SOE in Denmark
Title | SOE in Denmark PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | Frontline Books |
Total Pages | 208 |
Release | 2021-09-30 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1399015079 |
From a small number of clandestine activities against the German occupation of Denmark in 1940, a sophisticated resistance movement developed which by 1944, with the support of Special Operations Executive, had become a highly effective intelligence gathering and sabotage organisation. Denmark is composed of a mainland and more than 500 islands, a fifth of which are inhabited, and the countryside is devoid of any inaccessible or mountainous region. Together this made communication between resistance cells difficult and meant that there were no natural bases from which guerrilla operations could be mounted. Nevertheless, thanks to supply drops of explosives, weapons and ammunition arranged by SOE, the Danes harassed the Germans and raised the moral of the Danish people in the latter, and most brutal, stages of the war. This largely forgotten story of SOE and its agents in Denmark, the latter facing extremely hazardous conditions, was written immediately after the war by a SOE staff member and read and validated by the Director of SOE, Major General Colin Gubbins. A very large number of documents were burned at SOE’s London headquarters in Baker Street when the organisation was wound down in 1946 making this history of the Danish Section an invaluable and irreplaceable study. SOE in Denmark was written at a time when SOE was still largely unknown to the general public and its operations a closely guarded secret. It was expected that its activities would never be officially acknowledged and the study of its actions in Denmark was compiled with the aim of provide a lasting record of its achievement. Within its pages we read of the dangers the agents faced, the logistical mountains they had to overcome, and the successes achieved in the face of a ruthless enemy. Completed with unique photographs from the Danish archives, SOE in Denmark is an essential addition to the SOE literature.
SOE in Denmark
Title | SOE in Denmark PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | Frontline Books |
Total Pages | 208 |
Release | 2021-09-30 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781399015042 |
From a small number of clandestine activities against the German occupation of Denmark in 1940, a sophisticated resistance movement developed which by 1944, with the support of Special Operations Executive, had become a highly effective intelligence gathering and sabotage organisation. Denmark is composed of a mainland and more than 500 islands, a fifth of which are inhabited, and the countryside is devoid of any inaccessible or mountainous region. Together this made communication between resistance cells difficult and meant that there were no natural bases from which guerrilla operations could be mounted. Nevertheless, thanks to supply drops of explosives, weapons and ammunition arranged by SOE, the Danes harassed the Germans and raised the moral of the Danish people in the latter, and most brutal, stages of the war. This largely forgotten story of SOE and its agents in Denmark, the latter facing extremely hazardous conditions, was written immediately after the war by a SOE staff member and read and validated by the Director of SOE, Major General Colin Gubbins. A very large number of documents were burned at SOE's London headquarters in Baker Street when the organisation was wound down in 1946 making this history of the Danish Section an invaluable and irreplaceable study. SOE in Denmark was written at a time when SOE was still largely unknown to the general public and its operations a closely guarded secret. It was expected that its activities would never be officially acknowledged and the study of its actions in Denmark was compiled with the aim of provide a lasting record of its achievement. Within its pages we read of the dangers the agents faced, the logistical mountains they had to overcome, and the successes achieved in the face of a ruthless enemy. Completed with unique photographs from the Danish archives, SOE in Denmark is an essential addition to the SOE literature.
No Small Achievement
Title | No Small Achievement PDF eBook |
Author | Knud J. V. Jespersen |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 668 |
Release | 2002 |
Genre | History |
ISBN |
The British formed the Special Operations Executive in 1940 to encourage and support saboteurs in German occupied territories during World War II. Jesperson (history, U. of Southern Denmark), basing his work on recently available Danish documents, gives an account of the operations of the SOE in Denmark. He describes an effort that was fairly ineffective in the early years and was only able to develop a concerted resistance campaign in the final years of the war. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
SOE in Denmark
Title | SOE in Denmark PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | Frontline Books |
Total Pages | 173 |
Release | 2021-08-26 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1399015052 |
From a small number of clandestine activities against the German occupation of Denmark in 1940, a sophisticated resistance movement developed which by 1944, with the support of Special Operations Executive, had become a highly effective intelligence gathering and sabotage organisation. Denmark is composed of a mainland and more than 500 islands, a fifth of which are inhabited, and the countryside is devoid of any inaccessible or mountainous region. Together this made communication between resistance cells difficult and meant that there were no natural bases from which guerrilla operations could be mounted. Nevertheless, thanks to supply drops of explosives, weapons and ammunition arranged by SOE, the Danes harassed the Germans and raised the moral of the Danish people in the latter, and most brutal, stages of the war. This largely forgotten story of SOE and its agents in Denmark, the latter facing extremely hazardous conditions, was written immediately after the war by a SOE staff member and read and validated by the Director of SOE, Major General Colin Gubbins. A very large number of documents were burned at SOE’s London headquarters in Baker Street when the organisation was wound down in 1946 making this history of the Danish Section an invaluable and irreplaceable study. SOE in Denmark was written at a time when SOE was still largely unknown to the general public and its operations a closely guarded secret. It was expected that its activities would never be officially acknowledged and the study of its actions in Denmark was compiled with the aim of provide a lasting record of its achievement. Within its pages we read of the dangers the agents faced, the logistical mountains they had to overcome, and the successes achieved in the face of a ruthless enemy. Completed with unique photographs from the Danish archives, SOE in Denmark is an essential addition to the SOE literature.
Britain and Denmark
Title | Britain and Denmark PDF eBook |
Author | Jørgen Sevaldsen |
Publisher | Museum Tusculanum Press |
Total Pages | 662 |
Release | 2003 |
Genre | Denmark |
ISBN | 9788772897509 |
Since 1815, Denmark and Britain have lived in peace with each other. From the last half of the 19th century, massive British imports of Danish agricultural products gave Britain a central role in the Danish economy, likewise in the 20th century, British efforts in the two world wars became of crucial importance to Denmark's position in relation to Germany and, later, the Soviet Union. In the same period, the emergence of English as the first foreign language in Denmark facilitated the increasingly closer human and cultural contacts between the two countries. Britain and Denmark, written by Danish and British historians, constitutes the first attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of the roles that these two neighbouring countries have played in the lives of each other during the last two centuries. They are different in size and have had very different global and regional orientations. So, naturally, Britain has always loomed larger in Danish life and politics than the other way round. In many areas, however, relations have been close. The book covers contacts relating to trade, security policies and social and political theory, but also touch on mutual influences within the areas of literature, music, design etc. Most treatments of Danish political and cultural relations with the outside world in this period concentrate on Germany for the period up to 1945, and on the Soviet Union and the USA in the post-war world. In the same way, works on British contemporary history rarely devote much space to relations with the Nordic countries. The aim, therefore, of this book is to provide a supplement, and perhaps corrective, to the existing literature on the international positions of Britain and Denmark in the modern world.
SOE in Czechoslovakia
Title | SOE in Czechoslovakia PDF eBook |
Author | F.E. Keary |
Publisher | Frontline Books |
Total Pages | 102 |
Release | 2022-09-21 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1399082760 |
The majority of the successful SOE operations in Europe took place in countries occupied by the Germans after the outbreak of war in 1939, Hitler’s forces being regarded as foreign invaders. In Czechoslovakia it was different. The country, which had large numbers of ethnic Germans living within its borders, had been occupied since 1938, allowing the Germans to establish a strong hold on the country which limited the opportunities for subversive action by resistance movements. Nevertheless, resist the Czechs did, despite the Germans conducting savage and indiscriminate reprisals. It was against this background that SOE attempted to infiltrate its agents into Czechoslovakia in 1941, their role being to help in co-ordinating and expanding the resistance movement and to establish communications with the Czech authorities in the UK. Successful actions were admittedly few before 1942 when one of the most successful SOE-backed operations resulted in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi to be killed by any resistance group. The huge wave of reprisals against the civilian population which followed severely hampered SOE activities in the immediate aftermath. Another factor which limited SOE’s ability to infiltrate Czechoslovakia and to supply the resistance was the distance and difficulty experienced by the RAF in flying to the region. During the short nights of summer, no flights could be attempted. This changed in September 1943 when sorties were able to be conducted from Italy, and by 1944 the scale of operations increased both in frequency and scale. More than 300 Czechs were trained by SOE and, in conjunction with local resistance groups, those that managed to infiltrate back into their homeland, kept the occupying forces constantly on the alert, ensuring that Germany’s eastern flank was never entirely secure. This is the first full, official account of SOE in Czechoslovakia, compiled by SOE headquarters staff who had direct access to all the organisation’s records, many of which were destroyed after the war.
S O E in Scandinavia
Title | S O E in Scandinavia PDF eBook |
Author | Charles Greig Cruickshank |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Total Pages | 312 |
Release | 1986 |
Genre | History |
ISBN |
Although Denmark and Norway were occupied for most of World War II, their patriot forces aided the Allied cause with the help of arms, equipment, and training supplied by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Based on closed papers, this official history of the SOE in Scandinavia draws on agents' contemporary reports to describe vital operations in Scandinavia against the Germans, the techniques of the agents, and the role played by the Royal Air Force and the famous Shetland Bus Service in equipping and transporting the patriots. The book also pays a special tribute to the women of the resistance in Denmark and Norway.