Secret War West, Nigel
2019, 2019-01-30, 2019-05-30
eBook
The author of The Kompromat Conspiracy reveals the truth behind Great Britain's secret World War II group. What did SOE really achieve during the Second World War? Why were so many agents ...parachuted into enemy hands? Who chose to back Communist guerrillas in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Greece and Malaya in preference to other anti-Axis movements? In this newly revised edition, Nigel West strips away the secrecy that has surrounded the Special Operations Executive since it was officially wound up in 1946, and reveal the breathtaking political naivety, operational incompetence, and ruthless manipulation. Despite the heroism of individual agents who suffered appalling privation to further the organization's dubious objectives, there is an underlying tragedy of dreadful proportions. Secret War is a detailed analysis of SOE's structure and performance and describes its successes and failures across the globe. The book casts doubt on the official histories authorized by the Cabinet Office, offers evidence of the setbacks that jeopardized D-Day, and gives an account of the paramilitary units dropped behind enemy lines immediately after the invasion, which saved SOE's reputation. This book is a highly provocative but authoritative history of the organization that existed for less than six years but had a lasting impact on the world's postwar development. “Secret War is important, even necessary in political terms.” -Financial Times
ABSTRACT
John Franklyn Venner was a chartered accountant and senior partner in an eminent City of London firm of accountants. However, between 1940 and 1945, Venner worked at the heart of the ...unorthodox and top secret Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was set up to facilitate clandestine warfare. Venner used the accounting orthodoxy of financial controls, the recording of transactions, and regular financial reporting to build a strong bond of trust and confidence with the Treasury and Bank of England. This provided space for Venner to develop unorthodox financing schemes, including black market foreign currency transactions, which generated millions of pounds of currency and made a major contribution to the war effort. Venner died in 1955 at age 52. This biographical microhistory, using archival sources, brings his story out of the shadows and demonstrates how an eminent chartered accountant navigated the unorthodox world of the SOE during the Second World War.
Data Availability: All data used are available from the public sources cited in the text, apart from the transcripts of the two James Venner interviews.
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
O objetivo deste artigo é realizar uma discussão historiográfica sobre o serviço de espionagem britânico durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Serão analisados trabalhos sobre a “Special Operations ...Executive” (SOE), agência britânica surgida em 1940. Desta forma, pretendemos identificar a perspectiva teórica, a metodologia e as fontes utilizadas em tais trabalhos, assim como observar como os autores dialogam entre si. A partir desta análise, pretendemos apresentar as lacunas que a historiografia mantém sobre o tema e levantar problemáticas que podem ser pensadas em futuras pesquisas. Serão analisados estudos publicados entre o final dos anos 1980 e o início dos anos 2000. Além disso, realizaremos um diálogo entre os autores com teóricos da área de Inteligência para entendermos como o processo de coleta e análise da informação se constituiu a partir da Segunda Guerra Mundial.
The Welrod .32 silent pistol Murray Flutter, Mark
Arms & armour,
20/1/2/, Letnik:
19, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The history of the development and use of the Welrod .32 silenced pistol by Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War is little understood. This paper is designed to present a ...detailed narrative, using, where possible, references to original documents detailing that development and then its subsequent use. It covers the Welrod's development by Station XI, its testing, evolution, and production. Using references to surviving examples and accounts, the use of the Welrod during World War II is then explored in the various theatres around the world. This will be the first detailed study of the Welrod pistol using previously unavailable sources.
Between 1940 and 1945, Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) carried out sabotage and organised resistance across occupied Europe. Over 5 years, SOE sent over 500 agents into Norway to carry ...out a range of operations from sabotage and assassination to attempts to organize an underground guerrilla army. This book is the first multi-archival, international academic analysis of SOE’s policy and operations in Norway and the influences that shaped them, challenging previous interpretations of the relationship between this organization and both the Norwegian authorities and the Milorg resistance movement.
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.
This gripping new history tells the little-known story of one of the most courageous men to have served with the newly formed Commandos and SOE during the Second World War. It is a story of extreme ...courage and a revealing portrait of a man who ultimately gave his life to the liberation of France. Ogden-Smith was amongst the first to volunteer for the newly formed Commandos: he took part in the daring raid on Bardia on the North African Coast and fought in the heroic rearguard action during the British evacuation of Crete. In 1942 he transferred to the SOE and joined the elite Small Scale Raiding Force to carry out raids across the Channel. He then volunteered for a new, clandestine group known as the Jedbughs whose mission was to parachute into enemy-occupied France in the aftermath of D-Day to link up with the French Resistance. In July 1944, under the cover of his codename Dorset, Major Colin Ogden-Smith parachuted deep behind enemy lines as the leader of Team Francis. Three weeks later he was dead, killed in action fighting alongside his French comrades so that others could make their escape. Seventy years on, the French community still remember the gallant major Anglais. As featured on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and the Lincolnshire Echo.
This article examines the phenomenon of fakery and the rise of impostors claiming to have been former secret agents of the special operations executive (SOE). Since the early 1950s, a growing ...interest in tales of SOE's exploits, combined with an inconsistent Whitehall position regarding disclosure about the organisation's activities, has enabled hoaxers to establish their bogus stories and inadvertently bolster popular romantic notions about SOE's work. Just as genuine agents had to learn to pass as civilians in Nazi-occupied countries, fake agents have produced convincing and often sophisticated narratives that have fooled the public, infiltrating books, television and more recently social media. Several cases of imposture are highlighted, along with examples of memoirs and testimonies of verifiable SOE agents whose accounts nevertheless raise questions about their accuracy and the blurred lines between truth and fabrication. Despite the publication of SOE official histories and the release of thousands of SOE's files to the National Archives, fakers continue to flourish. This article calls for a greater recognition both of fakery and of the SOE agents and staff whose bona fide careers continue to remain overshadowed by their counterfeit counterparts.
This article deals with an active personality in the European World War II-context, the Englishman and diplomat Peter Tennant. Officially, he served as press attaché at the British legation in ...Stockholm and become a popular companion in the capital’s conviviality with a significant social network. Unofficially, he was called “Karlsson” and led the Swedish section of Special Operations Executive, S.O.E. In this role he organized clandestine espionage and sabotage against German interests. This article primarily uses previously confidential archival sources from the civil Swedish counter-espionage to find out more about Tennant’s activities in Sweden during the war and what kind of spy he actually was.
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