Robert ‘Bob’ Maloubier, otherwise known as the French James Bond and as Churchill’s Secret Agent, led a life straight out of a spy thriller. At the age of just 19, he escaped occupied France and ended up in England, where he was given intensive training by the Special Operations Executive.Back in occupied France, Maloubier’s SOE duties saw him commit large-scale industrial sabotage in Le Havre and Rouen, suffer gunshot wounds while evading capture and be evacuated in the nick of time by 161 Special Duties Squadron.Always the centre of the action, he was flown back to France alongside fellow agents Philippe Liewer, Violette Szabó and Jean Claude Guiet, just after D-Day, where he operated in guerilla warfare conditions and destroyed vital bridges. After another mission with Force 136 in the Far East, the sheer wealth of experience Maloubier gathered during the war made him a perfect candidate to help found the French Secret Service, for whom he proved invaluable.Bob Maloubier was undoubtedly one of the Second World War’s most remarkable, courageous and flamboyant characters. His simply and uniquely told personal account of wartime spent as an SOE agent and with the French Résistance is poignant, brutally truthful, and is told here for the first time in English.

Sir Hardy Amies was one of Britain’s foremost fashion designers who led a fascinating double life as a couturier and an intelligence officer during the Second World War. Sir Hardy’s work for the Belgian resistance effort as part of the Special Operations Executive, was so significant that he was awarded l’Ordre de la Couronne, or Order of the Crown, by the Belgian Government in 1948. Not only did Sir Hardy conduct these operations, but he also simultaneously developed his burgeoning fashion business through the British Board of Trade’s drive to promote UK manufacturing throughout the conflict. He was a man who at once epitomized and challenged the reality of being homosexual in an era when society was deeply unaccepting. He was thrust into what was an overtly macho and potentially hostile environment and, against that backdrop, made a valuable and courageous contribution to the war effort. Born into what we would consider a lower middle-class family, he was handsome, cultured and gregarious and effortlessly traversed the post-war world of high society, launching his haute couture house to great acclaim, gaining clients ranging from film stars to royalty. His work for Queen Elizabeth II saw him awarded the CVO in 1977 and this was elevated to the KCVO, Knight Commander of the Victorian Order in 1989. Her Majesty’s warmth of feeling towards Sir Hardy is evident in the many hand-written thank-you letters she sent him over the course of their long working relationship. Sir Hardy, who lived until the age of 93, could have been dismissed as a lightweight character from the frivolous world of fashion. However, despite a not-particularly extensive formal education, he was highly intelligent, extremely well-traveled and spoke three languages, and his story encapsulates the extraordinary cultural and societal turbulence of the twentieth century.

Until the German occupation of his native Denmark in April 1940 Anders Lassen had no interest in the War. Yet over the next five years he became a highly decorated Special Forces legend and the only non-Commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross. After taking part in a mutiny on board a Danish ship, he made his way to Scotland. He first joined the Special Operations Executive before serving with the Small Scale Raiding Force, Special Air Service and Special Boat Service. He took part in the daring Operation Postmaster, off West Africa, and raided the Channel Islands and the Normandy coast. He saw most action in Eastern Mediterranean, fighting in Crete, the Dodecanese, Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and finally Italy. In April 1945, now a major aged 24, he was killed at Lake Comacchio, where his gallantry earned him his posthumous VC. This superb biography is not just a worthy tribute to an outstanding soldier, but a superb account of the numerous special force operations Anders was involved in.

December 1941. After setting up one of the first resistance organisations in Vichy France and escaping over the Pyrenees into Spain, brothers Henry and Alfred Newton received devastating news. SS Avoceta, carrying their parents, wives and children to the safety of Britain, had been torpedoed by a German U-boat. All of their family were dead. From that moment on, the Newton brothers were consumed by revenge. Recruited by SOE, and known to everyone simply as the Twins, they returned to France and waged their own personal war against the Nazis. For nine months they lived on the edge before they were betrayed, and the net finally closed. They were caught by the Gestapo and tortured at the hands of the Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie, before being taken to the dreaded Buchenwald concentration camp. In The SOE's Brothers of Vengeance, acclaimed historian Peter Jacobs reveals the full story of Henry and Alfred Newton. Drawing on personal archives and new research, theirs is a dramatic tale of courage steeped in vengeance – and of the bonds of brotherhood in the face of hell on earth.

Robert 'Bob' Maloubier, otherwise known as the French James Bond and as Churchill's Secret Agent, led a life straight out of a spy thriller. At the age of just 19, he escaped occupied France and ended up in England, where he was given intensive training by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Back in occupied France, Maloubier's SOE duties saw him commit large-scale industrial sabotage in Le Havre and Rouen, suffer gunshot wounds while evading capture and be evacuated in the nick of time by 161 Special Duties Squadron. Always at the centre of the action, just after D-Day he was flown back to France alongside fellow agents Philippe Liewer, Violette Szabó and Jean Claude Guiet, where he operated in guerilla warfare conditions and destroyed vital bridges. After another mission with Force 136 in the Far East, the sheer wealth of experience Maloubier gathered during the war made him a perfect candidate to help found the French Secret Service, for whom he proved invaluable. Bob Maloubier was undoubtedly one of the Second World War's most remarkable, courageous and flamboyant characters. His simply and uniquely told personal account of wartime spent as an SOE agent and with the French Resistance is poignant, brutally truthful, and is told here for the first time in English.

Until the German occupation of his native Denmark in April 1940 Anders Lassen had no interest in the War. Yet over the next five years he became a highly decorated Special Forces legend and the only non-Commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross. After taking part in a mutiny on board a Danish ship, he made his way to Scotland. He first joined the Special Operations Executive before serving with the Small Scale Raiding Force, Special Air Service and Special Boat Service. He took part in the daring Operation Postmaster, off West Africa, and raided the Channel Islands and the Normandy coast. He saw most action in Eastern Mediterranean, fighting in Crete, the Dodecanese, Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and finally Italy. In April 1945, now a major aged 24, he was killed at Lake Comacchio, where his gallantry earned him his posthumous VC. This superb biography is not just a worthy tribute to an outstanding soldier, but a superb account of the numerous special force operations Anders was involved in.

BOOK AUTHORISED BY SAS/SBS/SIS, WING COMMAND AND LORD HEYWOOD, VETTING AUTHORITY UN DECLARING SAM-MIE’S ‘PERFECTION ITSELF’ G.RAF’S AIR CHIEF MARSHAL writes of this book by Alison James as M. still serving ‘We in British army reveal records of special operations 1970 – 1979 to show what was done in passions of war and peace in Ireland, USSR, America, Africa and globally!Yep. Please bear nobly the truths you learn and enjoy knowing those who made noble efforts to overcome differences, especially after ex-IRA bombs reflecting anger at lack of support, particularly by selfserving politicians, following our reconciliatory Peace Pact 1976 made by 001 schoolgirl Alison Sarah Cross-Rudkin aka Sammie selected for SAS/SBS/SIS commando combat ops and only successful infiltrator of IRA’s War Council, they say of her, our Stakeknife, gifted peacemaker. ‘She is 001 BRILLIANTLY, a lone female amongst us wolves with all other women claimants in civil service clothing administrating only’ C. notes of these Dames, as she is awarded 35 MCs (11 distinguished now), ex-SBS himself, Younger. She’s Liverpool’s dancing-queen we hear, now our hippie General across the board of her Regiments.’Signed Sir Michael Wigston, W. really, vetting her my ‘Sammie-Whammie’ since I was a boy in the 1970s where my diary records: ‘See her GO! Emancipation of women writ largest, though she’s a prettier one than Miss World! Watch her, Dad, she’s a rookie hippie!’ PS ‘Strong and beautiful, she’s first female Royal Marine, they say! And Paras. Reg. too, they add, not forgetting first in Fusiliers, SAS & SBS!SIS in both SF units, of course, use yer nouses! She is sentenced to die in America and Russia too, poor Hunny Bunny, will she escape censure for her big risk life the Press choose to ignore? Prime Minister Boris Johnson urges you to read knowing she is his heroine forever and a day for freedom to be ours!’ ‘Keir Starmer loves her,’ Sir Keir adds, shirtily, ‘our ‘Veronica Price’ what a girlie Sammie is!’Signed for his PM and Leader of Opposition, Cabinet Secretary Lord Sedwill, S.

Modest, handsome and a fine poet, eccentric Englishman Frank Thompson made an unlikely soldier. Brother of E. P. Thompson and lover of Iris Murdoch, Frank was an intellectual idealist, a rare combination of brilliant mind and enormous heart. Of his wartime experiences, Frank wrote prodigiously. His letters, diaries and poetry still read fresh and intimate today - and it is from these that Peter J. Conradi brings vividly to life a brilliantly attractive and courageous personality. Aged just twenty-three, Frank was captured, tortured and executed in Bulgaria. A soldier of principle and integrity, he fought a poet's war; a very English hero from a very different era.

In 1940 the Nazis hoped to cripple the British war effort by blockading Swedish cargo ships containing ball bearings, steel and tools vital for making arms and equipment. In desperation the newly formed SOE was asked to rescue these badly needed supplies and a daring escapade was dreamt, which involved sneaking in under the Germans' noses to steal the ships. It was a dangerous mission and the 147 men involved knew there was a high chance they would not come home. The terrifying operation to rescue cargoes of ball bearings in clunky transport ships, while trying to outrun the Luftwaffe and German navy, had never been attempted before. It was a success that was never repeated. Making use of newly released files from the National Archives, Sophie Jackson tells the story of a forgotten adventure that saved Britain and her troops from certain defeat, all because of brave men willing to sacrifice their lives for millions of small balls of steel.