Agent for the Resistance PDF Author: Herman Bodson
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585442652
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
As German pressure on Europe escalated in the late 1930s, a young Belgian pacifist completing his Ph.D. in chemistry watched with horror the preparation for the inevitable invasion of his country. In the face of advancing German troops, his passion for freedom and his growing hatred of Hitler led him and a group of his friends into the resistance movement and five years of privation, danger, and, for some, torture and death, at the hands of the Gestapo. This dramatic memoir traces Herman Bodson's transformation from a pacifist and scientist to, in his own words, "a cold fighter and a killer" in the Belgian underground, an expert in explosives and sabotage. Serving first in the OMBR (Office Militaire Belge de Resistance), he later formed a group of underground fighters in the Belgian Ardennes. They undertook blowing up military trains and installations-including the sabotage of a bridge which resulted in the deaths of some six hundred German soldiers-cutting German communication lines, and rescuing downed American fliers. Bodson also served as a medical aide to an American military doctor at Bastogne in the crucial days of the Battle of the Bulge. The powerfully told narrative follows him through the liberation of Belgium and his postwar efforts with the Belgian Special Force to unmask traitors and bring them to justice. This, then, is the story of a man who gets caught up in a war and rather quickly becomes an efficient and clandestine killer, avenging the Nazi murder of a comrade in arms and revolting against an intolerable regime. It is also the story of the heroic resistance movement-how it came to be and how it fought bravely for the cause of human dignity and freedom. Bodson's honest and absorbing inside account of the underground effort in occupied Belgium adds much to the record of World War II and provides insight into the intellectual and emotional responses that have led to the birth of underground movements in many nations. It is a compelling story of a people united in a comradeship in the defense of freedom.

Spirit of Resistance

Spirit of Resistance PDF Author: Nigel Perrin
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844684547
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
A biography of a British World War II secret agent who escaped the Buchenwald concentration camp. One of the most determined and courageous secret agents of the Second World War, Harry Peulevé joined the BEF in 1940 before volunteering for F Section of the Special Operations Executive. On his first mission to occupied France to set up the SCIENTIST circuit, he broke his leg on landing and, after numerous close calls, made a heroic crossing of the Pyrenees on sticks in December, 1942. Imprisoned, he escaped and eventually returned to England in May, 1943. He formed a close friendship with Violette Szabo before setting out to train a Maquis group in central France. Despite the Gestapo’s repeated attempts to catch him, he built a secret army of several thousand resistance fighters. Eventually betrayed and captured, he was tortured at Avenue Foch but never broken. By coincidence, he and Violette met while in captivity before Harry was sent to Buchenwald where he not only avoided execution but also managed to escape, reaching American lines in April, 1945. Sadly, Peulevé never fully recovered from his wartime traumas, but nothing can detract from his outstanding courage and contribution.

Agent 110

Agent 110 PDF Author: Scott Jeffrey Miller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451693400
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The “lively and engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) story of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles built an underground network determined to take down Hitler and destroy the Third Reich. Agent 110 is Allen Dulles, a newly minted spy from an eminent family. From his townhouse in Bern, Switzerland, and in clandestine meetings in restaurants, back roads, and lovers’ bedrooms, Dulles met with and facilitated the plots of Germans during World War II who were trying to destroy the country’s leadership. Their underground network exposed Dulles to the political maneuverings of the Soviets, who were already competing for domination of Germany, and all of Europe, in the post-war period. Scott Miller’s “absorbing and bracing” (The Seattle Times) Agent 110 explains how leaders of the German Underground wanted assurances from Germany’s enemies that they would treat the country humanely after the war. If President Roosevelt backed the resistance, they would overthrow Hitler and shorten the war. But Miller shows how Dulles’s negotiations fell short. Eventually he was placed in charge of the CIA in the 1950s, where he helped set the stage for US foreign policy. With his belief that the ends justified the means, Dulles had no qualms about consorting with Nazi leadership or working with resistance groups within other countries to topple governments. Agent 110 is “a doozy of a dossier on Allen Dulles and his early days spying during World War II” (Kirkus Reviews). “Miller skillfully weaves a double narrative of Dulles’ machinations and those of the German resistance” (Booklist) to bring to life this exhilarating, and pivotal, period of world history—of desperate renegades in a dark and dangerous world where spies, idealists, and traitors match wits and blows to ensure their vision of a perfect future.

Agent Josephine

Agent Josephine PDF Author: Damien Lewis
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541700686
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
The New Yorker, Best Books of 2022 Vanity Fair, Best Books of 2022 Booklist, Best Books of 2022 Singer. Actress. Beauty. Spy. During WWII, Josephine Baker, the world's richest and most glamorous entertainer, was an Allied spy in Occupied France. Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty and sexuality; she was the highest-paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all “negroes and Jews.” Yet instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight, she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little-known history of the famous singer’s life. During the war years, as a member of the French Nurse paratroopers—a cover for her spying work—Baker participated in numerous clandestine activities and emerged as a formidable spy. In turn, she was a hero of the three countries in whose name she served—the US, France, and Britain. Drawing on a plethora of new historical material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of Josephine Baker, explaining why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon.

A Schoolmaster's War

A Schoolmaster's War PDF Author: Jonathan Rée
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
The wartime adventures of the legendary SOE agent Harry Rée, told in his own words A school teacher at the start of the war, Harry Rée renounced his former pacifism with the fall of France in 1940. He was deployed into a secret branch of the British army and parachuted into central France in April 1943. Harry showed a particular talent for winning the confidence of local resisters, and guided them in a series of dramatic sabotage operations, before getting into a hand-to-hand fight with an armed German officer, from which he was lucky to escape. This might seem like a romantic story of heroism and derring-do, but Harry Rée's own war writings, superbly edited and contextualized by his son, the philosopher Jonathan Rée, are far more nuanced, shot through with doubts, regrets, and grief.

Agents for Escape

Agents for Escape PDF Author: André Rougeyron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780807120194
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
"The only merit of this book - and I insist on it - is that it is true, true from beginning to end. And this, you see, is definitely something!" So writes Andre Rougeyron in the Preface of his memoir, displaying a hint of the passion that undoubtedly accounted for his heroism in France and Germany during World War II - and displaying too his own modest self-regard. His chronicle of the years spent rescuing downed Allied airmen in France and consequently enduring German labor camps remains focused throughout on others. A myriad of individuals - both named and unnamed - and their sufferings and triumphs small and large suffuse his story. His portrait of Normandy under occupation and his descriptions of life and death in the labor camps add important new information to current understanding of how French resisters and the camps operated. Equally significant and also fascinating is his evocation of people from diverse backgrounds brought together under unbearably trying circumstances.

Small Acts of Resistance

Small Acts of Resistance PDF Author: Steve Crawshaw
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1402783868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Remarkable, mischievous, inspiring—the eighty-odd stories in Small Acts of Resistance bring hidden histories to life. The courage of the people in these stories is breathtaking. So, too, is the impact and imagination of their actions.These mostly little known stories—including those written from eyewitness experience of the events and situations described—reveal the role ordinary people have played in achieving extraordinary change. “In the real world, it will never happen,” the skeptics love to tell us. As this book so vividly shows, the skeptics have repeatedly been proven wrong.Stories in this include how:· Strollers, toilet paper, and illegal ketchup helped end forty years of one-party Communist rule· Dogs (and what they wore) helped protestors humiliate a murderous regime· Internet videos about cuddly animals infuriated a repressive government which tried—and failed—to ban the craze· Football crowds found ways of singing the national anthem so as to defy a junta of torturers, now in jail· Women successfully put pressure on warlords to end one of Africa’s bloodiest wars· The singing of old folksongs hastened the collapse of an empire sustained by tanksIf you think individuals are powerless to change the world, read this remarkable book and you’ll surely change your mind.

Saboteur

Saboteur PDF Author: Mark Seaman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781786069177
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Tony Brooks was barely out of school when recruited in 1941 by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the wartime secret service established by Churchill to "set Europe ablaze." After extensive training he was parachuted into France in July 1942, among the first (and youngest) British agents sent to support the nascent French Resistance. Brook's success was primarily due to his exceptional qualities as a secret agent, although he was aided by large and frequent slices of luck. Among much else, he survived brushes with a British traitor and a notorious double agent; the Gestapo's capture of his wireless operator and subsequent attempts to trap Brooks; brief incarceration in a Spanish concentration camp; injuries resulting from a parachute jump into France; and even capture and interrogation by the Gestapo--although his cover story held and he was released. In an age when we so often take our heroes from the world of celebrity, it is perhaps salutary to be reminded of a young man who ended the war in command of a disparate force of some 10,000 armed resistance fighters, and decorated with two of his country's highest awards for gallantry, the DSO and MC. At the time, he was just 23 years old. This remarkable, detailed and intimate account of a clandestine agent's dangerous wartime career combines the historian's expert eye with the narrative color of remembered events. As a study in courage, it has few, if any, equals.

Vercors 1944

Vercors 1944 PDF Author: Peter Lieb
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780961162
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
A highly illustrated account of the conflict between the German Army and security forces and the French resistance in the Alps. Fighting insurgents has always been one of the greatest challenges for regular armed forces during the 20th century. The war between the Germans and the French resistance, also called FFI (Forces Françaises d'Intérieur), during World War II has remained a near-forgotten chapter in the history of these 'Small Wars'. This is all the more astonishing as agencies like the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) pumped a good amount of their resources into the support of the French resistance movement. By diversionary attacks on German forces in the occupied hinterland the Allies hoped the FFI could provide assistance in disrupting German supply lines as well as crumbling their morale. The mountain plateau of the Vercors south-west of Grenoble was the main stronghold of the FFI, and in July 1944 some 8,000 German soldiers mounted an operation on the plateau and destroyed the insurgent groups there. This compact volume examines the battle of the Vercors, the largest operation against the FFI during World War II, and shows how the Germans' suit and crushing victory has caused traumatic memories for the French that persist to the present day.

Matter of Resistance

Matter of Resistance PDF Author: Raymond Vogel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780989312837
Category : Life on other planets
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
The science fiction imagining of a former rocket scientist, "Matter of Resistance" pushes technology and human nature to the limits as it chronicles our Mars settlement's struggle for independence from Earth. Though it was written for young adults, it's received high praise and recommendations from top minds in science, aerospace, and defense. What The Experts Are Saying: MARK CANTRELL, PhD, NASA Orion Materials and Processes, Senior Staff: "A really interesting story that examines space travel within the possibilities of today's technology and in the context of natural human drives. I loved this story. I recommend it." COLONEL ROSS NUNN, USAF Retired; former Commander of the Air Force Astronautics Lab; early proponent of antimatter and fusion-based propulsion research: "Picked up the book to read the first chapter - didn't put it down until I finished the entire book. Captivating, suspense-filled reading, beginning to end." SORIN SUCIU, author of the laugh-out-loud contemporary fantasy, "The Scriptlings" (2013): "This captivating story bears the unmistakable mark of an instant SF classic, in that the science (while as solid as you would expect from a friggin rocket scientist) is merely a backdrop for a fascinating introspection into human nature. "Matter of Resistance" might not cure your Asimov or Clarke nostalgia, but it will certainly infect you with the Vogel virus. There, you have been warned."