"It is impossible to imagine M.R.D. Foot's position as the pre-eminent historian of SOE ever being challenged''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; - Antony BeevorSOE, the Special Operations Executive, was a small, tough British secret service, a dirty tricks department established in July 1940 and encouraged by Mr Churchill to 'Set Europe ablaze'.Recruited from all over the Commonwealth and beyond it was a remarkably diverse group of men and women of all ages and intellects who were members of this most secret of wartime agencies and who lived in great and constant danger from the moment they arrived in their assigned zone of operations, which ranged from occupied Europe out to the islands around Singapore. Their job - as saboteurs, informers, partisans, couriers or secret agents - was to support and stimulate resistance behind enemy lines; their credentials were undeniable acts of fortitude and courage along with immense patience and an utter devotion to their assigned goal. Many of those captured were tortured in unspeakably sadistic ways before being executed or sent to Concentration Camps in Germany where the majority of those taken (in particular the Women Agents) were murdered days or weeks before the war in Europe finally ended, their bodies burnt to ash and reduced to clouds of smoke. Almost all were defiant to the very end. The Japanese were just as brutal in their treatment of SOE Prisoners with ritual beheadings often carried out after capture, at the end of lengthy torture sessions.&nbsp;&nbsp;In this now classic study M.R.D. Foot, sheds light on the heroism of individual SOE agents all across the world and provides us with a spellbinding account of the Executive's crucial work upto its being finally disbanded in 1946.This new reissue now features an introduction by the Canadian Historian David Stafford.Originally Published 1984, republished 2011 and again in 2017 &amp; 2021 (with new covers but same original information + new introduction from 2017 onwards).Michael Richard Daniell Foot (1919-2012)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; M.R.D. Foot was an British army officer throughout the 1939-45 war, and received the French Croix de Guerre for work with the SAS in Britanny.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; He taught politics and history at Oxford, was for six years Professor of Modern History at Manchester and the first editor of Gladstone's diaries, and has written - among other books - SOE in France, Resistance, M19 and Six Faces of Courage. He helped Ian Dear edit The Oxford Companion to the Second World War.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;David Stafford is the author of several books on intelligence history, including Britain and European Resistance, Churchill and Secret Service, Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of Secrets, Flight from Reality and Ten Days to D-Day. He was Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia Canada, Executive Director of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Chairman of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, an Associate Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford, and Project Director at the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars at the University of Edinburgh Scotland, where he is currently an Honorary Fellow.

S.O.E. (An History of the Special Operations Executive 1940-46) PDF

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