Comments | little_details: SOE Radio Transcripts and Training Schools

laughinggas13 in little_details

SOE Radio Transcripts and Training Schools

May 27, 2010 18:02

Setting: Occupied France, around about 1943, and UK, same time

I'm writing a historical AU with the basic premise that all the characters are working for the SOE during World War II. I've got a good deal of background-type stuff and a book that gives specifics about dates, weapons, techniques etc (Subversion and Sabotage by Ian Dear). My only issue ( Read more... )

1940-1949, france: history, ~world war ii, ~espionage

Comments 13

reticent_lass May 27 2010, 22:03:58 UTC

"Between Silk and Cyanide: The Codemaker's War" by Leo Marks is an excellent account of how codes were made, taught, transmitted, received, and broken between 1941-1945. There's a couple of segments where he talks about, in detail, training various SOE agents in encryption/decryption and some notes about what other training/equipment they got, and it gives a neat glimpse into the life of a young guy secretly working for the war effort when all his neighbors think he's just a lazy draft-dodger. It's also a lot of fun to read. My public library had it, so it can't be too rare.

Sadly, it's not going to be that much of a help with sleeping arrangements and such, as all this is going on back in London. I'd recommend it anyway for sheer entertainment value.

laughinggas13 May 27 2010, 22:09:43 UTC

Ooh, thank you! I have a sort of background interest in codebreaking anyway, quite apart from the fic I'm writing, so the book sounds really good if I can get hold of it.

janewilliams20 May 27 2010, 22:54:03 UTC

You probably want to read up about Violette Szabo.

reticent_lass May 27 2010, 23:02:05 UTC

Seconding, but my favorite spy of that era is always and forever Noor Inayat Khan. Amazing woman.

badgermirlacca May 27 2010, 23:28:27 UTC

Highly recommended: A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. It will break your heart.

Also, Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins.

Years ago, I visited the British War Museum in London when they had an exhibit on SOE. One of the things they had was a phone on the wall with a clock underneath it; when you picked up the receiver the clock started ticking, and what you heard on the phone was a transmission by an agent (in Morse code). The point was that the clock was counting down the amount of time the agent had to complete the transmission before the Nazis located the transmitter. It was one of more nervewracking things you could imagine.

Also, this book: The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder may have some transcripts.

reynardo May 28 2010, 03:19:30 UTC

I second the whole Morse Code thing. The radios would be moved from place to place. So in one town there might be 10 different places that would be used as a transmission point, so that the Germans couldn't get a fix on one place. It would take 3 agents plus whoever was at the place to do it ( ... )

laughinggas13 May 30 2010, 13:06:41 UTC

Wow, thank you for the details! I never thought of them using the BBC to pass messages, but I've now encountered it in a couple of books.

laughinggas13 May 30 2010, 13:08:50 UTC

Thank you for the book titles! I'll definitely be checking them out.

lil_shepherd May 28 2010, 06:38:44 UTC

There is a vast amount of data on the work of the SOE (including a book which includes all the internal memos on a plot to kill Hitler.) However, the one you want is

SOE Syllabus: Lessons in Ungentlemanly Warfare World War II

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SOE-Syllabus-Lessons-Ungentlemanly-Warfare/dp/190336518X

which contains the complete training manual. The best book on the work of the SOE is undoubtedly The SOE in France by M.R.A. Foot - in fact, Dear and Foot between them, apart from editing the definitive encyclopedia of the Second World War, are the authors to go to on the undercover war in Europe.

laughinggas13 May 30 2010, 13:13:06 UTC

That book does sound ideal. *covets*

I've found that some of the books I've got keep citing Foot's book, so I'll have to raid the library for it at some point.

lil_shepherd May 30 2010, 14:05:29 UTC

I'd offer to lend it to you, but as I am in Essex, England, and I suspect you are elsewhere, the library is your friend. (Of course, if you are in Essex or London...)

As someone who used to write in a fandom (Garrison's Gorillas) which is about the undercover war in Europe, if primarily from the US viewpoint, I did a lot of research at one point, then began doing the research for its own sake. It's a fascinating subject.

garrison gorillas zines/fandom stbashir9 April 15 2011, 05:51:37 UTC

I am a big fan of GG and just begun reading some old zines and some stories on the net-are your stories still online?

Thread 5