Stroud talks about several agents in this book and therefore he takes the timeline approach to the story. Most, maybe all books of this type, ones that talk about several people who acted during the same period of time, take the same approach. But Stroud mostly devoted a paragraph at a time to each person, and there were several main actors plus several more auxilliary ones, and that constant jumping around from one to another made it a confusing read. You (or at least I) had to think twice about what was the backstory to the current protagonist each time they changed. For that reason and because I thought the writing was a little flat, I didn't rate it highly. But the stories themselves are very interesting and the people deserve to be read about the honored.

All but two. If you've read even one other book about secret agents, you know that when a radio operator send a transmission, it will include his secret codeword, so that those who receive it in London will know it is really him (or her). Each agent has a real codeword and a fake one. If London receives the fake one they know that the agent is transmitting under duress, meaning he's been captured, or that the Germans are sending a message in his name.

These wireless transmissions were the only way the agents in the field had to communicate with London -- sending information about German troops, and all that, asking for supplies, and letting London know that there was trouble.

So if the secret codeword was the key to knowing that it really was the operator sending a message and that he was free, how do you explain that London received more than one message that did not include that secret code? When Maurice Buckmaster, head of the French unit (this book is about France) saw those messages, he decided to ignore the danger. It's the first and only tool the operators had to let London know they were in trouble, and yet he ignored that tool several times. In fact, in one instance, he sent a signal back admonishing the operator for leaving the secret codeword out. When the Germans saw that message, you can imagine (and Stroud mentions it) how the Germans reacted and what kind of treatment that operator received in their hands. Because, of course, he was in their hands -- in their prison in Paris. Vera Adams, his right-hand assistant, saw those same messages, knew as well as he did (or should have) what those omissions meant, and also ignored them.

Maybe Buckmaster was simply an idiot. I haven't seen anyone suggest it, but I've read several books about the SOE and this gross fuck-up, and it makes me think that maybe Buckmaster was really working for the Germans. In any case, it is no wonder the other British secret service agencies didn't trust and didn't want to support SOE. They had wonderful agents, but at best it was fun by idiots.

Buckmaster's French section lost at least two networks -- not only the agents sent over, but also all the French volunteers who they had been sent to work with. That would mean hundreds of people (not just the few named in the book) were arrested and killed by the Germans because Buckmaster didn't want to be bothered with the most basic safety measure he had at his disposal. And never mind another agent that was working for him, one that had been denounced as a German double agent by more than one person and was in charge of the logistics of the air transports. He ignored that too. I suppose he was trying to protect his territory (or he was a traitor) and didn't want to admit any weakness or failures with his organization. Altogether hundreds of people who had volunteered to work with the allies were sacrified for no good reason because of Buckmaster and Atkins.

After the war, Buckmaster was awarded an OBE and Atkins a CBE. They both should have been court martialed. ( )