WWII Espionage

[Story]

Type Pearl Cornioley into your search engine. She died last month at 93 and was one tough lady. .

Or you can check post 53 (scroll up).

 

[Jedburgh OSS]

some more titles FYI

Who Dares Wins (1958) later titled The Phantom Major by Virginia Cowles
(an excellent read that would make a great miniseries but only as a British production)

The Imperial War Museum Book of War Behind Enemy Lines (1998) by Julian Thompson published in Great Britain by Sidgwick & Jackson and in the U.S. in 2001 by Brassey's, Inc., Dulles, Virginia. This is a amalgamation of espionage and commando operations: LRDG, SAS, Chindit expeditions, Jeds...

Steel from the Sky (2004) by Roger Ford

The Jedburghs (where have we heard that word?) (2005) by Will Irwin

Operation Jedburgh (there's that word again) (2006) by Colin Beavin www.operationjedburgh.com

 

[Sly]

In addition to the work of Professor M.R.D. Foot you may wish to read the following:

* Masterman, J. C. The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939–1945. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1972. [pb] New York: Avon Books, 1972. New York: Ballantine, 1982. ISBN 0-345-29743-1.
* Hinsley, F. H., and C. A. G. Simpkins. British Intelligence in the Second World War (various olumes). London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1990.
* Howard, Michael British Intelligence in the Second World War. H.M. Stationery Office, 1990.

The German and Austrian section of SOE was run by Lt. Col. Ronald Thornley, and later by General Sir Gerald Templar. A basic search online will reveal some information of interest, though operations in Germany proper were quite limited.

 

[Chas]

Then there's Camp X
Camp X

Apologies if already mentioned.

 

[imported_the_librarian]

Here's what I'm wondering. According to the book, Piercing the Reich by Joseph Persico, the OSS wasn't successful in penetrating Nazi Germany until 1944. Does this mean that there were absolutely NO American agents in Germany until then? I'm inclined to think that there had to be some. Am I way off base on this?

My old blog is dead, but if you check this post:

http://writingwithtony.blogspot.com/2008/03/lucky-lindy-kidnapping-and-secret-spy.html

In particular this link:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...tions/csi-studies/studies/95unclass/Koch.html

Truman Smith might be an interesting subject to check up on....

Just a thought.......

Have you searched the google.com/books link yet?

 

[Ottawalad]

Take a look at these two books on Dusko Popov, who was a Yugoslavian double agent working for British intelligence against the Germans.

Spy Counter Spy
by Dusko Popov

Codename Tricycle - The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent (Dusko Popov)
by Russell Miller

Both books provide interesting information at how the British and German intelligence agencies operated and also provide an interesting description on how the FBI operated in counter intelligence during the war.

Plus Popov himself is an amazing character. You can see why some people claim the Ian Fleming used him as a model for James Bond.

Also take a look at this book on Christine Granville. She lived an extraordinary life and died a useless, tragic death at the hands of a jealous boyfriend. According to the book she had an affair with Ian Fleming and may have been the inspiration for Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale

Christine: SOE Agent and Churchill's Favourite Spy: A Search for Christine Granville by Madeleine Masson

If you’re interested in some WWII spy fiction than I have to recommend all of the books by Alan Furst. They’re well written, researched and are Hollywood “film noirs” in their style.

 

[AmateisGal]

More great stuff! Thanks, everyone. Will add these to my list.

 

[Story]

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond

At the Imperial War Museum in London
http://london.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/fleming/exhibition.html

 

[AmateisGal]

At the Imperial War Museum in London
http://london.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/fleming/exhibition.html

Ooh. I'm definitely stopping here when I head to England later this year. Thanks, Story!

 

[Creeping Past]

I can recommend The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle by Roderick Bailey (Jonathan Cape, UK, 2008). which I've just finished reading. Although it's mostly about the SOE in Albania, there's some useful stuf about OSS operations and co-operation, or otherwise, between OSS and SOE and the other organisations involved in that theatre during WW2. An enlightening story about a mostly forgotten war.

 

[Story]

A True Story Told by a Living OSS Intelligence Officer

SPOTSYLVANIA, VA - A true story told by a living 91-year-old OSS Intelligence Officer, Captain Jim Hudson, who apprehended the famous German aviatrix, Hanna Reitsch, just after VE Day, May 8, 1945. Victory in Europe announced to the world that Germany had been forced into unconditional surrender. Jim was ready for this final chapter o*n the wily enemy that had plagued the Allies ever since the sneak attack by the Japanese.

Complete review at
http://www.tristateobserver.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=10077

 

[Story]

If you’re interested in some WWII spy fiction than I have to recommend all of the books by Alan Furst. They’re well written, researched and are Hollywood “film noirs” in their style.

It's spy vs. spy, between the wars

By Scott Timberg • Los Angeles Times • June 15, 2008
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080615/ENTERTAINMENT/806150357/1164/ENTERTAINMENT

Alan Furst writes elegant, atmospheric spy novels set in continental Europe in the 1930s and early '40s: He owns the pre-World War II period as completely as John le Carre owns the Cold War.

Furst's latest novel, "The Spies of Warsaw," is the 10th in this series of books that are both dreamlike and grounded in period detail. The protagonist is Jean-Francois Mercier, a French military attache to Poland and the latest in Furst's line of heroic, introspective, world-weary aristocrats. We spoke to Furst, 67, from his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island.

 

[AmateisGal]

It's spy vs. spy, between the wars

By Scott Timberg • Los Angeles Times • June 15, 2008
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080615/ENTERTAINMENT/806150357/1164/ENTERTAINMENT

Alan Furst writes elegant, atmospheric spy novels set in continental Europe in the 1930s and early '40s: He owns the pre-World War II period as completely as John le Carre owns the Cold War.

Furst's latest novel, "The Spies of Warsaw," is the 10th in this series of books that are both dreamlike and grounded in period detail. The protagonist is Jean-Francois Mercier, a French military attache to Poland and the latest in Furst's line of heroic, introspective, world-weary aristocrats. We spoke to Furst, 67, from his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island.

I actually have one of Alan Furst's novels, I believe, and if I remember right, I had a hard time getting into it. Will have to try again, though.

 

[Story]

Roger Hall, who wrote "You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger," a wry memoir about World War II spycraft that became a cult classic in intelligence circles and appealed to a wide audience for its irreverence, died July 20 of congestive heart failure at his home in Wilmington, Del. He was 89.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-hall4-2008aug04,0,4280711.story

 

[Story]

Francis Fitzpatrick, a member of a top-secret World War II team in New Orleans that tracked German submarine activity in the Gulf of Mexico, died July 30 in her home at Ware Neck, Va. She was 92.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose husband won a 1951 Pulitzer Prize for his editorials for The New Orleans States, was born Francis James Gasquet Westfeldt in August 1915 in Fletcher, N.C., where her parents had a home to escape the New Orleans heat. The family, hoping for a boy, decided before she was born to name her for a great-uncle.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base//news-30/1217913781203790.xml&coll=1

 

[Eyemo]

Garbo...

You ain't seen me yeah......

 

[Story]

Documents: Julia Child part of WWII era spy ring
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080813/D92HMRN00.html

Aug 13, 7:23 PM (ET)

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and RANDY HERSCHAFT

(AP) In this Oct. 11, 2001 file photo, famous chef, cookbook author and television show host Julia...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world. They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives.

They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors, reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.

Among the more than 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications, commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields - Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President Kennedy; Sterling Hayden, a film and television actor whose work included a role in "The Godfather"; and Thomas Braden, an author whose "Eight Is Enough" book inspired the 1970s television series.

(AP) In this June 11, 1948 black-and-white file photo, reputed mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano sips a...

Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.

The release of the OSS personnel files uncloaks one of the last secrets from the short-lived wartime intelligence agency, which for the most part later was folded into the CIA after President Truman disbanded it in 1945.

"I think it's terrific," said Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now living in Woodbridge, Va. "They've finally, after all these years, they've gotten the names out. All of these people had been told never to mention they were with the OSS."

The CIA had resisted releasing OSS records for decades. But former CIA Director William Casey, himself an OSS veteran, cleared the way for transfer of millions of OSS documents to the National Archives when he took over the agency in 1981. The personnel files are the latest to be made public.

Information about OSS involvement was so guarded that relatives often couldn't confirm a family member's work with the group.


(AP) In this July 20, 1965 black-and-white file photo, Arthur J. Goldberg speaks at the White House in...

Walter Mess, who handled covert OSS operations in Poland and North Africa, said he kept quiet for more than 50 years, only recently telling his wife of 62 years about his OSS activity.

"I was told to keep my mouth shut," said Mess, now 93 and living in Falls Church, Va.

The files will offer new information even for those most familiar with the agency. Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society created by former OSS agents and their relatives, said the nearly 24,000 employees included in the archives far exceeds previous estimates of 13,000.

The newly released documents will clarify these and other issues, said William Cunliffe, an archivist who has worked extensively with the OSS records at the National Archives.

"We're saying the OSS was a lot bigger than they were saying," Cunliffe said.

---

On the Net:

CIA OSS page: http://tinyurl.com/6bvmhf

Index to National Archives OSS personnel files: http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/

(Although I'll never be able to get Dan Akroyd's interpretation of Julia Child outta my head)
Crap! Oh! Oh, now I've done it - I've cut the dickens out of my finger. Well, I'm glad, in a way, this has happened...

 

[AmateisGal]

I saw this on the news today. I always knew that Julia Child was in the OSS, but had no idea she was a spy, per se.

 

[Story]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93640350

All Things Considered, August 19, 2008 · Fort Hunt, a park by the Potomac River in northern Virginia, may have grassy fields and picnic areas now, but during World War II it was the site of a secret camp known as P.O. Box 1142. Though they've been razed, there had been a hundred buildings there at the time — some with German prisoners who were interrogated about Nazi war plans and weapons.

Two structures — code-named "the Creamery" and "the warehouse" — housed a highly classified effort to help American prisoners of war escape from their German captors.

 

[Warden]

The head of Britain's wartime Special Operations Executive urged Winston Churchill to keep the secret agency going in peacetime.

See BBC news report

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7585387.stm