Between Silk and Cyanide

Between Silk and Cyanide PDF Author: Leo Marks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743200896
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
In 1942, with a black-market chicken tucked under his arm by his mother, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went off to fight the war. He was twenty-two. Soon recognized as a cryptographer of genius, he became head of communications at the Special Operations Executive (SOE), where he revolutionized the codemaking techniques of the Allies and trained some of the most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe. As a top codemaker, Marks had a unique perspective on one of the most fascinating and, until now, little-known aspects of the Second World War. This stunning memoir, often funny, always gripping and acutely sensitive to the human cost of each operation, provides a unique inside picture of the extraordinary SOE organization at work and reveals for the first time many unknown truths about the conduct of the war. SOE was created in July 1940 with a mandate from Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze." Its main function was to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied territory to perform acts of sabotage and form secret armies in preparation for D-Day. Marks's ingenious codemaking innovation was to devise and implement a system of random numeric codes printed on silk. Camouflaged as handkerchiefs, underwear, or coat linings, these codes could be destroyed message by message, and therefore could not possibly be remembered by the agents, even under torture. Between Silk and Cyanide chronicles Marks's obsessive quest to improve the security of agents' codes and how this crusade led to his involvement in some of the war's most dramatic and secret operations. Among the astonishing revelations is his account of the code war between SOE and the Germans in Holland. He also reveals for the first time how SOE fooled the Germans into thinking that a secret army was operating in the Fatherland itself, and how and why he broke the code that General de Gaulle insisted be available only to the Free French. By the end of this incredible tale, truly one of the last great World War II memoirs, it is clear why General Eisenhower credited the SOE, particularly its communications department, with shortening the war by three months. From the difficulties of safeguarding the messages that led to the destruction of the atomic weapons plant at Rjukan in Norway to the surveillance of Hitler's long-range missile base at Peenemünde to the true extent of Nazi infiltration of Allied agents, Between Silk and Cyanide sheds light on one of the least-known but most dramatic aspects of the war. Writing with the narrative flair and vivid characterization of his famous screenplays, Marks gives free rein to his keen sense of the absurd and wry wit without ever losing touch with the very human side of the story. His close relationship with "the White Rabbit" and Violette Szabo -- two of the greatest British agents of the war -- and his accounts of the many others he dealt with result in a thrilling and poignant memoir that celebrates individual courage and endeavor, without losing sight of the human cost and horror of war.

The Life That I Have

The Life That I Have PDF Author: Leo Marks
Publisher: Souvenir Press
ISBN: 9780285635326
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
This poignant, haunting poem, originally written for the author's fiancée Ruth who died in a plane crash in 1943, was given to the SOE agent Violette Szabo as her code poem, before she was dropped into occupied France in 1944. It afterwards became famous through the film of her life, Carve Her Name With Pride, starring Virginia McKenna, and has been a source of inspiration ever since to those who have lost a loved one or are themselves facing death.Only in 1998, with the publication of Leo Marks' remarkable book about his works with SOE, Between Silk and Cyanide, did it become known that he was the author of this and many other poems used by SOE agents during World War II.Now one of the best loved poems in the English language, The Life That I Have is presented as a special illustrated gift book, with pencil drawings by the artist Elena Gaussen Marks, the author's wife. Her pencil sketch of Violette Szabo, based on a photograph, is also included.

London Calling North Pole

London Calling North Pole PDF Author: Hermann Giskes
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media
ISBN: 9781626541641
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Sixty years ago in Nazi-occupied Holland, over 50 British and Dutch spies parachuted into the waiting hands of German soldiers. Most were arrested immediately and many were executed. For decades historians and the curious public have struggled to understand exactly what transpired behind the closed doors of the both the allied and axis intelligence during what came to be known as Operation North Pole and Das Englandspiel. With key expository information sealed to this day, no one can say for certain who was fooling who. Were the Nazi's taking advantage of an inept and disorganized British intelligence service? Or was the operation a self-sacrificial ploy on the part of the British to mislead Nazi intelligence about Allied planned attacks? In this unique memoir, Hermann Giskes offers insight into the mysteries of Operation North Pole. Giskes, a high-ranking member of the German intelligence organization Abwehr, was one of the masterminds behind the operation. London Calling North Pole is an exciting and intriguing account of WWII from within the intelligence community, providing a compelling and honest account of the Englandspiel operation. Giskes gives us a glimpse into his keen mind and personal understanding of the ins and outs of Operation North Pole. London Calling North Pole is the perfect complement to British cryptographer Leo Marks' Between Silk and Cyanide. A must read for students of history, cryptologists, WWII buffs, and those seeking a better understanding of military intelligence.

Cyanide

Cyanide PDF Author: Ella Fields
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781974404483
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Heartless. Conceited. Shallow.Three simple words to describe me. I had everything a girl could ask for, yet nothing I truly needed.I'd made peace with who I was and the expectations set upon me long ago.Only to have that peace shattered when a nameless hero rode into my world. I wasn't allowed to have him.Too bad I never cared much for the word no.Because I'd soon learn the hard way that too much self-indulgence could result in incurable consequences.

A Life in Secrets

A Life in Secrets PDF Author: Sarah Helm
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307487474
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for twelve of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe. Brimming with intrigue, heroics, honor, and the horrors of war, A Life in Secrets is the story of a grand, elusive woman and a tour de force of investigative journalism.

Most Secret War

Most Secret War PDF Author: R.V. Jones
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141957670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 930

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Book Description
Reginald Jones was nothing less than a genius. And his appointment to the Intelligence Section of Britain's Air Ministry in 1939 led to some of the most astonishing scientific and technological breakthroughs of the Second World War. In Most Secret War he details how Britain stealthily stole the war from under the Germans' noses by outsmarting their intelligence at every turn. He tells of the 'battle of the beams'; detecting and defeating flying bombs; using chaff to confuse radar; and many other ingenious ideas and devices. Jones was the man with the plan to save Britain and his story makes for riveting reading.

American Kingpin

American Kingpin PDF Author: Nick Bilton
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698405730
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom—and almost got away with it In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government’s watchful eye. It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone—not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers—could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site’s elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. The Silk Road quickly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a loyal crew of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he got wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himself—including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the Feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren’t sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet. Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks and unbelievable close calls. It’s a story of the boy next door’s ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized Web advocates and the old world of government control, order, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it’s all too real.

Codebreakers

Codebreakers PDF Author: Francis Harry Hinsley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192801326
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The story of Bletchley Park, the successful intelligence operation that cracked Germany's Enigma Code. Photos.

When We Cease to Understand the World

When We Cease to Understand the World PDF Author: Benjamin Labatut
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681375672
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep PDF Author: Raymond Chandler
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.