A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War: The SOE and the Canadian Connection

by Bernd Horn

During the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to conduct acts of sabotage and subversion, and raise secret armies of partisans in German-occupied Europe. With the directive to “set Europe ablaze,” the SOE undertook a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Nazi Gestapo. An agent’s failure could result in indescribable torture, dispatch to a concentration camp, and, often, a death sentence.

While the SOE’s contribution to the Allied war effort is still debated, and many of its files remain classified, it was a unique wartime creation that reflected innovation, adventure, and a fanatical devotion on the part of its personnel to the Allied cause.

The SOE has an important Canadian connection: Canadians were among its operatives and agents behind enemy lines. Camp X, in Whitby, Ontario, was a special training school that trained agents for overseas duty, and an infamous Canadian code-named “Intrepid” ran SOE operations in North America.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2016

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a good academic high-level history of the SOE, though a bit heavy on lists. Not surprising, given Horn's background. There is plenty of detail on SOE's bureaucratic/political battles with more conventional military and intelligence interests. It is short at 181 pages. It would have benefited, for a general audience, with more stories of SOE operations in all theatres. The subtitle over-emphasizes the "Canadian Connection", leaving the impression that the book is primarily about that, although Horn does provide good detail on the three main Canadian contributions: Intrepid's organization and interactions with Hoover and Donovan, Camp-X, and some stories of Canadian SO people.
One big plus is that Horn discusses SOE's failures as well as successes, and doesn't diminish German counter-intelligence capability, as some other books on the subject do, such as Max Hastings' "The Secret War". In that, it is a well-balanced work.

[Katia M. Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although thorough and well researched, this was a very dry read. I had expected more stories of missions and equipment used, strategies and techniques, but it was more of a run down of people and places, rules, regulations, statistics, and government policy. There was mention of training, but rather than describe the training and people's experiences, it was discussed as 'recruits went to place a to undergo training b which was quite extensive and resulted in c', followed by a list of objectives. Same thing went for equipment, for example, a newer version of a wireless set was mentioned but there was little information on the benefits and how it differed from the old, which would have been interesting. This book would be good for someone writing an essay on the structure and purpose of the SOE and the involvement of Canadians, but for a recreational read out of interest it was boring.