SOE GROUP B SABOTAGE TRAINING HANDBOOK

SOE GROUP B SABOTAGE TRAINING HANDBOOK
Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1291863893

Following the outbreak of war in 1939, the British Intelligence Services needed a school to train agents to be infiltrated behind enemy lines in occupied Europe. Brickendonbury Manor was requisitioned and run by the Secret Intelligence Service's D Section. They already had training schools in Palestine. With the formation of the Special Operations Executive in July 1940, they took over the training and Brickendonbury specialised in sabotage. George Rheam, described as the father of industrial sabotage, and fellow instructors prepared a handbook which was used by SOE trainers in similar schools overseas. Bernard O'Connor, author of numerous books on World War Two sabotage, provides a detailed foreword.

The Secrets of Station 14

The Secrets of Station 14
Author: Des Turner
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2022-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0750999837

Briggens House, near Harlow in Essex, was one of the most important of the establishments requisitioned by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Its mission was to accomplish Winston Churchill's directive to 'set Europe ablaze', and, initially, the house was used as a finishing school for the Cichociemni, elite Polish saboteurs, to prepare to parachute into Nazi-occupied Poland. In need of false identity documents to avoid the arrest, interrogation and execution of its agents, SOE gradually built up a printing department on site and Station 14 became the organisation's False Document Section. This is the true story of the house and its highly skilled wartime personnel, including British officers, Polish agents and the women of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. For the resident staff it was a relatively safe posting, but tension built as the Poles, fighting their own battle for Polish independence, competed for scarce resources in wartime Britain. SOE historian Des Turner uses first-hand accounts, memoirs and official records to reveal long-forgotten stories of tragedy, humour and frustration, giving long-overdue credit to the men and women of Briggens House who were prevented by the Secrets Act from ever speaking about their wartime work.

Blackmail Sabotage: Attacks on French industries during World War Two

Blackmail Sabotage: Attacks on French industries during World War Two
Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2014-03-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1291787305

In late-1943 Harry Rée, one of Britain's secret agents operating in eastern France, witnessed an RAF bombing mission on Peugeot's automobile factory in Sochaux/Montbéliard. As many bombs missed their target, damaging houses and killing innocent French civilians, he was aware that it could turn public opinion against the Allies. With the agreement of his boss in the Special Operations Executive, he approached one of Peugeot's directors and made him an offer: Agree to have your vital machinery sabotaged or have the factory destroyed by British or American bombers. To help the director decide, he was offered compensation by the Allies after the war. When this novel approach proved successful, SOE set up a blackmail sabotage committee which targeted over thirty French factories. Over twenty specially trained agents, both men and women, were infiltrated on missions which included blackmail sabotage. This book details their successes and failures.

Operation Lena and Hitler's Plots to Blow Up Britain

Operation Lena and Hitler's Plots to Blow Up Britain
Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2017-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1445669641

The wartime story of how the Nazi Germany's sent saboteurs from 1938 onwards to launch acts of terror on the street of England and amazingly employed collaborators from the IRA, and attempted to use Scottish and Welsh nationalists.

Churchill's School for Saboteurs

Churchill's School for Saboteurs
Author: Bernard O'Connor
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2013-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1445611783

The secret life of Brickendonbury Manor & the WW2 assassins & saboteurs who set occupied Europe alight.

How to Be a Spy

How to Be a Spy
Author:
Publisher: Dundurn
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2004-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1550025058

During World War II, training in the black arts of covert operation was vital preparation for the 'ungentlemanly warfare' waged by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) against Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan. Reproduced here is the most comprehensive training syllabus used at SOE's Special Training Schools (STSs) showing how agents learnt to wreak maximum destruction in occupied Europe and beyond. The training took place in country houses and other secluded locations ranging from the Highlands of Scotland to Singapore and Canada. An array of unconventional skills are covered - from burglary, close combat and silent killing through to propaganda, surveillance and disguise - giving insight into the workings of one of World War II's most intriguing organizations. Denis Rigden's introduction sets the documents in its historical context and includes stories of how these lessons were put into practice on actual wartime missions.

SOE in France

SOE in France
Author: M.R.D. Foot
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2004-04-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135769885

This study, first published in 1966, has been updated from closed government records, to offer a more complete overview of the activities of the SOE and how it fitted into the Allied war effort in the French theatre of operations.

Simple Sabotage Field Manual

Simple Sabotage Field Manual
Author: Office of Strategic Services
Publisher: The Floating Press
Total Pages: 70
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1775415473

This Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a genuine guide from the Second World War, states that its purpose is to "characterize simple sabotage, to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting and executing it." Among the other fine pieces of advice in this handy volume, one is encouraged to "switch address labels on enemy baggage", "let cutting tools grow dull", "forget to provide paper in toilets", and "change sign posts at intersections and forks; the enemy will go the wrong way and it may be miles before he discovers his mistakes."

World War II Secret Operations Handbook

World War II Secret Operations Handbook
Author: Stephen Hart
Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782741038

The World War II Secret Operations Handbook reveals the skills and tricks used by the British SOE, the US OSS, the French Maquis, and other special forces between 1939 and 1945. Learn how to rig up a makeshift radio, how to pass undetected in enemy territory, how to live off the land and make shelter, and how to work as a sniper.

Operation Garbo

Operation Garbo
Author: Juan Pujol García
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2011-08-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1849546258

He was GARBO to the Allies and ALARIC to the Germans – the most successful double agent of the Second World War. Indeed, his spy network across Britain was so highly regarded that he was decorated for his achievements ... by both sides. Throughout the war, GARBO kept the Germans supplied with reports from his ring of twenty-four agents. Hitler's spymasters never discovered or even suspected a double-cross, but all the agents in GARBO's network existed solely in his imagination. In one of the most daring espionage coups of all time, GARBO persuaded the enemy to hold back troops that might otherwise have defeated the Normandy landings on D-Day; without him, the Second World War could have taken a completely different course. For decades, GARBO's true identity was a closely guarded secret. After the war, he vanished. Years later, after faking his own death, Juan Pujol García was persuaded by the author to emerge from the shadowy world of espionage, and in this new edition of his classic account, now updated to include his agents' original MI5 files, GARBO reveals his unique story.