Status
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
In July 1940, a desperately weakened Britain licks her wounds after the humiliating retreat from Dunkirk. How can the fight be taken to the enemy? New Prime Minister Winston Churchill orders the creation of the Special Operations Executive, to 'set Europe ablaze' through subversion and sabotage. But this most secret of agencies must be kept secure. Guardians of Churchill's Secret Army tells the mostly unknown human stories of the men who were brought into SOE, straight from Intelligence Corps training, to do just that. They were junior in rank, but far from ordinary people. They were Australian, Anglo-French, Canadian, Scandinavian, East European and British. They had been schoolteachers, journalists, artists, ship brokers, racehorse trainers and international businessmen. Each spoke several languages. These men stood alongside courageous agents in training: encouraged them, assessed their character, and tried to teach them the caution and suspicion that might just keep them alive, deep in enemy territory. But they did much more. Many became agents themselves and displayed great bravery. All played a crucial role in the global effort to undermine the enemy. We find them not only in the Baker Street Headquarters of SOE, but also in night parachute drops, in paramilitary training in the remotest depths of Scotland and in undercover agent training in isolated English country houses. We follow them to occupied France, to Malaya and Thailand under threat of Japanese invasion, to Italy and Germany as they play their part in the collapse of the Axis regimes. As we do so, we find a world of heroism and commitment so different from our own experience that it is scarcely believable.… (more)
User reviews
This is unfortunate, because Dixon explains there was all kinds of infighting among the various overlapping services Churchill had going. Both men and materiel (and money) were part of the game. There was also tension with De Gaulle and his obsession with making it appear that the French did this all by themselves. They had all kinds of backgrounds, and were often not anyone’s idea of first pick. But examples don’t come pouring out in this book. There was lots of color – just not here.
To be fair, there are two or three extended profiles on display. Unfortunately, they are almost entirely composed of personal data – where the couple got married who their parents were, where they grew up, what boat they took on vacation, how twisted their route was, where they (or least the wife) moved during the war. But actual service in the field – little or nothing. No color, no characters, no betrayals, no successes. Dixon will say they had an “adventurous journey”, but nothing else.
One example: “Valentine Killery, who had been in Java when Singapore fell, escaped from there to Australia, where he played a key role in the establishment of the Australian equivalent of SOE.” Who Valentine Killery was is not for us to know, it seems, and he is never mentioned again. There are dozens of examples like this, where Dixon apparently sees his task as jamming as many names as possible into the text, along with their meaningless code names (Stockbroker) and the code names of their operations (Lilas). It’s data he found, so he uses it.
These are the real unsung heroes, and they deserve better.
David Wineberg