SOE Agent: Churchill’s Secret Warriors

Osprey Warrior #133

by Terry Crowdy, Steve Noon (Illustrator)

Osprey's study of Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents during World War II (1939-1945). On average an SOE agent would be dead within three months of being dropped in the field. Terry Crowdy tells the extraordinary story of these agents, some of whom were women as young as 22, following them through their experiences beginning with their recruitment and unorthodox training methods, particularly the unarmed combat training provided by the notorious Fairburn and Sykes partnership. As well as detailing these controversial techniques, the training chapter also covers the tough physical training course and parachute training that all recruits had to endure before being sent into occupied Europe.

Crowdy also examines the SOE's unique system of codes, which included each agent composing their own poem as well as using quotations from famous pieces of literature to convey secret messages, and explores the strengths and weaknesses of this system. Full-color artwork and photographs show the innovative equipment, including the S-Phones and Eureka sets, which allowed the agent to communicate directly with pilots and other agents. Lastly, the book recounts the incredible combat missions of the SOE agents, including operations in the field with Yugoslav and Greek partisans, as well as sabotage missions ranging from blowing up bridges to the raising of full-scale partisan armies as they attempted to fulfill Churchill's directive to set Occupied Europe ablaze.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

64 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 2008

About the author

Terry Crowdy was born in London in 1970. Initially a re-enactor, his interest in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars led to writing for specialist magazines, and then to book authorship.

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

A brief history of the Special Operations Executive, the saboteurs and underground agents that were sent from Britain to the Continent under German occupation during World War II, with the mission “to set Europe ablaze.” This book was given to me as a Christmas present. Not that I’m obsessive or anything.

This slender volume is actually one of the best I’ve come across for giving elusive details about timing, code names, equipment used, dates of missions, etc. It’s also very clear and orderly in its organization, including lists and chronologies and a good index.

And it’s so interesting! Having mostly concentrated my SOE research on F section (France), I knew very little about the tremendous shenanigans going on in the Norwegian resistance -- for example, the fact that they managed to entirely disrupt Germany’s infant atomic weapons industry. And what about the introduction of itching powder into condoms in brothels used by the German army??? There’s a quick tutorial in the Playfair code system, too, if you want to try your hand at secret messages.

The lady with the pistol on the cover is Jacqueline Nearne (the sister of SOE agent Eileen Nearne, who you may recall died in Torquay in Sept. 2010 and was given a bit of a splash in the media). The cover scene is actually from a short film called Now It Can Be Told (available from the Imperial War Museum). Filmed on site in France in 1945, while the war was still going on, this documentary about the SOE starred actual agents and operational aircraft. There are quite a few stills from this film illustrating SOE Agent, and some vivid re-enactment-type paintings, but the most interesting and intriguing illustrations are actual photos taken in the field.

Really worth a look even if you’re not an SOE junkie like me!