No Cloak, No Dagger

Book excerpt: This classic WWII spy memoir by an agent of the UK’s Special Operations Executive offers a firsthand look at Allied espionage inside Nazi Occupied France. In this gripping memoir, SOE agent Benjamin Cowburn vividly recounts the methods of British special agents who were dropped into Vichy France during World War II with a mission of establishing secure networks with the French Resistance. His account sheds light on the views of both the Resistance fighters facing torture at the hands of the Gestapo and their besieged French countrymen. Cowburn also shares fascinating insight into the art of spying from establishing a worthy target to executing an operation. He tells the full story of his own sabotage operations, including the destruction of cylinders for thirteen locomotives in the dead of night. As in so many operations, mistakes were made which could have led to numerous arrests. In this case, the details of the operation had accidentally been left on a blackboard in the school where they had planned the raid, but were luckily scrubbed out by the headmaster's wife. On another occasion, Cowburn snuck itching powder into the laundry of Luftwaffe agents to cause a disruption. This new edition contains an Introduction by M.R.D. Foot and a Foreword by Sebastian Faulks.