This magnificent new volume gives you exclusive access to the Churchill War Rooms, bringing you closer than ever before to where Churchill not only ran the war - but won it.
On May 10, 1940, Britain's new prime minister strode purposefully down to the basement of an anonymous government building and entered a top secret command center. "This," growled Winston Churchill, "is the room from which I will run the war." At the war's end, Churchill and his colleagues left the chamber and locked the door behind them--and the War Rooms remained there, untouched and little known, until the early 1980s. Today, those historic chambers are on display as the Churchill War Rooms exhibit. The Churchill War Rooms Guidebook provides an inside view of Britain's wartime nerve center. In this concise, but informative reference, readers can meet the people who worked at the War Rooms, see how the work carried out in this underground bunker helped Britain win the war, and delve into the life story of the man himself--Winston Churchill. Highly illustrated, this is an accessible overview of one of Britain's most significant historic sites.
‘My mother thought I was working for the Ministry of Ag. and Fish.’ So begins Noreen Riols’ compelling memoir of her time as a member of Churchill’s ‘secret army’, the Special Operations Executive. It was 1943, just before her eighteenth birthday, Noreen received her call-up papers, and was faced with either working in a munitions factory or joining the Wrens. A typically fashion-conscious young woman, even in wartime, Noreen opted for the Wrens - they had better hats. But when one of her interviewers realized she spoke fluent French, she was directed to a government building on Baker Street. It was SOE headquarters, where she was immediately recruited into F-Section, led by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster. From then until the end of the war, Noreen worked with Buckmaster and her fellow operatives to support the French Resistance fighting for the Allied cause. Sworn to secrecy, Noreen told no one that she spent her days meeting agents returning from behind enemy lines, acting as a decoy, passing on messages in tea rooms and picking up codes in crossword puzzles. Vivid, witty, insightful and often moving, this is the story of one young woman’s secret war, offering readers an authentic and compelling insight into what really went on in Churchill’s ‘secret army’ from one of its last surviving members.
A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill’s overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris… London, 1941: In a cramped bunker in Winston Churchill’s Cabinet War Rooms, underneath Westminster’s Treasury building, civilian women huddle at desks, typing up confidential documents and reports. Since her parents were killed in a bombing raid, Rose Teasdale has spent more hours than usual in Room 60, working double shifts, growing accustomed to the burnt scent of the Prime Minister’s cigars permeating the stale air. Winning the war is the only thing that matters, and she will gladly do her part. And when Rose’s fluency in French comes to the attention of Churchill himself, it brings a rare yet dangerous opportunity. Rose is recruited for the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization that conducts espionage in Nazi-occupied Europe. After weeks of grueling training, Rose parachutes into France with a new codename: Dragonfly. Posing as a cosmetics saleswoman in Paris, she ferries messages to and from the Resistance, knowing that the slightest misstep means capture or death. Soon Rose is assigned to a new mission with Lazare Aron, a French Resistance fighter who has watched his beloved Paris become a shell of itself, with desolate streets and buildings draped in Swastikas. Since his parents were sent to a German work camp, Lazare has dedicated himself to the cause with the same fervor as Rose. Yet Rose’s very loyalty brings risks as she undertakes a high-stakes prison raid, and discovers how much she may have to sacrifice to justify Churchill’s faith in her . . . "A rousing historical novel." - The Akron Beacon Journal, Best Books of the Year for Churchill's Secret Messenger
Churchill's War in Words transports the reader back to the storm-struck days of the Second World War. Focussing only on words used at the time, it reveals the way that Winston Churchill talked about the conflict in public and in private - and the way that he himself was viewed at the time by family, friends, politicians, military leaders, staff, voters, allies and enemies. Presented in chronological order and accompanied by short year-by-year introductions, the quotations convey afresh the full force of Churchill's oratory, the wit he displayed in the face of often appalling odds, and the hopes and fears that he inspired in those around him. Together they reveal to the modern reader what it was truly like to be locked in a struggle in which victory - or total defeat - was yet to be decided. Together they tell the extraordinary story of Churchill's War in Words.
Six gentlemen, one goal: the destruction of Hitler's war machine In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now, his talents were put to more devious use: he built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich. Another, William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world's leading expert in silent killing, hired to train the guerrillas being parachuted behind enemy lines. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, these men—along with three others—formed a secret inner circle that, aided by a group of formidable ladies, single-handedly changed the course Second World War: a cohort hand-picked by Winston Churchill, whom he called his Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Giles Milton's Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a gripping and vivid narrative of adventure and derring-do that is also, perhaps, the last great untold story of the Second World War.
'This is the room from which I will direct the war,' Churchill declared, shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940. It was from these cramped confines that Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Built in 1938 as a temporary refuge in case of air raid attack, this secret bunker became a second home to Churchill - and to large numbers of military personnel and civil servants whose work until now has been largely unsung. Drawing on a fascinating range of original material, including newly available first-hand accounts of the people who lived there, Holmes reveals how and why the bunker and its war machine developed; how the inhabitants' lives were transformed; and how their work led to victory. Elegant and illuminating, Churchill's Bunker is a unique exploration of one of the most important sites in British history.
Despite all that has already been written on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Persico has uncovered a hitherto overlooked dimension of FDR's wartime leadership: his involvement in intelligence and espionage operations. Roosevelt's Secret War is crowded with remarkable revelations: -FDR wanted to bomb Tokyo before Pearl Harbor -A defector from Hitler's inner circle reported directly to the Oval Office -Roosevelt knew before any other world leader of Hitler's plan to invade Russia -Roosevelt and Churchill concealed a disaster costing hundreds of British soldiers' lives in order to protect Ultra, the British codebreaking secret -An unwitting Japanese diplomat provided the President with a direct pipeline into Hitler's councils Roosevelt's Secret War also describes how much FDR had been told--before the Holocaust--about the coming fate of Europe's Jews. And Persico also provides a definitive answer to the perennial question Did FDR know in advance about the attack on Pearl Harbor? By temperament and character, no American president was better suited for secret warfare than FDR. He manipulated, compartmentalized, dissembled, and misled, demonstrating a spymaster's talent for intrigue. He once remarked, "I never let my right hand know what my left hand does." Not only did Roosevelt create America's first central intelligence agency, the OSS, under "Wild Bill" Donovan, but he ran spy rings directly from the Oval Office, enlisting well-placed socialite friends. FDR was also spied against. Roosevelt's Secret War presents evidence that the Soviet Union had a source inside the Roosevelt White House; that British agents fed FDR total fabrications to draw the United States into war; and that Roosevelt, by yielding to Churchill's demand that British scientists be allowed to work on the Manhattan Project, enabled the secrets of the bomb to be stolen. And these are only a few of the scores of revelations in this constantly surprising story of Roosevelt's hidden role in World War II.
Fra ganske ung var Churchill krigskorrespondent på Cuba og i Indien, Sudan og Sydafrika, og havde stor tiltro til værdien af oplysninger indsamlet af hemmelige agenter i efterretningsvæsenet, og hele sit liv var han stærkt involveret "in the secret world of intelligence, clandestine operations, counter-terrorism, counter-subversion and deception". Bogen her er baseret på mange kilder, en del af dem ikke tidligere tilgængelige eller offentliggjorte, og forsøger at kaste lys over den side af Churchill, med hovedvægten lagt på årene under 2. Verdenskrig, hvor han opbyggede et centraliseret stærkt engelsk efterretningvæsen, hvilket bl.a. resulterede i Bletchley Park, Ultra og SOE-operationerne.
WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH "This is the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now." —Wall Street Journal “Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The Liberator The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. “Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s Furies