Special Forces - WWII

SPECIAL FORCES OF WORLD WAR II. Philip Warner’s book is the first to make a general survey of secret forces, to show how they were interrelated, and what effect they had on the war as a whole. It is an astonishing story. The vast range of the subject has meant that nothing could be treated as fully as I would have wished. However, sample incidents have been described in detail. Some readers may be astonished to find how much rivalry there was between different departments and even between different arms. Most of the ''inner'' departments, SOE, SIS, Ml5, etc., were keenly competitive (to put it in its best light); the regular forces were always slightly suspicious of ''wartime only'' enlistments; and orthodox thinkers nurtured a deep resentment of the ''funnies'' - specialist groups like the SAS, LRDG, Paras and Commandos. Politicians, apart from Churchill, were collectively and individually thought to be a ''blight,'' although in those days the politickings of Beaverbrook, Crossman and Dalton were unknown except to their close colleagues. After the war had dragged to an end in 1945, it soon became clear that much more had gone on during those six years than most of the participants realized. Vastly interesting it was, too, even though difficult to understand. This book aims to make one part of it a little easier to grasp.