World War II Database

The Special Operations Executive, SOE, was established in Jul 1940 out of elements of Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or more popularly MI6), War Office, and a government propaganda department. The resulting organization naturally had characteristics of all its previous incarnations, but it was a group independent of any of these departments. Dubbed "Churchill's Secret Warriors", SOE personnel were the secret agents who were told by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze".

Terry Crowdy's SOE Agent: Churchill's Secret Warriors was an introduction to this clandestine group of warriors. Starting with the agent selection process, he introduced the reader to the difficult recruiting process for a highly secretive organization. Once deemed fit, physically and perhaps more so mentally, the candidate was put through some of the toughest initiations that might also seem unorthodox. For example, while standard military training focuses on proper form when firing a weapon, Crowdy wrote about the Fairbairn-Sykes method taught by SOE instructors, which called for loosely-aimed shots that put more weight on firing multiple shots at close range quickly rather than trying to make a single accurate shot.

As the author continued on with the preparation of candidates, he began to introduce more actual experiences of agents on missions. Some were hinting at the suspense and danger of clandestine operations, such as the great risk for wireless operations to become caught by German operatives. Unlike men in the traditional military branches, SOE agent candidates were taught to kill, when necessary, even those who had already surrendered if doing so would benefit the end goal of the mission. As Crowdy introduced these serious topics, he also tried to lightened the mood. For example, he introduced the ideas that some SOE missions centered around instructing local populations to commit acts against their German occupiers that were ultimately not much more than pranks, such as messing up order of files or locking the doors to bathrooms on VIP trains, which were still effective in disrupting German operations nevertheless.

Finally, Crowdy closed SOE Agent cleverly. Titled "the Mission", he wrapped up all the training and field experiences previously discussed and took the readers through the briefing, the farewell party, the final preparation, and the departure of an agent to "the darkening skies and the unknown", leaving the ending rather open-ended for the readers to imagine the potentials of a rewarding success and the risks for a failure that might lead to certain death.

SOE Agent: Churchill's Secret Warriors is a wonderful book documenting the selection and preparation of Special Operations Executive personnel for field work. It is also a great complement to other books on the topic of actual SOE missions all around Europe, as it provides clues on why agents conducted their missions in the manners they did.