No Moon as Witness: Missions of the Soe and Oss in World War II

Winston Churchill famously instructed the head of the Special Operations Executive to "Set Europe ablaze!" Agents of both the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services underwent rigorous training before making their way, undetected, into Occupied Europe. Working alone or in small cells, often cooperating with local resistance groups, agents undertook missions behind enemy lines involving sabotage, subversion, organising resistance groups and intelligence-gathering. The SOE's notable successes included the destruction of a power station in France, the assassination of Himmler's deputy Reinhard Heyrich, and ending the Nazi atomic bomb program by destroying the heavy water plant at Vemork, Norway. OSS operatives established anti-Nazi resistance groups across Europe, and managed to smuggle operatives into Nazi Germany, including running one of the war's most important spies, German diplomat Fritz Kolbe. All of their missions were incredibly dangerous and many agents were captured, tortured, and ultimately killed – the life expectancy of an SOE wireless operator in occupied France was just six weeks. In No Moon as Witness, historian James Stejskal examines why these agencies were established, the training regimen and ingenious tools developed to enable agents to undertake their missions, their operational successes, and their legacy. Concise history of the perilous missions undertaken by British and American agents in Occupied Europe during WWII. AUTHOR: James Stejskal is a former US Army Special Forces soldier who served on special operations in many "interesting places" worldwide before retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer 4. He was then recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to serve again as a senior Case Officer in Africa, Europe, and the Far East before finally retiring from active service. He is now a military historian and the author of Special Forces Berlin and Masters of Mayhem. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Wanda.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Need Arises; Timeline; Glossary; Origins of SOE and OSS; Training; Tools of the Trade; Operations; Legacy; Sources; Index

About the Author :
James Stejskal, after 35 years of service with US Army Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency, is a uniquely qualified historian and novelist. He is the author of the definitive history: Special Forces Berlin Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956–1990 and Masters of Mayhem: Lawrence of Arabia and the British Military Mission to the Hejaz. This is his third novel.

Review :
This is an excellent, if perhaps somewhat short, history of these two unconventional organisations, helping to see how they differed, how they were similar, and what impact they had on the course of the war. The book is well written with good details on the agents, their specialized equipment, and a selection of their missions. ...concise, more easily readable but nevertheless thorough account that benefits from the author’s particular knowledge and background [...] An excellent read. …the book is well organized and also an excellent read. Some books that I read end up going to the ‘annual used book fair’; this one is a keeper and has found a home on my reference bookshelf. ...illustrates the challenges of recruiting and training a clandestine force to conduct military operations or intelligence gathering missions in support of operational goals. The examples of daring raids and tragic failures help to immerse the reader in the action and danger that people endured in service to the cause. While refreshingly brief, the book has considerable value as a modern overview of activities that took place more than 75 years ago and were then mostly highly secret.