M. R. D. Foot (1919–2012)

Few people knew as much about the highly-secretive SOE - whose task, according to Churchill, was to 'set Europe ablaze' - as M.R.D. Foot. This short book is an introduction to the work of the estimated 15,000 SOE operatives, many of them female, who fought a secret war against Germany, Italy and Japan across three continents. In his attempt to be both comprehensive and brief, Foot clearly struggles. Most sections of the book, especially the final chapters detailing SOE operations across the various war zones, feel too brief. He complains about how much remains secret (the book was published in 1984), how much was destroyed and how much information was never committed to paper. Years after this book appeared, there were new revelations, some spectacular ones too, including the secret plan to kill Adolf Hitler. One wonders what other secrets lay hidden in the archives, or which were buried with the men and women who carried those secrets to their graves.… (meer)

Certainly the best overall assessment of SOE's role in Holland and Belgium. Foot's verdict that the debacle in Holland was due solely to repeated errors (mainly on the British side, but often also on the Dutch) seems unassailable. However, it does suffer from the common fate of official histories in that it is comprehensive to the point of being encyclopaediac. Every agent and every mission must be covered, which often means only the barest details are shared. Too often I wanted to know more, only to find that the next page contained another mission and introduced another two or three characters. By the end of the book I was too overwhelmed with information to care significantly about much of what I'd read, which was a shame. However, it is still a must-read, if nothing else for the definitive analysis of Englandspiel, which will hopefully put to bed much of the unnecessary rumour and intrigue.… (meer)