de Benouville, Guillain.
THE UNKNOWN WARRIORS: A Personal Account of the French Resistance.
VG/VG--. Small tear & slight chipping to top and spine of jacket.
(see photo). Jacket in mylar protector. Book itself is tight & clean except for a 5-digit number stamped on front flyleaf in red ink.
(NY: Simon & Schuster, 1949). First Edition. Photographs (including portraits of two Gestapo agents and one collaborator who were executed by the Underground), appendices, 372 pages. Publisher's survey card laid in.
~~~ Only a few isolated groups of patriots still fought the Nazis after the surrender of France in 1940. By D-Day their ranks had grown to a quarter-million and they had become the organized French Forces of the Interior. Among their leaders was the author of this book.
~~~ Here is his story of The Unknown Warriors of the FFI, the first fully detailed account to appear in this country of the rise of the Resistance movement in Occupied France . They were tracked by the Gestapo, often betrayed by their own countrymen, distrusted by British Intelligence, torn by internal jealousies and struggles for authority. But despite these almost-insurmountable obstacles, a handful of men and women who loved freedom more than life grew into probably the most effective underground army in history.
~~~ Guillain de Benouville was a young army officer when Petain surrendered to the Germans. He was taken prisoner, but soon escaped, and worked in the underground from its outset. So Unknown Warriors is no mere compilation of the facts of resistance; it is the hair-raising personal story of a courageous man who risked torture and death all through Europe's long night. He shared in the early sabotage with home-made explosives, the building of secret radio stations, the execution of traitors. The FFI's important role in the liberation was part of his personal triumph, a vindication of his belief in the ultimate victory of right over brutality and treachery.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT. Scarce in jacket
$75.00
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Bodson, Herman.
AGENT FOR THE RESISTANCE: A Belgian Saboteur in World War II.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. Still in shrinkwrap.
(Texas A&M University Press, 1994). 6x9. 3 maps, 18 black & white illustrations. 262 pages.
~~~
As German pressure on Europe escalated in the late 1930s, a young Belgian pacifist completing his Ph.D. in chemistry watched with horror the preparation for the inevitable invasion of his country. In the face of advancing German troops, his passion for freedom and his growing hatred of Hitler led him and a group of his friends into the resistance movement and five years of privation, danger, and, for some, torture and death, at the hands of the Gestapo.
~~~
This dramatic memoir traces Herman Bodson’s transformation from a pacifist and scientist to, in his own words, “a cold fighter and a killer” in the Belgian underground, an expert in explosives and sabotage. Serving first in the OMBR (Office Militaire Belge de Resistance), he later formed a group of underground fighters in the Belgian Ardennes. They undertook blowing up military trains and installations-including the sabotage of a bridge which resulted in the deaths of some six hundred German soldiers-cutting German communication lines, and rescuing downed American fliers. Bodson also served as a medical aide to an American military doctor at Bastogne in the crucial days of the Battle of the Bulge. The powerfully told narrative follows him through the liberation of Belgium and his postwar efforts with the Belgian Special Force to unmask traitors and bring them to justice.
~~~
This, then, is the story of a man who gets caught up in a war and rather quickly becomes an efficient and clandestine killer, avenging the Nazi murder of a comrade in arms and revolting against an intolerable regime. It is also the story of the heroic resistance movement-how it came to be and how it fought bravely for the cause of human dignity and freedom.
~~~
Bodson’s honest and absorbing inside account of the underground effort in occupied Belgium adds much to the record of World War II and provides insight into the intellectual and emotional responses that have led to the birth of underground movements in many nations. It is a compelling story of a people united in a comradeship in the defense of freedom.
$30.00
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Bór-Komorowski, Tadeusz.
THE SECRET ARMY:
The Memoirs of General Bór-Komorowski.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Frontline Books, 2011).
6.25x9.5, 8 pages of b&w plates, 416 pages.
~~~
Tadeusz Komorowski was born in 1895 in Galicia, a region then ruled by the Austrians, and he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War. Poland regained its independence in 1918, and Komorowski fought against the Russians in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–21.
~~~
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Komorowski was the commander of units defending the Vistula River, but he was pushed eastwards by the fierce advance. Despite being surrounded by German forces, he escaped to Cracow. Although he planned to escape to the West, he was ordered to stay and start a resistance movement. He stayed in Cracow until the summer of 1941, when he was sent to Warsaw. The legend of ‘Bór’ was about to begin.
~~~
Komorowski was appointed to lead the Home Army in June 1943. The Polish Resistance carried out sabotage and vital intelligence for the Allies, but their main task was to prepare for an uprising when the Nazis were in retreat to help liberate the country. The Polish Government-in-Exile gave the order to commence on 1 August 1944. Tragically, Stalin had plans for Poland after the war: Soviet troops sat outside Warsaw and left the Poles to their fate. The Resistance lasted, incredibly, 63 days. Komorowski was sentenced to death by Hitler, but the order was rescinded. The tale of Bór and the Uprising is the story of a proud nation and their fight against enemies and betrayal by allies.
$39.95
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Cooper, Alan W.
FREE TO FIGHT AGAIN:
RAF Escapes and Evasions 1940-1945.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Pen and Sword, 2009).
6x9, 32 pages of illustrations. 336 pages.
~~~ To survive baling out from a doomed aircraft or a crash-landing in enemy occupied territory certainly required a large element of luck. To then manage to return to Allied shores inevitably needed considerably more good fortune and often the assistance of local patriots and resistance workers.
~~~
This book contains the amazing stories of over seventy such escapes, many first-hand accounts. It includes aircrew who found their way to freedom from Europe and places as far away as the Bay of Bengal. There are stories of hi-jacked aircraft, crossing crocodile infested swamps, evasion by camel and coffin, survival in the jungle and brushes with the Gestapo.
$40.00
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Cowburn, Benjamin.
NO CLOAK, NO DAGGER:
Allied Spycraft in Occupied France.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Frontline Books, 2009).
6x0, 244 pages.
~~~ The memoir of SOE agent Benjamin Cowburn is rightly regarded as a classic of wartime literature. In simple, gripping detail Cowburn explains the methods of special agents who were dropped into France during the war and the ways that agents would set about establishing secure networks with the French Resistance. He also shows how agents were able to travel across France, how they set up transmitters and contacted their British headquarters for orders, and how they arranged airplane pick-ups and deliveries of supplies.
~~~
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. He notes the tensions within the different command centers, in particular between the French leader-in-exile Charles de Gaulle and his British counterparts, who were all eager to control the efforts of the Resistance.
~~~
Cowburn gives fascinating general lessons in the art of spying from establishing a worthy target to executing an operation but also tells the full story of his own sabotage operations, including the effective 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.
$40.00
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Freeman, Godfrey.
ESCAPE FROM ARNHEM:
A Glider Pilot's Story.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Pen and Sword, 2010).
6x9, 15 b&w photos. 144 pages.
~~~ This is the remarkable true story of a young army glider pilot’s experience of the last days in the defense of Arnhem Bridge, his eventual capture and then escape to be adopted by the Resistance, the hair-raising journey through occupied Europe and his eventual return to the UK.
~~~
After capture Freeman was first taken to Apeldoorn where he was hospitalized, claiming shell-shock. Although quite sane, he feigned trauma with escape in mind, until being punished for aiding the escape of four Allied inmates. Then he was put on a train bound for Germany, from this he escaped and eventually made contact with the Dutch underground. He is given civilian cloths and a bicycle and rides overnight to Barnveld where he stays with a schoolmaster and church organist. Then another cycle ride to a farm where he sleeps in the hayloft and finally still on his bike, he rides through the German front lines. He eventually is returned to RAF Broadwell by Dakota to resume his part in the war, from capture to freedom within a month. The text is interspersed with flashbacks to the author’s childhood and early training, capturing the true spirit of a typical modest and yet outstandingly brave young man of the wartime era.
$32.95
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Fry, Varian.
ASSIGNMENT: RESCUE.
VG/VG--. Jacket in near fine condition except for nickle-sized scrape on back cover. Jacket price-clipped. Jacket in mylar protector. Book itself is tight & clean.
(NY: Four Winds Press, 1969). Second Printing. 187 pages.
Originally published by Random House in 1945 in a substantially different version under the title of Surrender on Demand.
~~~ Second Printing. 187 pages.
~~~ "I'm not right for the job. All I know about being a secret agent, or trying to outsmart the Gestapo, is what I've seen in the movies. But if you can't find anyone else, I'll go."
~~~ A few weeks later, in August of 1940, Varian Fry started his fantastic career as an undercover agent in Vichy France. His job: to smuggle out, under the noses of the Gestapo, as many as he could of thousands of French and German refugees on Hitler's blacklist.
~~~ Working from the French port of Marseilles, the last desperate stop for many of the hunted men and women seeking a way to escape Hitler's net, he set up an amazingly efficient undergound organization. With the help of a small band of dedicated amateurs, most living only a few jumps ahead of imprisonment themselves, he conjured up forged identity papers, false passports and visas. He set up a remarkably smooth-working system for smuggling refugees across the Pyrenees. He even turned
in desperation to the gangsters of Marseilles for a variety of cloak and dagger undercover services.
~~~ The shadow of the Third Reich hung constantly over the operation. Members of the group were periodically seized, searched, and interrogated by the police. Finally, the Gestapo closed in. But before Varian Fry was arrested and deported, he had spirited more than a thousand refugees out of harm's way-- including such famous writers, artists, musicians, and scientists as Wanda Landowska, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Hannah Arendt, and Franz Werfel.
~~~ The story of Varian Fry's thirteen months in France is an epic of courage, ingenuity, and foolproof organization. And it is all completely true. The author tells it with a vividness, a talent for characterization, and an irrepressible sense of humor that give the narrative all the excitement of an adventure novel.
~~~ Varian Fry was a Harvard-educated classicist who died in obscurity, after being reprimanded for his wartime actions by the U.S. government. Years later he was the subject of the film Varian's War, starring William Hurd.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$45.00
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Grau, Lester & Michael Gress (eds).
THE PARTISAN'S COMPANION, Updated and Revised Edition, 1943:
The Red Army's Do It Yourself, Nazi-bashing Guerrilla Warfare Manual.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK.
(Casemate, 2011).
Illustrations, drawings, 6x9, 288 pages.
~~~ This 1943 third edition of the The Partisan’s Companion is the last-and-best Red Army manual used to train partisans to fight the Nazi invader. Its usefulness outlived World War II. It was later used to train “third-world” guerrillas in their wars of national liberation in the 1950s–70s and even the Fedayeen guerrillas who fought U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Once upon a time, the Boy Scout Manual concentrated almost exclusively on camping, field craft and first aid. The Partisan’s Companion adds guns, demolitions, hand-to-hand combat, assorted mayhem and multiple forms of Nazi-bashing. It is like the old Boy Scout Manual on steroids.
~~~
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Red Army was hard pressed to cope with the “invincible” Wehrmacht. The initial partisan resistance efforts also had problems. No locals were welcome, and the only guerrillas recognized by Moscow were surrounded Red Army units and units of loyal party members who were sent into unfamiliar territory to battle the Nazis. The initial training manual was a reprint from the Russian Civil War, and most of these units were wiped out. Finally the Soviets began recruiting partisans from the local community—but with Red Army officers and secret police agents. The partisan effort improved.
~~~
By 1943, it was obvious that Germany was losing the war. The partisan ranks grew as did the training requirements for the partisan commanders. The 1943 edition of the Partisan’s Companion helped quickly train new guerrillas to a common standard. Besides field craft, it covers partisan tactics, German counter-guerrilla tactics, demolitions, German and Soviet weapons, scouting, camouflage, anti-tank warfare and anti-aircraft defense for squad and platoon-level instruction. It contains the Soviet lessons of two bitter years of war and provides a good look at the tactics and training of a mature partisan force. The partisans moved and lived clandestinely, harassed the enemy, and supported the Red Army through reconnaissance and attacks on the German supply lines. They were also the agents of Soviet power and vengeance in the occupied regions. Soviet historians credit the partisans with tying down ten percent of the German army and with killing almost a million enemy soldiers. They clearly frustrated German logistics and forced the Germans to periodically sideline divisions to hunt the partisans. The partisans, and this third edition, were clearly part of the eventual Soviet victory over Germany.
$18.95
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Hudson, Sydney.
UNDERCOVER OPERATOR:
An SOE Agent's Experiences in France and the Far East.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Pen & Sword, 2003).
6x9, 208 pages.
~~~ Memoirs of SOE agents have always been rare - so many were either killed in action or executed - and today they are almost unheard of. But Sydney Hudson's story, which he has waited nearly sixty years to tell, is just about as dramatic and thrilling as any to have ever appeared. After volunteering for guerilla operations should the Germans occupy Britain, he transferred to SOE. He spent most of the Second World War in France, remarkably surviving 15 months captivity and interrogation before making a daring and thrilling escape through the Pyrenees into Spain. Shortly after he was back in France, again by parachute, to organize resistance operations until the arrival of the US 3rd Army. More secret missions followed behind enemy lines with a female agent. Thereafter he volunteered for further SOE work in the Far East where he served in India and Thailand. He was twice decorated with the Distinguished Service Order for his efforts and also awarded the Croix de Guerre and it is easy for the reader of this book to see why.
~~~
Undercover Operator is a fascinating mix of true drama, rich excitement and refreshing good-humor. It is no exaggeration to say that it makes a significant contribution to the history of SOE.
$36.95
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Karski, Jan.
STORY OF A SECRET STATE.
VG/Good. 1" piece missing from dust jacket spine (see photo). Jacket in mylar protector. Book itself is tight & clean. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944).
First Edition. 391 pages.
~~~ Through Karski's eyes we see the everyday life of a whle nation under the unique authority of a secret state. Democracy was reborn in the Underground. Four separate political parties co-operated with the Government in London. (Karski was entrusted with the political secrets of each). Courts functioned, imposing legal sentences on Nazi criminals -- sentences which were executed by the Underground. Polish schools, banned by Germany, held regular sessions and granted degrees. Newspapers were published, war bonds sold, morale maintained by open ridicule of the Nazis. Always the essential, dangerous liaison work went on -- liaison between the scattered cells of the Underground, between the Army and the State, between the government in Poland and the world outside.
~~~ And finally we see the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jewish death camps: a wholesale slaughter of innocents without parallel in the history of the human race. Here is the Jeremiad of Western civilization, realistic, appalling.
~~~ "A WARTIME BOOK. This edition is produced in full compliance
with the government's regulations for conserving paper and other essential materials."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT. Scarce in jacket
$55.00
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Kessel, Joseph,
ARMY OF SHADOWS.
VG/VG. Some edgewear to jacket, which is in a mylar protector. (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944).
First American Edition. 5x7.5. Translated from the French by Haakon Chevalier.
Factually-based autobiographical novel which was the basis for the famous 1969 film of the same title. 159 pages.
~~~ "Nothing we have heard about the French underground has quite prepared us for the truth -- the terrible and inspiring truth -- which is in this book. for here at last is an account of the way the men and women of France conduct resistance to the Nazis and how they deal with those who, for whatever reason, betray their sacred cause. It is a story -- or a great series of stories -- of nobility, heroism, and of brutal violence, and one may be sure that what this book relates will be told again and again in the years to come.
~~~ The book is fact from beginning to end, although the names of persons and places have had to be changed. It takes us not only into cellars, dark streets, farmhouses, chateaux, cafes, railway stations, lonely forests, and beaches -- wherever, indeed, the underground works and hides -- but also into the hearts and minds of the human beings who make up the resistance movement. It is superbly written by a distinguished French writer and it has been translated brilliantly and with affection. It is a moving and exciting book worthy of being read by patriotic men and women everywhere".
~~~ "This book is manufactured under warttime
conditions in conformity with all government regulations controlling
the use of paper and other materials."
~~~ SCARCE and desirable, especially in jacket.
$95.00
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Kessel, Joseph,
ARMY OF SHADOWS.
VG. First paperback edition, (Ace Books, 1959).
~~~ SCARCE.
$45.00
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[Landes] Nicolson, David D.,
ARISTIDE, WARLORD OF THE RESISTANCE.
London: Leo Cooper, 1994. NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. Two
full page maps, glossary of code names, notes, appendices, index,
214 pages.
~~~ This is the story of Roger Landes - "Aristide" of F Section, Special Operations Executive - who was born in Paris of British parents and came to London in 1938, to work in the LCC's Architects Department. After being trained as a wireless operator in the Royal Signals, he was recruited into SOE, where he trained with figures such as Claude de Baissac and Harry Pueleve. Although jinxed in his attempts to parachute into France, including being "shot down" by an owl, he eventually became wireless operator in Bordeaux for the "Scientist" circuit. Just as he took over command of the circuit, he was betrayed and forced to flee, and later returned to find only one contact alive and in place. By D-Day he commanded over 5000 armed, trained resisters who disrupted transport in the region by destroying 438 locomotives and numerous power-lines. By the Liberation, he commanded more than 7000 men and had organized the peaceful transition to French government in South-West France. Ordered out of the country by de Gaulle, Landes had a spell in hospital before being parachuted into Malaya to train the population to resist the Japanese, and was there at the surrender in August 1945.
~~~ Following de Gaulle's resignation he was highly decorated by the French Government, and in 1992 was made an Officer of the Legion d'Honneur. He also holds the MC and Bar, and the Croix de Guerre.
$30.00
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Orbaan, Albert,
DUEL IN THE SHADOWS: True accounts of anti-Nazi underground warfare during World War II.
VG/VG. Jacket in mylar protector. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1965). First Edition.
Drawings, photographs, bibliography, 229 pages.
~~~ During the dark days of WWII, the Nazi "Superman" in occupied Europe was smothered by a blanket of underground resistance woven of individual deeds of heroism.
Duel in the Shadows is the true story of intrigues, sabotage, and daring escapes -- or heroes and heroines, many still in their teens.
This book -- a factual account more exciting than a mystery -- recounts the great stories of the underground resistance in France, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Holland, and Belgium.
~~~ When the Reichswehr -- the German Army -- rolled over Europe, the resistants were ill-equipped, outnumbered, and poorly organized. But there was a force the enemy did not take into consideration or, if they did, underestimated.
This was the desire for freedom and the sheer bravery that meshed the individuals into a cohesive secret army that
struck hard and vanished into the night, aggravating and hindering the Nazi war machine at every turn.
~~~ OUT OF PRINT. Scarce in jacket
$45.00
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Perquin, Jean-Louis.
THE CLANDESTINE RADIO OPERATORS:
SOE BCRA OSS.
NEW copy, trade paperback.
(Histoire & Collections, 2011).
8.25x9.75, 300 photographs. 112 pages.
~~~ All Resistance and radio buffs have been waiting for this book, abundantly illustrated (300 photos 70 of which in color) and giving an exhaustive account of the real champions of Free France – the Allied underground radio operators parachuted into Occupied Territory.
~~~
Ruthlessly pursued by the Germans, the radio operators had a life expectancy of six months… For the first time, the training they received in England is described in detail and five accounts describe how these heroes lived daily. Most of the radio equipment, some of which is very rare, is shown for the first time with color photos. The son of a Resistance worker, Jean-Louis Perquin has earned the friendship and the trust of the veterans and has drawn attention to himself by publishing articles on what Allied special agents wore when they were dropped into enemy occupied territory. In touch with a lot of historians and museum curators in the States, Great Britain, Norway and France, he has drawn up this first title in the “Resistance” collection with devotion and humility.
$34.95
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Shiber, Etta
,
PARIS UNDERGROUND.
VG/VG. Some minor corner wear to jacket, which is in mylar protector. (
NY: Charles Sribner's Sons., 1943). First Edition.
392 pages.
~~~ "... a quiet, unassuming chronicle of the author's experiences
in smuggling nearly 200 British soldiers out of occupied France under the very noses
of the Nazis ... "
~~~ "This book is manufactured under warttime
conditions in conformity with all government regulations controlling
the use of paper and other materials."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT. Scarce in jacket
$55.00
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Shireff, David.
BARE FEET AND BANDOLIERS:
Wingate, Sandford, the Patriots and the Liberation of Ethiopia.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Pen & Sword, 2009).
6x9, 8 pages of b&w plates, 336 pages.
~~~
This is the story of two remarkable 'firsts'. It is the story of the first successful attempt by Allied forces during the Second World War to support and sustain a local resistance movement with regular forces in enemy-held territory. It is also the story of how Ethiopia became the first nation conquered by the Axis to be freed.
~~~
The campaign in Ethiopia might appear small in relation to the war in the whole of East Africa, but it had great military importance. In 1941 the British Commonwealth, the Indian and Sudanese forces, with the Patriots - local chiefs and their followers who resisted the Italian occupation - advanced into Italian East Africa and defeated the Italian armies. David Shireff, who himself served in the campaign, gives an evocative and impressive account of how Colonel Orde Wingate with his Gideon Force was able through bold and imaginative command to force the surrender of a large part of the Italian forces. Shireff also explores the role of Brigadier Daniel Sandford, now an almost forgotten commander, in organizing his Mission 101 and the sustained rebellion of the Patriots.
$40.00
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[Szabo] RJ Minney.
CARVE HER NAME WITH PRIDE.
NEW copy, trade PAPERBACK.
(Pen & Sword, 2008).
7x5, 188 pages.
~~~ Carve Her Name With Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris Iin 1921 to an English motor-car dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training. Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police.
~~~
On June 7th, 1944, Szabo was parachuted into Limoges. Her task was to co-ordinate the work of the French Resistance in the area in the first days after D-Day. She was captured by the SS 'Das Reich' Panzer Division and handed over to the Gestapo in Paris for interrogation. From Paris, Violette Szabo was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was executed in January 1945. She was only 23 and for her courage was posthumously awarded The George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
$15.00
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Warwicker, John.
CHURCHILL'S UNDERGROUND ARMY:
A History of the Auxiliary Units in World War II.
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket.
(Frontline Books, 2010).
6x9, 32 pages of plates. 320 pages.
~~~ ‘A carefully researched book on a long-neglected subject which fills a major gap in our Second World War knowledge’ – Norman Longmate, author of If Britain Had Fallen
~~~
British Secret Intelligence Service officers and others in the War Office were never convinced that appeasement would prevent a Nazi invasion. Defying high-level opposition, they quietly worked instead on preemptive ‘Last Ditch’ survival plans. These included a secret resistance network known as the GHQ Auxiliary Units. It was the only one in Europe prepared in advance of an enemy assault.
~~~
The Auxunits were civilian ‘stay-behinds’. One section worked as Patrols, usually consisting of half-a-dozen men in hidden underground operational bases. They were hurriedly selected immediately after the Dunkirk evacuation then trained and equipped with firearms, explosives and booby-traps. Instructed to ‘stay-behind’ underground as the enemy passed over, they were then to emerge each night to commit mayhem for as long as they could stay alive. Others, men and women, would remain behind above ground, to spy on the enemy and communicate intelligence to the Defence Force by a covert radio network. These Units are still effectively secret and this is the most comprehensive history published to date.
$50.00
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Zembsch-Schreve, Guido.
PIERRE LALANDE: Special Agent.
NEW copy, hadcover with dust jacket.
(London: Leo Cooper [Pen & Sword], 2008).
7x5, Photographs, index, 188 pages.
~~~ "Were someone to have written this story as a novel it would have been dismissed as being in the same category of improbability as the later novels of Ian Fleming. In 1940 a Dutchman goes off to join his country's army-in-exile in Canada, returns to England, joins the SOE, is parachuted into France where he runs a highly successful resistance network, drops his guard for a moment and is arrested by the Germans. Up to that point it could be said that his experiences were not all that dissimilar from those of many members of the SOE. But what happened to him thereafter is so horrifying that it is virtually impossible for ordinary mortals to understand how he survived. To come out of one concentration camp was improbably enough. To survive two and a slave labour camp, where V2 rockets were being assembled, seems incredible. To say, as MRD Foot does in his introduction, that he went through 'the nearest thing to hell on earth' is certainly no exaggeration.
~~~ Almost as remarkable is the modest humour and total lack of bitterness with which he tells his story. As an example of man's will to survive against the most appalling odds, this book has very few equals."
~~~ OUT OF PRINT.
$45.00
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