SABOTAGE AND SUBVERSION: The SOE and OSS At War

The Special Operations Executive was formed on Churchill's orders in July 1940 from three smaller organisations: Section D, part of the Secret Intelligence Service which dealt in sabotage; EH, a semi-secret Foreign Office department which handled propaganda; and an obscure branch of the War Office known as MI(R). Its objective was, in Churchill's well-known phrase, to 'set Europe ablaze' - the prime minister's order to Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, who was SOE's first political head. Its inspiration were the Fifth columnists who were supposed to have been so active throughout Europe. In 16 separate chapters the author describes how the fearless individuals in these clandestine organisations were recruited, trained and armed, and examines some of their guerrilla operations in Europe, Africa and the Far East, such as the raid on Fernando Po, the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge in Greece and the strike against Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. Equipping the Saboteurs, The Swedish Connection, Special Operations Australia and the Singapore Strike, Detachment 101: Behind Japanese Lines, SOE and the Atomic Bomb, Walter Fletcher's Activities in Rubber Smuggling and Black Market Currency, The Jedburgh Teams in France, Guerrilla Warfare and the Characters of 'Character' are some of the other chapters. And also covered are the means SOE and OSS used to subvert the enemy, by employing black propaganda, forgery, pornography and black market currency manipulation. It may well read like fiction but the stories are fact and shows to what lengths the Allies were prepared to go to crush the Axis powers. 272 paperback pages.