H. Montgomery Hyde (1907–1989)

The story of the British Intelligence Center in New York during World War II

With headquarters in New York at 630 Fifth Avenue, Room 3603, the organization known as the British Security Coordination, or B.S.C., was the keystone of the successful

Anglo-American partnership in the field of secret intelligence, counterespionage and “special operations.”

The man chosen by Sir Winston Churchill to set up and direct this crucial effort was Sir William Stephenson. A fighter pilot in the First World War, he had become a millionaire before he was thirty through his invention of the device for transmitting photographs by wireless. The late General Bill Donovan, director of the Office of Strategic Services, said of him; “Bill Stephenson taught us all we ever knew about ...… (meer)

I picked this up for two main reasons: 1. The Ian Fleming foreword, and 2. Although I was aware of the British intelligence operations based in New York during WW2 (I’d referenced them in one of my pulp stories) I didn’t really know the details. This series of recollections and case stories by one of their former operatives provides some degree of insight. However as this was written in 1962 most of the content has been superseded by declassification of certain material and more recent scholarship. But it remains a readable first hand account of an often overlooked area of wartime Anglo-American cooperation.… (meer)