Secret Wartime Britain

Author : Colin Philpott
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2018-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781526735485

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Secret Wartime Britain by Colin Philpott Pdf

The secret military facilities hidden across Great Britain are revealed and investigated in this fascinating WWII history. During the Second World War, thousands of facilities across Britain were requisitioned to support the war efforts. Beyond that, countless others were built from scratch. Often the purpose of these locations was a closely guarded secret, even from those living close by. In Secret Wartime Britain, Colin Philpott has compiled a fascinating collection of sites that still exist in some form today. They include underground factories, storage sites and headquarters; spy and communication centers; interrogation and POW camps; dummy sites; research facilities such as the sinister Porton Down; treasure stores in stately homes and even royal retreats in the event of invasion, such as Madresfield Court. Where were these sites and why were they needed? How successfully were they kept secret? What has happened to them since? Were they returned to their owners? Answers to these and other questions make Secret Wartime Britain a riveting and revealing read.

Author : Adrian Searle
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781473877733

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Churchill's Last Wartime Secret by Adrian Searle Pdf

Its been a State secret for more than seventy years. The official line in the UK has always been that it never happened but this new work challenges the assertion that no German force set foot on British soil during the Second World War (the Channel Islands excepted), on active military service. Churchills Last Wartime Secret reveals the remarkable story of a mid-war seaborne enemy raid on an Isle of Wight radar station. It describes the purpose and scope of the attack, the composition of the raiding German force and how it was immediately, and understandably, hushed-up by Winston Churchills wartime administration, in order to safeguard public morale. Circumventing the almost complete lack of official British archival documentation, the author relies on compelling and previously undisclosed firsthand evidence from Germany to underpin the books narrative and claims; thus distinguishing it from other tales of rumored seaborne enemy assaults on British soil during the 1939-45 conflict. After examining the outcome and repercussions of this astonishing incident, what emerges is an event of major symbolic significance in the annals of wartime history. Its been a State secret for more than seventy years. The official line in the UK has always been that it never happened but this new work challenges the assertion that no German force set foot on British soil during the Second World War (the Channel Islands excepted), on active military service.

Author : Nigel West
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 1992-01
Category : Espionage, British
ISBN : 0340518707

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Secret War by Nigel West Pdf

Author : Sinclair McKay
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2022-05-12
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1472284550

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Secret Britain by Sinclair McKay Pdf

Author : Nigel West
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2019-01-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781526755674

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Secret War by Nigel West Pdf

The author of The Kompromat Conspiracy reveals the truth behind Great Britain’s secret World War II group. What did SOE really achieve during the Second World War? Why were so many agents parachuted into enemy hands? Who chose to back Communist guerrillas in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Greece and Malaya in preference to other anti-Axis movements? In this newly revised edition, Nigel West strips away the secrecy that has surrounded the Special Operations Executive since it was officially wound up in 1946, and reveal the breathtaking political naivety, operational incompetence, and ruthless manipulation. Despite the heroism of individual agents who suffered appalling privation to further the organization’s dubious objectives, there is an underlying tragedy of dreadful proportions. Secret War is a detailed analysis of SOE’s structure and performance and describes its successes and failures across the globe. The book casts doubt on the official histories authorized by the Cabinet Office, offers evidence of the setbacks that jeopardized D-Day, and gives an account of the paramilitary units dropped behind enemy lines immediately after the invasion, which saved SOE’s reputation. This book is a highly provocative but authoritative history of the organization that existed for less than six years but had a lasting impact on the world’s postwar development. “Secret War is important, even necessary in political terms.” —Financial Times

Author : Nigel West
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2020-01-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781526755759

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MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations, 1909–1945 by Nigel West Pdf

The author of GCHG describes covert missions that “are worthy of spy fiction, but the entire book is utterly fascinating and informative. Brilliant!” (Books Monthly) Written by the renowned expert Nigel West, this book exposes the operations of Britain’s overseas intelligence-gathering organization, the famed Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and traces its origins back to its inception in 1909. In this meticulously researched account, its activities and structure are described in detail, using original secret service documents. The main body of the book concerns MI6’s operations during the Second World War, and includes some remarkable successes and failures, including how MI6 financed a glamorous confidant of the German secret service; how a suspected French traitor was murdered by mistake; how Franco’s military advisors were bribed to keep Spain out of the war; how members of the Swedish secret police were blackmailed into helping the British war effort; how a sabotage operation in neutral Tangiers enabled the Allied landings in North Africa to proceed undetected; and how Britain’s generals ignored the first ULTRA decrypts because MI6 said that the information had come from “a well-placed source called BONIFACE.” In this new edition, operations undertaken by almost all of MI6’s overseas stations are recounted in extraordinary detail. They will fascinate both the professional intelligence officer and the general reader. The book includes organizational charts to illustrate MI6’s internal structure and its wartime network of overseas stations. Backed by numerous interviews with intelligence officers and their agents, this engaging inside story throws light on many wartime incidents that had previously remained unexplained. “[An] extraordinary book.” —The Daily Telegraph “Fascinating reading.” —Firetrench

Author : Paul Lewis,Rob Evans
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2013-06-25
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9780571302185

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Undercover by Paul Lewis,Rob Evans Pdf

'Undercover lays bare the deceit, betrayal and cold-blooded violation practised again and again by undercover police officers - troubling, timely and brilliantly executed.' Henry Porter The gripping stories of a group of police spies - written by the award-winning investigative journalists who exposed the Mark Kennedy scandal - and the uncovering of forty years of state espionage. This was an undercover operation so secret that some of our most senior police officers had no idea it existed. The job of the clandestine unit was to monitor British 'subversives' - environmental activists, anti-racist groups, animal rights campaigners. Police stole the identities of dead people to create fake passports, driving licences and bank accounts. They then went deep undercover for years, inventing whole new lives so that they could live incognito among the people they were spying on. They used sex, intimate relationships and drugs to build their credibility. They betrayed friends, deceived lovers, even fathered children. And their operations continue today. Undercover reveals the truth about secret police operations - the emotional turmoil, the psychological challenges and the human cost of a lifetime of deception - and asks whether such tactics can ever be justified.

Author : Stephen Haddelsey,Allan Carroll
Publisher : History Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-03
Category : Antarctica
ISBN : 0750967463

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Operation Tabarin by Stephen Haddelsey,Allan Carroll Pdf

20TH CENTURY HISTORY: C 1900 TO C 2000. In 1943 Winston Churchill's War Cabinet met to discuss the opening of a new front, fought not on the beaches of Normandy or in the jungles of Burma but amid the blizzards and glaciers of the Antarctic. As well as setting in train a sequence of events that would eventually culminate in the Falklands War, the British bases secretly established in 1944 would go on to lay the foundations for one of the most important and enduring government-sponsored programmes of scientific research in the polar regions: the British Antarctic Survey. Operation Tabarin tells the story of the only Antarctic expedition to be launched by any of the combatant nations during the Second World War and one of the most curious episodes in what Ernest Shackleton called 'the white warfare of the south'.

Author : Jacky Hyams
Publisher : Kings Road Publishing
Page : 197 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2013-08-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781782197164

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Bomb Girls - Britain's Secret Army: The Munitions Women of World War II by Jacky Hyams Pdf

They were the unsung heroines of World War II; the wives, mums and teenage girls, all 'doing their bit' for the war effort, clocking in daily to work in cast munitions factories, helping make the explosives, bullets and war machines that would ensure victory for Britain.It was dangerous, dirty and exhaustive work. They worked round the clock, often exposed to toxic, lethal chemicals. A factory accident could mean blindness, loss of limbs - or worse. Many went home with acid burns, yellow skin or discoloured hair. Others were forced to leave their loved ones and move to live with total strangers in unfamiliar surroundings. Frequently, their male bosses were coarse and unsympathetic.Yet this hidden army of nearly two million women toiled on regardless through the worst years of the war, cheerfully ignoring the dangers and the exhaustion, as bombing, rationing and the heartbreak of loss or separation took their toll on everyone in the country.Only now, all these years later, have they chosen to tell their remarkable stories. Here, in their own words, are the vivid wartime memories of the 'secret army' of female munitions workers, whose resilience and sheer grit in the face of danger has only now started to emerge.These are the intimate and personal stories of an unforgettable group of women, whose hard work and quiet courage made a significant contribution to Britain's war effort. They didn't fire the bullets, but they filled them up with explosives. And in doing so, they helped Britain win the war.

Author : Helen Yendall
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2022-01-14
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780008523107

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A Wartime Secret by Helen Yendall Pdf

England, 1940. Can Maggie keep her family – and her secret – safe? An emotional and heartbreaking wartime novel for fans of Diney Costeloe, Dilly Court and Mandy Robotham.

Author : Paul McCue
Publisher : Uniform Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2017-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1910500755

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Brighton's Secret Agents by Paul McCue Pdf

"Winstion Churchill authorized the creation of a new wartime secret service, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) with the order "And now set Europe ablaze". ... Paul McCue tells a main story of four Brighton and Hove-born agents honoured with blue plaques. ... [He] details the organisation's creation and post-war demise, its training methods and the missions of the four chief subjects. He also covers three other agents, a special duties RAF pilot and the inspiration for 'Q', the inspired boffin of the James Bond films - all of whom had links to the city."--Back cover.

Author : R.V. Jones
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 608 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2009-08-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141957678

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Most Secret War by R.V. Jones Pdf

Reginald Jones was nothing less than a genius. And his appointment to the Intelligence Section of Britain's Air Ministry in 1939 led to some of the most astonishing scientific and technological breakthroughs of the Second World War. In Most Secret War he details how Britain stealthily stole the war from under the Germans' noses by outsmarting their intelligence at every turn. He tells of the 'battle of the beams'; detecting and defeating flying bombs; using chaff to confuse radar; and many other ingenious ideas and devices. Jones was the man with the plan to save Britain and his story makes for riveting reading.

Author : Reginald Victor Jones
Publisher : London : Hamilton
Page : 614 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015054077899

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Most Secret War by Reginald Victor Jones Pdf

The Wordsworth Military Library covers the breadth of military history, including studies of individual leaders and accounts of major campaigns and great conflicts.

Author : Ben Macintyre
Publisher : Signal
Page : 443 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2016-10-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780771060311

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Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre Pdf

Now a limited series on Prime Video! SAS: ROGUE HEROES, starring Connor Swindells, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Allen, and Dominic West The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue. Ben Macintyre's latest book of derring-do and wartime intrigue reveals the incredible story of the last truly unsung secret organization of World War II—Britain's Special Air Service, or the SAS. Facing long odds and a tough slog against Rommel and the German tanks in the Middle East theatre, Britain turned to the brainchild of one its most unlikely heroes—David Stirling, a young man whose aimlessness and almost practiced ennui belied a remarkable mind for strategy. With the help of his equally unusual colleague, the rough-and-tumble Jock Lewes, Stirling sought to assemble a crack team of highly trained men who would parachute in behind enemy lines to throw monkey wrenches into the German war machine. Though he faced stiff resistance from those who believed such activities violated the classic rules of war, Stirling persevered and in the process created a legacy. Staffed by brilliant, idiosyncratic men whose talents defied both tradition and expectations, the SAS would not only change the course of the war, but the very nature of combat itself. Written with complete access to the never-before-seen SAS archives (who chose Macintyre as their official historian), Rogue Heroes offers a powerfully intimate look at life on the battlefield as lived by a group of remarkable soldiers whose contributions have, until now, gone unrecognized beyond the classified world. Filled with wrenching set pieces and weaving its way through multiple theatres of our grandest and most terrible war, this book is both an excellent addition to the Macintyre library and a critical piece in our understanding of the war's unfolding.

Author : Robert Hutton
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2019-11-12
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781250221773

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Agent Jack by Robert Hutton Pdf

"An appealing mix of accessibility and research. [Hutton] has illuminated a fascinating and often appalling side of the war at home." — Wall Street Journal The never-before-told story of Eric Roberts, who infiltrated a network of Nazi sympathizers in Great Britain in order to protect the country from the grips of fascism June 1940: Europe has fallen to Adolf Hitler’s army, and Britain is his next target. Winston Churchill exhorts the country to resist the Nazis, and the nation seems to rally behind him. But in secret, some British citizens are plotting to hasten an invasion. Agent Jack tells the incredible true story of Eric Roberts, a seemingly inconsequential bank clerk who, in the guise of “Jack King”, helped uncover and neutralize the invisible threat of fascism on British shores. Gifted with an extraordinary ability to make people trust him, Eric Roberts penetrated the Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists before playing his greatest role for MI5: Hitler's man in London. Pretending to be an agent of the Gestapo, Roberts single-handedly built a network of hundreds of British Nazi sympathizers—factory workers, office clerks, shopkeepers —who shared their secrets with him. It was work so secret and so sensitive that it was kept out of the reports MI5 sent to Winston Churchill. In a gripping real-world thriller, Robert Hutton tells the fascinating story of an operation whose existence has only recently come to light with the opening of MI5’s World War II files. Drawing on these newly declassified documents and private family archives, Agent Jack shatters the comforting notion that Britain could never have succumbed to fascism and, consequently, that the world could never have fallen to Hitler. Agent Jack is the story of one man who loved his country so much that he risked everything to stand against a rising tide of hate.