An Official History - Böcker

Opened in the spring of 1942 to house captured Allied airmen, Stalag Luft III at Sagan was planned and built to make escape particularly difficult, especially tunnelling. This, though, did not deter the prisoners. Numerous escape attempts followed, involving prisoners trying to go over, through or under the wire fences. In some cases they succeeded. It is for two of the successful escapes that Stalag Luft III is best known – both of which went on to be depicted in films. The so-called Wooden Horse escape in October 1943 resulted in the three prisoners involved all making a ‘home run’. Three further ‘home runs’ resulted from the mass escape which occurred the night of 24/25 March 1944 – the so-called ‘Great Escape’. Drawn from the information and testimonies of those who were held in Stalag Luft III, this official history of the camp was prepared for the War Office at the end of the Second World War, but was never released to the general public. It examines subjects such as the German administration and running of the camp, which eventually consisted of a number of separate compounds, the food and conditions the prisoners endured, and the means by which morale was maintained under such trying circumstances. Inevitably considerable space is devoted to the various escape plans and their careful preparation, as well as the anti-escape measures undertaken by the guards. There are also sections detailing the punishments meted out for attempting to escape, as well as the various shooting incidents that occurred. Whilst the camp also housed American personnel, this detailed account provides the reader with an accurate and unprecedented insight into life for British and Commonwealth prisoners in a German PoW camp during the Second World War.

Until 1943 there was little effective resistance to the German occupation of The Netherlands. Though numerous small opposition groups had formed immediately after the German invasion in 1940, there was no concerted movement or over-arching organisation.Gradually, though, as the Germans introduced harsher measures against certain groups, opposition grew, particularly in the urban areas. These met with very limited success due to poor security which was to plague the Dutch resistance movement in general. As is made clear in this official account, individuals were often members of more than one resistance group at the same time. This inevitably meant that when one cell was compromised others quickly met the same fate.Nevertheless, in 1941 the Netherlands, or N, Section of the Special Operations Executive under Major Seymour Bingham started sending trained agents to The Netherlands. These operatives were dropped by parachute or infiltrated into the country from France or Belgium. Unfortunately, poor discipline continued to hamper the resistance movement. Preparation was poor, security was lax, and codewords were forgotten or ignored. As a result, fifty-four of N Section’s agents were captured by the Germans; fifty of these were subsequently executed.Despite its egregious failings, SOE’s N Section, could count on some successes. Its agents were able to coordinate the various groups and help maintain communications with the UK. They also undertook valuable weapons training and gave instruction on demolition techniques.The people the agents assisted in active resistance were usually ordinary Dutch citizens, often working in respectable jobs under the very noses of the Germans, their only precaution being the adoption of a false name while operating undercover. The SOE agents themselves had to adopt the cover occupations of those professions which would not be subjected to conscription, such as teachers, medical personnel, or police. Usually, they would take the identity of brave individuals who had volunteered to have their information duplicated. In addition, the agents would be thoroughly briefed on their adopted personas so that they could provide convincing accounts of their movements if stopped and interrogated.This official account of the development and activities of SOE’s Dutch Section was written by a Staff Officer prior to SOE being disbanded in 1946\. It was based on information, reports and documents provided by those involved in the campaign.It details how SOE agents were recruited and trained in the UK and gives information on safe houses, contact addresses, secret telephone exchanges, training premises and methods of communications in The Netherlands and externally to London. In essence, it provides all the apparatus and procedures used in the establishment of the underground movement which sought to obstruct and oppose the Germans at every turn.

When Allied forces landed on D-Day, the Jedburgh teams went into action behind German lines. These usually three-man teams, often composed of one British, one American and man one from the country into which they were sent to operate, spread chaos and confusion in the enemy’s rear. Working with the marquis and other resistance groups, mainly in France, but also later in the Low Countries, the Jedburgh teams, each of which included a radio operator, were the vital link between the local groups and Allied high command. Their other main function was to organise airdrops of arms and equipment from the Special Operations Executive, via the RAF, to the resistance forces.This official history details the formation and the selection of these all-volunteer teams. It also details how the men were trained in parachuting, amphibious operations, skiing, mountain climbing, radio operations, Morse code, small arms, navigation, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, and espionage tactics.It also spells out the objectives of the Jedburghs. This was to impede the movement of the enemy’s reserves to the battle front; to disrupt the enemy’s lines of communication in the rear areas; and to compel the Germans to hold large reserves back from the front to contain the resistance operations. They provided leadership to resistance groups who had lost their own leaders and helped focus efforts against the Germans where the Allied forces were meeting stiff opposition.The effect the Jedburgh teams had on Operation Overlord was enormous and this history details the objectives of each Jedburgh team and their successes. This section of the book also lists the personnel of each team. In addition to their offensive actions, the Jedburghs set up hospital installations in the rear areas and mopped-up any remaining enemy positions by-passed by the main Allied forces.The Jedburgh teams also cooperated with the resistance forces in the south of France in Operation Dragoon, while four Jedburgh teams were also deployed in the Market element of Operation Market Garden.Supreme Allied Headquarters estimated that the contribution made by the Jedburghs and the groups they supplied and assisted was the equivalent of ‘at least’ one army division in the landings in and in the liberation of France.

From a small number of clandestine activities against the German occupation of Denmark in 1940, a sophisticated resistance movement developed which by 1944, with the support of Special Operations Executive, had become a highly effective intelligence gathering and sabotage organisation.Denmark is composed of a mainland and more than 500 islands, a fifth of which are inhabited, and the countryside is devoid of any inaccessible or mountainous region. Together this made communication between resistance cells difficult and meant that there were no natural bases from which guerrilla operations could be mounted. Nevertheless, thanks to supply drops of explosives, weapons and ammunition arranged by SOE, the Danes harassed the Germans and raised the moral of the Danish people in the latter, and most brutal, stages of the war.This largely forgotten story of SOE and its agents in Denmark, the latter facing extremely hazardous conditions, was written immediately after the war by a SOE staff member and read and validated by the Director of SOE, Major General Colin Gubbins. A very large number of documents were burned at SOE's London headquarters in Baker Street when the organisation was wound down in 1946 making this history of the Danish Section an invaluable and irreplaceable study._SOE in Denmark_ was written at a time when SOE was still largely unknown to the general public and its operations a closely guarded secret. It was expected that its activities would never be officially acknowledged and the study of its actions in Denmark was compiled with the aim of provide a lasting record of its achievement. Within its pages we read of the dangers the agents faced, the logistical mountains they had to overcome, and the successes achieved in the face of a ruthless enemy. Completed with unique photographs from the Danish archives, _SOE in Denmark_ is an essential addition to the SOE literature.

The key roles played by the Royal Observer Corps in the Second World War have, all too often, been overshadowed by more glamourous arms of the defence forces. The teams in the Sector Stations, plotting the battles raging above, and the Spitfires and Hurricanes swooping upon the formations of enemy fighters and bombers, present easily-imagined and dramatic scenes. Yet between the radar stations, detecting the German aircraft approaching over the Channel, and the Sector Controls were the little sand-bagged posts of the Observer Corps that provided over-land tracking of the enemy formations.The Royal Observer Corps (the Royal' prefix being approved in 1941) proved a vital link in the communication chain in the defence of the UK, particularly in the Battle of Britain, as it provided the only means of tracking enemy aircraft once they had crossed the coastline. The highly-skilled Observers were also able to identify and count the enemy aircraft, turning blips on a screen into actual types and numbers of German machines.Even after the threat from the Luftwaffe receded after the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the ROC again came to the fore when the V1s opened a new reign of terror in 1944. Because these small, fast weapons were so hard to detect the RAF's fighter controllers moved into the ROC's operations rooms so that they could respond to the V-1 threat more rapidly.In this official history of the ROC written shortly after the war, the corps' operations throughout the conflict are set out in great detail. This includes a section on the last flight of Rudolf Hess, as well as one detailing the work of those who were selected for employment as Seaborne Observers on ships during the D-Day landings, where their specialist identification skills were used to prevent the all-too prevalent instances of friendly fire'.

Winston Churchill faced immense pressure from Stalin, who demanded a second front to relieve the Soviet Union's burden in the fight against Germany. Although military advice suggested that a French invasion was not feasible for at least another year, Churchill sought a way to support the Russians. The result was the raid on Dieppe, aimed at demonstrating Britain's commitment to opening a second front.Operation Jubilee, as the raid was called, targeted the port of Dieppe, chosen for its strategic importance in any future invasion. The operation, scheduled for 19 August 1942, involved 6,000 infantry, 237 naval vessels, and 74 aircraft squadrons. It was the largest Allied assault on German Channel defences up to that point.While the raid was not the decisive second front Stalin hoped for, it provided valuable lessons for future operations. The debate over Dieppe’s purpose and its high cost has persisted, but it remains a crucial learning experience for the Allies. This official battle summary, written shortly after the war, offers a detailed account based on the recollections of those who participated in the raid, highlighting the lessons learned from this ambitious but costly operation.

From the warmer climate of the Mediterranean to the frozen wastes of Norway's Arctic islands, the Combined Operations organisation was a persistent thorn in the side of Hitler's Third Reich. From mounting attacks against enemy-held coastlines with small teams of less than a dozen men, through to huge expeditions involving thousands of troops and other personnel, the headquarters of Combined Operations oversaw a wide variety of amphibious operations, all undertaken with the sole aim of tying down the Fuhrer's forces.The raids, both big and small, were mounted as frequently as possible against anywhere boats could reach, keeping the Axis forces constantly on guard. The effects of the early Combined Operations far outweighed the resources committed to the raids, with an extra 30,000 German troops being sent to garrison Norway following the Commando raids, the largest of which included only around 500 men.The Combined Operations organisation grew as the war progressed, and it was instrumental in the planning and training of troops and the provision of landing craft for the amphibious assaults which saw the capture of French North Africa, Operation Torch, and the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky. Its culminating glory came in the summer of 1944, when the largest amphibious operation in history saw a quarter of a million men shipped across the English Channel to the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and its aftermath.Combined Operations is an official history that explores the full story of how the body was set up, its structure, and how it put together the hugely complex tri-service operations. Also detailed is how its headquarters staff operated, and how the planning section functioned - in 1942, for example, the planners envisaged one raid every month, which culminated in the disastrous Dieppe raid in August of that year.The Combined Operations organisation was also instrumental in the development and provision of specialist landing craft and ships, and of the clearing of beach obstacles and mines - all of which is explored in detail.As might be expected, a large proportion of the book is dedicated to the various and fascinating projects in preparation for Operation Overlord which saw the culmination of everything that had been learned, in the successes and failures, throughout four years of amphibious warfare.

Shortly after the creation of the Special Operations Executive in July 1940, the first of its Special Training Schools was formed at Brickendonbury in Hertfordshire. The object of the school was to train men of different nationalities as instructors and recruiters who would then return to their own countries in Occupied Europe to raise groups to undertake acts of sabotage. The syllabus covered a variety of subjects ranging from political theory and propaganda to demolitions and weapon training.The men, and later women, selected for training first undertook a preliminary period of assessment where unsuitable candidates were dropped from the programme. The next stage would be paramilitary training where they would be instructed in demolitions, weapons, minor tactics, combined operations, intelligence methods, communications and parachute training, which was originally carried out by the RAF at the Central Landing Establishment at Ringway (today's Manchester airport). After the paramilitary stage, these organisers; would move on to Finishing Schools of which there would be one for each of the different country sections. There they would learn secret service methods, propaganda, the organisation of enemy forces and the local conditions in the occupied country concerned. The organisers would be held at Finishing Schools until they were needed for operations. When returned to their country, these organisers' were charged with establishing a network of agents, a system of communication, and depots for equipment, all aimed at causing as much disruption as possible to the German security and armed forces.This book details how and where the training schools were formed and how the training was conducted. It also explains how, as SOE expanded, more sites were required. In January 1941, five houses were acquired in the Beaulieu area in Hampshire to serve as finishing schools, with most of the paramilitary training being undertaken in the Arisaig area of Inverness-shire in Scotland.The heroic work of SOE agents has become legendary, but their achievements in the field were only made possible because of the wide-ranging and intensive training they received before they were infiltrated into Europe. This account of the Training Section of SOE is an essential addition to the literature, and the understanding, of this once secretive, now famous organisation.

It was every British serviceman’s duty, be he soldier, sailor or airman, to attempt to evade capture if stranded behind enemy lines or escape if captured. As there were potentially thousands of men who would find themselves cut off or captured during the Second World War, a branch of military intelligence, M.I.9, was set up in 1939 to instruct servicemen in evasion and escape techniques.Such was the success of M.I.9, and the determination and ingenuity of individuals and groups, about 35,000 Allied military personnel escaped PoW camps or evaded capture and made their way to Allied or neutral countries. How this highly secret unit was set up and organised, and how its great success was achieved, was documented by M.I.9 officers towards the end of the war – and is published here for the first time.The history includes details of the lectures given to troops on how to avoid capture if on the run in enemy occupied territory (more than 2,000 lectures were given, to over half-a-million men), and of secret equipment issued to them to help them escape, such as the well-know silk maps and small but comprehensive escape kits.When servicemen escaped and returned to the UK, they were interrogated by specially selected M.I.9 officers and their stories were used to show troops how they too could evade capture. These provide some of the most fascinating, and often funny, stories to come out of the Second World War. How, for example, one man had to cross a bridge over a canal in Holland where a German sentry was stood on the other side. As he considered his options a Dutch woman approached pushing her baby in a pram. The man explained that he was British and the lady handed him the pram and put her arm through his, and together they crossed the bridge and passed the sentry. On another occasion at a railway station, an evader attracted the attention of a German officer. A group of French women arrived, and the man rushed over to the group, embraced one of the women and asked them to speak to him in French. This they did, pretending he was their friend, and the officer turned away.Such stories helped show servicemen how to forge documents, how to travel through enemy-occupied countries without being detected, what disguises could be used that would not attract the attention of the enemy, and also provided lists of local people willing to help escapers – and this included Pope Pius XII, who actually had a private meeting with one of the escapers in the Vatican! The troops were also instructed how to write coded messages in letters to the UK from PoW camps. All this is revealed in this utterly fascinating book.

The majority of the successful SOE operations in Europe took place in countries occupied by the Germans after the outbreak of war in 1939, Hitler's forces being regarded as foreign invaders. In Czechoslovakia it was different. The country, which had large numbers of ethnic Germans living within its borders, had been occupied since 1938, allowing the Germans to establish a strong hold on the country which limited the opportunities for subversive action by resistance movements.Nevertheless, resist the Czechs did, despite the Germans conducting savage and indiscriminate reprisals. It was against this background that SOE attempted to infiltrate its agents into Czechoslovakia in 1941, their role being to help in co-ordinating and expanding the resistance movement and to establish communications with the Czech authorities in the UK. Successful actions were admittedly few before 1942 when one of the most successful SOE-backed operations resulted in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi to be killed by any resistance group. The huge wave of reprisals against the civilian population which followed severely hampered SOE activities in the immediate aftermath.Another factor which limited SOE's ability to infiltrate Czechoslovakia and to supply the resistance was the distance and difficulty experienced by the RAF in flying to the region. During the short nights of summer, no flights could be attempted. This changed in September 1943 when sorties were able to be conducted from Italy, and by 1944 the scale of operations increased both in frequency and scale.More than 300 Czechs were trained by SOE and, in conjunction with local resistance groups, those that managed to infiltrate back into their homeland, kept the occupying forces constantly on the alert, ensuring that Germany's eastern flank was never entirely secure.This is the first full, official account of SOE in Czechoslovakia, compiled by SOE headquarters staff who had direct access to all the organisation's records, many of which were destroyed after the war.

X' Section of S.O.2, a part of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, was formed in November 1940. Just two months later it came under the command of Major R.H. Thornley and, eventually, part of Special Operations Executive. Its role was to establish channels of communication into Germany and Austria for subversive activities and to build up inside those countries a network of agents.From the very beginning, X' Section faced an enormous task penetrating Germany and Austria. Such were the difficulties faced, that it was the opinion of the Secret Intelligence Service that there was no point' in starting a German Section as it could never succeed.The internal control exercised by the likes of the SS and Gestapo was so rigid that organised resistance in the accepted sense of the term was all but impossible inside Germany. Acknowledging, therefore, the handicaps with which he was faced, Thornley decided not to attempt the kind of large-scale operations conducted by SOE in Occupied territories. Instead, X' Section aimed at concentrating on sporadic sabotage wherever possible to alarm the enemy security services and engage in administrative sabotage, which was seen as a valuable weapon against the methodically minded Germans.Its first two agents were sent into Germany via Yugoslavia in February 1941. In July of that year the first successful sabotage operation took place with the distribution of forged ration cards which disrupted the German economy; those caught spending the cards faced long prison sentences or even death.Other such efforts followed, including using itching powder which was placed in clothing and bedding of German troops, the distribution of black' propaganda, and the spreading of alarm and despondency to weaken German morale. As the war progressed, X' Section expanded and the first operation of dropping an agent by parachute into Germany took place in February 1943. Information was also passed by radio from inside Germany and eventually, despite immense handicaps, a courier line was established between Austria/Germany and Switzerland.Though limited in what it could hope to accomplish, X' Section achieved considerable success in soft' sabotage which unquestionably helped to undermine the Nazi war effort.

The first, and most essential element in aerial bombardment is that of locating the target. All the inherent costs and risks in undertaking a bombing raid are of no avail unless the objective of the mission is correctly identified. If, through means of decoys or visual deception, the attacking aircraft can be tricked into dropping their deadly payloads in areas of little importance to the general war effort, the enemy bombers will have failed in their mission.It was accepted at the start of the war that enemy bombers would always get through the UK's defences and that the German bomber crews could be expected to have a reasonable understanding of Britain's geography and of its main industrial and military facilities. That being the case, how could the most important sites be protected?A remarkable degree of success was achieved by the use of camouflage to conceal key locations by creating dummy structures and equipment, or, for example, displaying dummy tracks, lights and fires. To draw the Luftwaffe away from RAF airfields, many false aerodromes were built within six miles of the actual one. These had to look as authentic as possible, and so suitable types of dummy aircraft were provided, as well as dummy roads and dumps, fake tracks on the airfield, real and dummy machine-gun posts, and a shelter and trenches for the operating crew. To deceive the enemy at might, mobile airfield lighting was devised.The civil authorities also devised lighting decoys to protect certain sites. As a result, scores of bombs were dropped on marshes or open areas of common land. An example of the effectiveness of such deception occurred on the night of 17/18 April 1941. Despite the fact that a force of 144 aircraft attacked Portsmouth, only eight bombs fell on the city itself, the remainder fell on a decoy site or in its neighbourhood and in the sea nearby.Though a little-reported aspect of the war in the air, and particularly during the period of the Blitz, visual deception played a major role in the defence of the UK and important targets overseas. The full story of the intricate and ingenious methods adopted to deceive Hitler's bombers is indeed a fascinating one.

The all-too frequently cited mantra that 'the bomber will always get through' had dominated Britain's strategic air policy in the decades preceding the Second World War. However, the experiences of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz indicated that aerial bombardments were not as effective at disabling a country's ability to fight as had been believed.This assessment was reinforced when the RAF's Bomber Command analysed the results of their precision bombing efforts during the early years of the war. A growing body of evidence indicated that the great 'knock-out' blow expected to be delivered from the air was a fantasy and that it would only be through a prolonged campaign of attrition that the enemy could be worn down to such a degree that morale, the means of production and the infrastructure of the enemy would be degraded to the point where its fighting ability was crippled.The result of this assessment was a change of policy from precision bombing of carefully identified key installations, to area bombing with the declared intent of striking at the homes of the German workers, the factories where they worked regardless of the nature of such establishments or of the civilian casualties that would be the inevitable consequence.In compiling this official analysis of the effectiveness of the RAF's strategic bombing campaign, the author was granted unrestricted access to Air Ministry, Cabinet and other relevant departmental documents that were maintained for internal government use, enabling him to gain a complete and unbiased assessment of the contribution made by Bomber Command to the defeat of Germany. The conclusion he draws fully justifies the decisions taken, by both Britain and the USA, to bomb the German people into surrender.