SOE in France
Author | : Michael Richard Daniell Foot |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 602 |
Release | : 1966 |
Genre | : World War, 1939-1945 |
ISBN | : |
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Author | : Michael Richard Daniell Foot |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 602 |
Release | : 1966 |
Genre | : World War, 1939-1945 |
ISBN | : |
Author | : Robert Bourne-Patterson |
Publisher | : Frontline Books |
Total Pages | : 345 |
Release | : 2016-10-31 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1473882052 |
In the archives of the Special Operations Executive lay a report compiled by a staff officer and former member of SOE's French Section, Major Robert Bourne-Patterson, that until recently could not be published. Because of the highly sensitive nature of the work undertaken by the SOE, the paper was treated as confidential and its circulation was strictly limited to selected personnel. Now, at last, it can be made available to the general public.Limited, also, was the time available to Bourne-Patterson in compiling his report in 1946 as the SOE was being wound up and many documents were being weeded from the files. Nevertheless, the paper he wrote gives a good picture of the work of the SOE in France, the country where its operations were most extensive. It contains an overview of operations in France by the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War with detailed records of individual circuits from their inception onwards, containing much information concerning individual agents and their contacts, calendars of subversive activity against the Germans and the names and addresses of personnel connected with the circuits who had survived the war. In writing his account, Bourne-Patterson drew heavily on personal interviews and wartime debriefings by agents.
Author | : Kate Vigurs |
Publisher | : Yale University Press |
Total Pages | : 352 |
Release | : 2021-05-18 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0300258844 |
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 | : Squadron Leader Beryl E Escott |
Publisher | : The History Press |
Total Pages | : 236 |
Release | : 2010-12-26 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 0752462458 |
Britain's war in the shadows of male spies and subterfuge in the heart of occupied France is a story well known, but what of the women who also risked their lives for Britain and the liberation of France? In 1942 a desperate need for new recruits, saw SOE turn to a previously overlooked group – women. These extraordinary women came from different backgrounds, but were joined in their idealistic love of France and a desire to play a part in its liberation. They formed SOE's F Section. From the famous White Mouse, Nancy Wake, to the courageous, Noor Inayat Khan, they all risked their lives for King, Country and the Resistance. Many of them died bravely and painfully, and often those who survived, like Eileen Nearne, never told their stories, yet their secret missions of intelligence-gathering and sabotage undoubtedly helped the Resistance to drive out their occupiers and free France. Here, for the first time is the extraordinary account of all forty SOE F women agents. It is a story that deserves to be read by everyone. 'They were the war's bravest women, devoted to defeating the Nazis yet reluctant ever to reveal their heroic pasts. Now a new book tells their intrepid tales.' Daily Express Squadron Leader BERYL E. ESCOTT served in the RAF and is one of the foremost experts on the women of SOE.
Author | : Rick Stroud |
Publisher | : Simon and Schuster |
Total Pages | : 408 |
Release | : 2017-02-23 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1471155676 |
‘A fascinating, superbly researched and revelatory book – told with tremendous pace and excitement’ William Boyd ‘Rick Stroud writes brilliantly about war … an astonishing book … a wonderful story’ Ben Macintyre 'Enthralling, edge-of-smart exciting and also heart-breaking...Stroud's book is a reminder and fitting testimony to their immense bravery' James Holland On 18 June 1940 General de Gaulle broadcast from London to his countrymen in France about the catastrophe that had overtaken their nation – the victory of the invading Germans. He declared: ‘The flame of French Resistance must not and will not be extinguished.' The Resistance began almost immediately. At first it was made up of small, disorganised groups working in isolation. But by the time of the liberation in 1944 around 400,000 French citizens, nearly 2 per cent of the population, were involved. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Winston Churchill in 1941 saw its role in France as helping the Resistance by recruiting and organising guerrilla fighters; supplying and training them; and then disrupting the invaders by any means necessary. The aim of this work was to prepare for the invasion of Europe by Allied forces and the eventual liberation of France. It was soon decided that women would play a vital role. There were 39 female agents recruited from all walks of life, ranging from a London shop assistant to a Polish aristocrat. They all knew France well, were fluent in French and were prepared to sacrifice everything. The women trained alongside the men, learning how to disappear into the background, how to operate a radio transmitter and how to kill a man with their bare hands. Once trained, they were infiltrated behind the lines; some went on to lead thousands of Resistance fighters, while others were arrested, brutally interrogated and sent to concentration camps. Lonely Courage tells their remarkable story and sheds new light on what life was really like for these brave women.
Author | : Ernest van Maurik |
Publisher | : Pen and Sword |
Total Pages | : 316 |
Release | : 2018-05-30 |
Genre | : History |
ISBN | : 1526734176 |
Ernest Van Maurik, known to all simply as Van, joined the illustrious Artists Rifles regiment in the Territorial Army in 1936, but when war broke out he was commissioned into the Wiltshire Regiment. In the summer of 1940 the regiment was posted at Folkestone to defend the South Coast in the event of an invasion, during which time he undertook a course at Hythe Small Arms School and found himself involved with the SOE, the Special Operations Executive.This led to him to Scotland, first to the Commando Training School at Lochailort and then to Arisaig, where he became responsible for helping organise resistance to the Nazi regime in occupied countries. This involved the training of prospective agents in small arms, demolition and other special forces activities. At this time, he helped train a number of Czech soldiers who went on to participate in Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS-Obergruppenfhrer Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.Van was then transferred to the SOEs headquarters in Baker Street, London. There he was to work for notable figures such as Maurice Buckmaster and General Colin Gubbins. He also got to know a number of individuals who were to become famous agents, people such as Peter Churchill, Odette and Yeo-Thomas (The White Rabbit). His main work was to get agents both in and out of Occupied France but then it was his turn to go into the field.Van was initially sent to Malta to help with the dropping of agents into Yugoslavia. His next mission was to Switzerland via Occupied France to assist SOE agents in France and also deal with couriers from F Section SOE who used Switzerland as a channel for communicating with London.After many adventures, Van reached Switzerland where he carried out his task until the end of the war in Europe. He then was involved in assisting the investigation into the fate of the many SOE agents who had been captured by the Germans and were still missing.
Author | : M.R.D. Foot |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 576 |
Release | : 2004-04-22 |
Genre | : Education |
ISBN | : 1135769885 |
This study, first published in 1966, has been updated from closed government records, to offer a more complete overview of the activities of the SOE and how it fitted into the Allied war effort in the French theatre of operations.
Author | : M. R. D. Foot |
Publisher | : Naval & Military Press |
Total Pages | : 622 |
Release | : 2019-02-06 |
Genre | : Education |
ISBN | : 9781783314386 |
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British secret service, formed in 1940 to encourage underground resistance to Hitler's Germany. This book, based on a mass of official and hitherto unavailable material, presented for the first time an account and analysis of SOE's work in France. Foot provides some background to the origins and nature of the SOE and describes the operations of agents who worked on French soil. He concentrates on the work of the 'independent French' section, though he also covers SOE's five other sections operating mainly in France. The six sections despatched over 1,800 clandestine agents who between them changed the course of the war. In chapters on strategy and politics Foot discusses the comparative value of SOE's effort and of more normal methods of war. As part of the HMSO History of the Second World War series, the text is highly authoritative and supported by plates and four coloured maps.
Author | : Maurice Buckmaster |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2023-05-15 |
Genre | : |
ISBN | : 9781088142424 |
They Fought Alone, first published in 1958, is the story of the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) in France, written by Colonel Maurice James Buckmaster (1902-1992), the head of the SOE French Section. The SOE was formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance missions in occupied Europe during World War II. Included are accounts of the heroic men and women who worked quietly and often alone behind enemy lines to carry out resistance operations against the Nazis, serving to speed the Allied advance following D-Day.
Author | : Nigel Perrin |
Publisher | : Pen and Sword |
Total Pages | : 367 |
Release | : 2014-12-19 |
Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | : 1844684547 |
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.