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Author: John Grehan
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473894158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
The Special Operations Executive developed a vast network of agents across Occupied Europe which played a vital role in developing and sustaining Resistance movements that persistently sought to subvert German control of their territories. The culmination of their efforts was seen when the Allied armies landed at Normandy in June 1944, with the SOE and the Resistance causing widespread destruction and disruption behind the German lines.None of this would have been possible had it not been for the Royal Air Force. Not only the RAF supply the SOE, and the movements it led and coordinated, with the thousands of tons of arms and equipment needed to undertake this role, it also delivered and retrieved agents from under the very noses of the enemy.Compiled at the end of the war by the Air Historical Branch of the RAF, this is an extremely detailed and comprehensive account of the RAFs support for the SOE, and in it we learn of the enormous and complex arrangements undertaken by the Special Duties squadrons as well as showing how the material delivered by these aircraft was used in the field.This account is reproduced here in its entirety, along with a detailed appendix containing the official historical record of Bomber Command aircrews and aircraft engaged in clandestine operations. Taken together, this book represents the most comprehensive account of the RAFs support for SOE ever published.
Author: John Grehan
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473894158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Special Operations Executive developed a vast network of agents across Occupied Europe which played a vital role in developing and sustaining Resistance movements that persistently sought to subvert German control of their territories. The culmination of their efforts was seen when the Allied armies landed at Normandy in June 1944, with the SOE and the Resistance causing widespread destruction and disruption behind the German lines.None of this would have been possible had it not been for the Royal Air Force. Not only the RAF supply the SOE, and the movements it led and coordinated, with the thousands of tons of arms and equipment needed to undertake this role, it also delivered and retrieved agents from under the very noses of the enemy.Compiled at the end of the war by the Air Historical Branch of the RAF, this is an extremely detailed and comprehensive account of the RAFs support for the SOE, and in it we learn of the enormous and complex arrangements undertaken by the Special Duties squadrons as well as showing how the material delivered by these aircraft was used in the field.This account is reproduced here in its entirety, along with a detailed appendix containing the official historical record of Bomber Command aircrews and aircraft engaged in clandestine operations. Taken together, this book represents the most comprehensive account of the RAFs support for SOE ever published.
Author: Richard Duckett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786722720
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391
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Book Description
In the mountains and jungles of occupied Burma during World War II, British special forces launched a series of secret operations, assisted by parts of the Burmese population. The men of the SOE, trained in sabotage and guerrilla warfare, worked in the jungle, deep behind enemy lines, to frustrate the puppet Burmese government of Ba Maw and continue the fight against Hirohito's Japan in a theatre starved of resources. Here, Richard Duckett uses newly declassified documents from the National Archives to reveal for the first time the extent of British special forces' involvement - from the 1941 operations until beyond Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Duckett argues convincingly that `Operation Character' and `Operation Billet' - large SOE missions launched in support of General Slim's XIV Army offensive to liberate Burma - rank among the most militarily significant of the SOE's secret missions. Featuring a wealth of photographs and accompanying material never before published, including direct testimony recorded by veterans of the campaign and maps from the SOE files, The SOE in Burma tells a compelling story of courage and struggle in during World War II
Author: Kate Vigurs
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300258844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known—Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan—others have had their stories largely overlooked. Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Vigurs shows just how greatly missions varied. Some agents were more adept at parachuting. Some agents’ missions lasted for years, others’ less than a few hours. Some survived, others were murdered. By placing the women in the context of their work with the SOE and the wider war, this history reveals the true extent of the differences in their abilities and attitudes while underlining how they nonetheless shared a common mission and, ultimately, deserve recognition.
Author: Hugh Verity
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
For most of the 2nd World War the RAF flew small aircraft into Occupied France at night, landing and taking off in total secrecy. Their mission was to transport agents to and from France to support the activities of the French Resistance and SOE. The chronicle of these operations tells an extraordinary adventure story, full of danger for both agent and aviator. Hugh Verity flew many of the missions recounted in We Landed by Moonlight and was probably the most outstanding pick-up pilot of them all.
Author: F.E. Keary
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1399082787
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
The majority of the successful SOE operations in Europe took place in countries occupied by the Germans after the outbreak of war in 1939, Hitler’s forces being regarded as foreign invaders. In Czechoslovakia it was different. The country, which had large numbers of ethnic Germans living within its borders, had been occupied since 1938, allowing the Germans to establish a strong hold on the country which limited the opportunities for subversive action by resistance movements. Nevertheless, resist the Czechs did, despite the Germans conducting savage and indiscriminate reprisals. It was against this background that SOE attempted to infiltrate its agents into Czechoslovakia in 1941, their role being to help in co-ordinating and expanding the resistance movement and to establish communications with the Czech authorities in the UK. Successful actions were admittedly few before 1942 when one of the most successful SOE-backed operations resulted in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi to be killed by any resistance group. The huge wave of reprisals against the civilian population which followed severely hampered SOE activities in the immediate aftermath. Another factor which limited SOE’s ability to infiltrate Czechoslovakia and to supply the resistance was the distance and difficulty experienced by the RAF in flying to the region. During the short nights of summer, no flights could be attempted. This changed in September 1943 when sorties were able to be conducted from Italy, and by 1944 the scale of operations increased both in frequency and scale. More than 300 Czechs were trained by SOE and, in conjunction with local resistance groups, those that managed to infiltrate back into their homeland, kept the occupying forces constantly on the alert, ensuring that Germany’s eastern flank was never entirely secure. This is the first full, official account of SOE in Czechoslovakia, compiled by SOE headquarters staff who had direct access to all the organisation’s records, many of which were destroyed after the war.
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.
Author: Alan Hlad
Publisher: A John Scognamiglio Book
ISBN: 1496728432
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris… London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports. Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part. And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity. Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance, knowing that the slightest misstep means capture or death. Soon Rose is assigned to a new mission with Lazare Aron, a French Resistance fighter who has watched his beloved Paris become a shell of itself, with desolate streets and buildings draped in Swastikas. Since his parents were sent to a German work camp, Lazare has dedicated himself to the cause with the same fervor as Rose. Yet Rose’s very loyalty brings risks as she undertakes a high-stakes prison raid, and discovers how much she may have to sacrifice to justify Churchill’s faith in her . . .
Author: Bruce Marshall
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780304356973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
The bestselling story of one of the most important and influential SOE agents in the last war. A truly harrowing tale the true extent of what the Gestapo and the SS were capable of. Equally famous as a film
Author: R. E. Baldwin
Publisher: Schiffer Pub Limited
ISBN: 9780764302220
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
Last Hope is the story of the often heroic by governments to provide their aerial warriors with the tools to evade capture when forced down in enemy controlled territory, as told by the most visible and visually stunning artifact of this effort, the Blood Chit. Illustrated with the most comprehensive collection of color photographs of Blood Chits and related evasion aids ever assembled, it provides readers an unparalleled opportunity to discover the beauty and variety of these lifesaving artifacts of war. In addition to Blood Chits, a number of the beautiful theater-made souvenir patches in the form of Blood Chits are also illustrated. This definitive history of Blood Chits from their infancy at the dawn of the air age through their maturity at the close of World War II was compiled from accounts provided by more than fifty veteran airmen and intelligence officers from around the world, and from more than seventy formerly classified government documents. Last Hope is a thoroughly annotated and fully illustrated journey into the secretive world of air crew evasion and escape aides for the casual reader and serious researcher alike, and is a valuable resource for the military and aviation enthusiast, collector, researcher, and museum curator.
Author: Brian Lett
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1783030798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 455
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Book Description
The true story of the force of “licensed to kill” secret agents who became the basis for the James Bond spy series. Brigadier Colin Gubbins was M. The Special Operations Executive was his Secret Service. Professor Dudley Newitt was Q. Capt. Gus March-Phillips commanded “Maid of Honor Force,” the team of “James Bonds” who, in a daring operation, sailed a ship to West Africa and stole three enemy ships from a neutral Spanish port on the volcanic island of Fernando Po. Ian Fleming worked closely with M to oil the wheels that made the operation possible, and prepared the cover story, in which the British government lied in order to conceal British responsibility for the raid. M’s agents prepared the ground on Fernando Po, even enmeshing the governor in a honey trap. March-Phillips and his team carried out the raid successfully in January 1942, despite much opposition from the local regular Army and Navy commanders, and in the face of overwhelming odds. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told Fleming’s lies on the international stage, denying any British complicity in the operation. As a result, a secrecy embargo enveloped Operation POSTMASTER until recently. This gripping book proves beyond doubt that this thrilling operation, and the men who carried it out, were the inspiration for Fleming’s fictional 007.
