Mission Accomplished: Soe And Italy 1943 1945

Description

In May 1945, Italy was liberated from Nazism and Fascism by the British Eighth and American Fifth Armies. By that time the Italian resistance movement had emerged as one of the strongest in Europe - crucially aided and abetted by the UK's Special Operations Executive. As what Winston Churchill graphically described as the 'red-hot rake of the battle-line' advanced bloodily up the Italian peninsula, clandestine cells in the cities and partisan bands in the countryside fought to free their country from enemy occupation and shape the politics of Italy's post-war future. SOE in Italy, known as Number 1 Special Force, parachuted in dozens of missions to supply the underground with weapons and ammunition, food and supplies. In a remarkable twist it also secretly collaborated with its former enemy, the Italian military intelligence service, and with the Italian navy, which used fast torpedo boats and rubber dinghies to land British agents on heavily defended beaches.
Based on recently released official files, documents retrieved from other agencies, diaries, memoirs and personal interviews, "Mission Accomplished" provides the first ever complete and authoritative account of Britain's secret war in Italy - the heroic exploits, the larger than life participants and the extraordinary, against-the-odds achievements.

Promotion info

Mission Accomplished provides the first ever complete and authoritative account of Britain's secret war in Italy during the Second World War.

Reviews

"Offers readers a sound judgment of SOE's contribution to the liberation of Italy and a gripping account of Britain's secret war in Italy . . . Stafford vividly describes these missions with striking detail and telling quotes." - -"BBC History Magazine"

Author description

David Stafford is the author of several books on intelligence history, including Britain and European Resistance, Churchill and Secret Service, Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of Secrets, Flight from Reality and Ten Days to D-Day. He was Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Executive Director of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Chairman of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, an Associate Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford, and Project Director at the Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars at the University of Edinburgh, where he is currently an Honorary Fellow.