Secret Operations of World War II
1st Edition
Published on 15. December 2024
224 pages
978-1-83886-622-8 (ISBN)
Description
How were agents recruited for secret operations in World War II? How did they fare once dropped behind enemy lines? How effective were resistance movements? And how brutal were the reprisals?
Ranging from the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the German Abwehr to resistance movements across Europe, WWII Secret Operations is a fascinating account of the major special ops organisations and underground cells in the conflict.
Examining recruitment, training, equipment and deployment of operatives, the book not only reveals the ingenious steps taken to select suitable agents, disguise weapons and gather intelligence, but also follows the fortunes of particular agents after their operations were launched.
From such well known cases as the SOE and Norwegian agents sabotaging Norwegian hydroelectric plants to the less explored territory of Soviet partisans, from the Abwehr's rescue of Mussolini to the French Maquis, from the Polish Home Army to OSS operations in the Pacific, the book explores a wide range of secret organisations and their intelligence gathering, sabotage and reconnaissance missions.
Illustrated with 120 black-&-white and colour photographs, artworks and maps, WWII Secret Operations is an authoritative and novel perspective on some of the most outlandish episodes of the conflict.
Ranging from the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the German Abwehr to resistance movements across Europe, WWII Secret Operations is a fascinating account of the major special ops organisations and underground cells in the conflict.
Examining recruitment, training, equipment and deployment of operatives, the book not only reveals the ingenious steps taken to select suitable agents, disguise weapons and gather intelligence, but also follows the fortunes of particular agents after their operations were launched.
From such well known cases as the SOE and Norwegian agents sabotaging Norwegian hydroelectric plants to the less explored territory of Soviet partisans, from the Abwehr's rescue of Mussolini to the French Maquis, from the Polish Home Army to OSS operations in the Pacific, the book explores a wide range of secret organisations and their intelligence gathering, sabotage and reconnaissance missions.
Illustrated with 120 black-&-white and colour photographs, artworks and maps, WWII Secret Operations is an authoritative and novel perspective on some of the most outlandish episodes of the conflict.
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More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Amber Books Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Digital original
Product notice
Reflowable
Illustrations
Index; Halftones, black and white
File size
61,48 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-83886-622-8 (9781838866228)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Alexander Stilwell
Secret Operations of World War II
Book
08/2018
Amber Books
€44.75
Article not available at the moment
Person
Alexander Stilwell is an experienced writer and editor who has worked for several leading publishers, primarily in the fields of military history, politics and international affairs. He has also worked for Jane's Information Group and is the author of several books. He served for six years in the British Territorial Army.
Content
1. UNITED KINGDOM
Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Recruitment and training; equipment, ciphers and radios; Operations, including Operation Jedburgh, the first significant joint operation with US OSS; Agents such as Odette Sansom, Christine Granville, Noor Inayat Khan, Nancy Wake and Violette Szabo, as well as Patrick Leigh Fermor in the kidnap of Heinrich Kreipe.
Force 136 active in south-east Asia.
2. UNITED STATES
Office of Strategic Service (OSS)
William Donovan establishing the OSS, recruiting agents from all walks of life, developing armaments, intelligence gathering.
The OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and producing its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "Beano" grenades that exploded upon impact, and explosives disguised as lumps of coal.
Operations: Operation Jedburgh,
Pacific Theatre operations: OSS played a major role in training Kuomintang troops in China and Burma, and recruited Kachin and other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides for Allied forces in Burma fighting the Japanese Army.
3. FRANCE
Maquis
French Forces of the Interior Sabotage
Joint operations with SOE agents Betrayals. Reprisals
4. BELGIUM
Sabotage and assassination - Between June and September 1944, 95 railroad bridges, 285 locomotives, 1,365 wagons and 17 tunnels were all blown up by the Belgian resistance
Intelligence gathering
Resistance to the Holocaust
Helping Allied soldiers on escape routes
5. THE NETHERLANDS
Underground groups produced forged ration cards and counterfeit money, collected intelligence, published underground papers. They also sabotaged phone lines and railways, produced maps, and distributed food and goods. Housing Jews, attacking Dutch fascists and German forces.
6. POLAND
Armia Krajowa (Home Army), Bataliony Chlopskie (Peasants' Battalions), NSZ (National Armed Forces) and other organisations.
Uprisings: Zamosc, Vilnius, Lwow, Warsaw
7. CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Operation Anthropoid, in collaboration with the SOE, the assassination of SS- Reinhard Heydrich in Prague
8. DENMARK
Borgerlige Partisaner (BOPA) (Civil Partisans) and other groups. Responsible for sabotaging railway lines. Also, saving almost all of Denmark's Jews in 1943.
9. NORWAY
Operation Gunnerside, sabotaging hydroelectric plants in Norway to stop Germans acquiring heavy water. Operation Archery. Secret assistance from Sweden: 1944, some 7,000-8,000 men had been secretly trained in Sweden.
Saboteurs Max Manus and Gunnar Sonsteby destroying Nazi ships
10. ITALY
Partisans. By August 1944, the number of partisans had grown to 100,000. Carla Capponi.
11. THE BALKANS
National Liberation Front (EAM) and Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) Operation Harling - 1942 destruction of the Gorgopotamos viaduct in central Greece by the EAM, ELAS and SOE.
Crete
Yugoslav Partisans
12. USSR
Partisans
Operation Concerto, 1943: an operation of partisan formations against the railroad communications intended to disrupt the German reinforcements and supplies for the Battle of the Dnieper and on the direction of the Soviet offensive in the Smolensk direction.
13. GERMANY
Operation Eiche - Otto Skorzeny's 1943 Gran Sasso Raid, which saw a team of German commandos rescue of none other than Benito Mussolini.
Operation Greif - Skorzeny's operation during the Battle of the Bulge in which German soldiers disguised as Americans, destroying ammunition dumps, misdirecting troops and changing road signs.
Duquesne Spy Ring - active in the US until uncovered in summer 1941. With 33 convicted members, it remains the largest spy ring detected in the US.
Bibliography
Index
Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Recruitment and training; equipment, ciphers and radios; Operations, including Operation Jedburgh, the first significant joint operation with US OSS; Agents such as Odette Sansom, Christine Granville, Noor Inayat Khan, Nancy Wake and Violette Szabo, as well as Patrick Leigh Fermor in the kidnap of Heinrich Kreipe.
Force 136 active in south-east Asia.
2. UNITED STATES
Office of Strategic Service (OSS)
William Donovan establishing the OSS, recruiting agents from all walks of life, developing armaments, intelligence gathering.
The OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and producing its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "Beano" grenades that exploded upon impact, and explosives disguised as lumps of coal.
Operations: Operation Jedburgh,
Pacific Theatre operations: OSS played a major role in training Kuomintang troops in China and Burma, and recruited Kachin and other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides for Allied forces in Burma fighting the Japanese Army.
3. FRANCE
Maquis
French Forces of the Interior Sabotage
Joint operations with SOE agents Betrayals. Reprisals
4. BELGIUM
Sabotage and assassination - Between June and September 1944, 95 railroad bridges, 285 locomotives, 1,365 wagons and 17 tunnels were all blown up by the Belgian resistance
Intelligence gathering
Resistance to the Holocaust
Helping Allied soldiers on escape routes
5. THE NETHERLANDS
Underground groups produced forged ration cards and counterfeit money, collected intelligence, published underground papers. They also sabotaged phone lines and railways, produced maps, and distributed food and goods. Housing Jews, attacking Dutch fascists and German forces.
6. POLAND
Armia Krajowa (Home Army), Bataliony Chlopskie (Peasants' Battalions), NSZ (National Armed Forces) and other organisations.
Uprisings: Zamosc, Vilnius, Lwow, Warsaw
7. CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Operation Anthropoid, in collaboration with the SOE, the assassination of SS- Reinhard Heydrich in Prague
8. DENMARK
Borgerlige Partisaner (BOPA) (Civil Partisans) and other groups. Responsible for sabotaging railway lines. Also, saving almost all of Denmark's Jews in 1943.
9. NORWAY
Operation Gunnerside, sabotaging hydroelectric plants in Norway to stop Germans acquiring heavy water. Operation Archery. Secret assistance from Sweden: 1944, some 7,000-8,000 men had been secretly trained in Sweden.
Saboteurs Max Manus and Gunnar Sonsteby destroying Nazi ships
10. ITALY
Partisans. By August 1944, the number of partisans had grown to 100,000. Carla Capponi.
11. THE BALKANS
National Liberation Front (EAM) and Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) Operation Harling - 1942 destruction of the Gorgopotamos viaduct in central Greece by the EAM, ELAS and SOE.
Crete
Yugoslav Partisans
12. USSR
Partisans
Operation Concerto, 1943: an operation of partisan formations against the railroad communications intended to disrupt the German reinforcements and supplies for the Battle of the Dnieper and on the direction of the Soviet offensive in the Smolensk direction.
13. GERMANY
Operation Eiche - Otto Skorzeny's 1943 Gran Sasso Raid, which saw a team of German commandos rescue of none other than Benito Mussolini.
Operation Greif - Skorzeny's operation during the Battle of the Bulge in which German soldiers disguised as Americans, destroying ammunition dumps, misdirecting troops and changing road signs.
Duquesne Spy Ring - active in the US until uncovered in summer 1941. With 33 convicted members, it remains the largest spy ring detected in the US.
Bibliography
Index
