A Spur Called Courage: SOE Heroes in Italy

by Alan Ogden, Charles R.L. Guthrie (Foreward)

A vivid recount of the little known exploits of 17 courageous Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers in Italy during World War II  In this inspiring new study of the SOE and Italian Resistance, 17 extraordinary stories of individual SOE officers illustrate the many and varied tasks of SOE missions throughout the different regions of Italy from 1943-1945. Through their gallantry, ingenuity, and determination, a small handful of SOE missions were able to arm and inspire thousands of Italians to fight the occupying German army after 1943 and in the process give invaluable support to the advancing Allied armies as they pushed north towards Austria.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2011

Reviews

[A.L. Sowards]

This book is organized into seventeen chapters, each one telling the story of a British SOE or SAS hero whose WWII adventures included work in Italy. Most chapters contain maps, photographs, and citations for the awards the men received. Most of the men were involved in organizing Italian partisans during the last year of the war, many of them had escaped from POW camps, and for most of them, Italy was but one (or two) mission(s) in a very full military career.

A book like this certainly has its place, but I would have preferred more information about each of the men. The book is full of sentences like this: After an adventurous few days during which Macpherson killed a large Dobermann guard dog with his commando knife and stole bread loaves from inside a tent full of Germans, they were captured by a patrol of twenty Italian cyclists but not before wrecking an enemy telephone exchange for the fun of it. which left me wanting details. How exactly did he steal the bread? Was he mistreated when he was captured? How big was the telephone exchange?

The men were all brave and most of their stories could have been turned into wonderful full-length books. Instead, each chapter read like a wikipedia article or a detailed obituary.