SOE Agent Churchill's Secret Warriors (W.#133)

On average a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent would be dead within three months of being parachuted into action. Terry Crowdy tells the extraordinary story of these agents, some of whom were women as young as 22, following them through their experiences beginning with their recruitment and their unorthodox training methods, which included hand-to-hand combat and parachuting. Packed with photographs and full-colour artwork, this book recounts the incredible combat missions of the SOE agents from their role in the attacks on a heavy water plant in Norway, to operations in the field with Yugoslav and Greek partisans, as well as sabotage missions ranging from blowing up bridges to the raising of full-scale partisan armies as they attempted to fulfill Churchill's directive to set occupied Europe ablaze. "SOE Agent: Churchill's Secret Warriors is a wonderful book documenting the selection and preparation of Special Operations Executive personnel for field work. It is also a great complement to other books on the topic of actual SOE missions all around Europe, as it provides clues on why agents conducted their missions in the manners they did." -C Peter Chen, "World War II Database "(January 2009)
"This book tells how [agents] were recruited, how they were trained, how they were clothed, the weapons that they used, and the tactics they used. It tells of life behind the lines and the stories of many who survived the war, either by returning to the UK or in German concentration camps. These people were frequently not wearing uniforms so were treated as spies when caught. It also tells of the considerable in-fighting between various branches of the British government over who would control these assets. This is all enhanced by a superb choice of photographs as well as the artwork of ill