Behind the Lines: The Oral History of Special Operations in World War II

by Russell Miller

This is the story of special operations in the second world war as it has never been told before-directly by those who took part.

Compiled from interviews, diaries, letters and contemporaneous first-person accounts-many unpublished until now-this oral history follows the adventures of the courageous men and women who volunteered for service with the Untied States' Office of Strategic Services and Britain's Special Operations Executive. They parachuted behind enemy lines, often alone, with orders to cause mayhem. Arrest almost always resulted in torture and imprisonment; sometimes in execution

Trained in the black arts of warfare-sabotage, subversion, espionage, guerrilla tactics and undermining enemy morale by the distribution of insidious propaganda-theirs was a war fought in the shadows. Their activities extended to every theatre of in occupied France, equipped with false identities, they played a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Gestapo; in the Balkans they discovered that the fiery politics of the region were as dangerous as the enemy; in the Burmese jungle, in some of the worst combat conditions of the war, they led native marauders in surprise attacks against the Japanese. From Britain they were supported by a team of back-room inventors who produced expertly forged documents and dreamed up ingenious devices like exploding rats and invisible ink.

The special agents of World War Two really were a breed apart. This is their extraordinary story. In their own words.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, World War II, War, Military History, Biography

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 11, 2002

About the author

Russell Miller (born c. 1938) is a British journalist and author of fifteen books, including biographies of Hugh Hefner, J. Paul Getty and L. Ron Hubbard. While under contract to The Sunday Times Magazine he won four press awards and was voted Writer of the Year by the Society of British Magazine Editors.

Reviews

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, informative, enlightening short excerpts from the men and women who fought in WWII through espionage, sabotage, parachuting into enemy territories from France, Germany, Italy, wherever Germany occupied.........through interviews, letters, diaries and other third person accounts. I really learned a lot about how the war was won....not just in the trenches but in every day mundane research, messages, bombing tactics and sabotage. Let's hope there is never another world war but if there is, let's hope the equivalent of the brave and talented SOE and OSS described in this book are again trained to infiltrate successfully to thwart the enemy.

[Nicola Whyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Behind the Lines by Russell Miller is an oral history of the Special Operatives Executive during World War II. Almost entirely made up of first-hand accounts of agents, operatives, trainers, and officials, this is the SOE in its own words. Curious, terrifying, surprising, amusing, and even occasionally absurd, this is a fascinating insight into Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

[James Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting collection of first hand accounts by those involved with the Special Operations Executive or the OSS special operations during WW2. The book is split into chapters covering broad themes or areas of operation.

Almost all of the book is in the direct quotation from the various special operations personnel. This shows the attitudes they had to the work and the people that they dealt with. A number of the accounts talked about vetting people, both before operations in the UK and in the field overseas. What struck me was that the methods used in the field are similar to those used by terrorist organisations. I'd always sort of knew it, but this made it a little more real.

The other revelation for me was the lack of vindictiveness against the Gestapo in Europe. A couple of the agents talked about incidents where they could have killed or seriously wounded Gestapo officers, yet they didn't. Reading between the lines the implication is that doing so would have had a huge negative impact on the local populace. It may also have contributed to a surprising number of SOE agents surving over a year in captivity.

The book covers setting up SOE & OSS (a chapter each). Preparing agents to be deployed, operations in France, the Balkans, Norway, the Far East and also the post war wrap up in Germany.

[Anne Barwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting collection of true stories from people who worked behind the lines in World War II. There was a good mix of antedotes, some amusing, some very much not so, but all very insightful in regard to the day to day training and then into the field.

I'd highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in this time period as these are not the stories that are usually in the history books but it's the people who made the difference right down at ground zero level.