A Raft of New Books on Special Operations Executive!

My modest little monograph, Rediscovering Irregular Warfare: Colin Gubbins and the Origins of Britain's Special Operations Executive, will be published by the University of Oklahoma Press later this month. The work covers the first chapter, so to speak, of SOE's history, examining how Gubbins and a few of his protégés looked to Britain's history of small wars for lessons in establishing their own irregular capability.

I began this project eight years ago (though it morphed a bit along the way). I had no idea, at the time, that mine would be but one of a raft of new works to come out on SOE. As Eliot says, "there is no competition." So, please, feel free to buy them all (or ask your local library to do so)!


Stephen Hart and Chris Mann, World War II Secret Operations: Undercover Military Skills from the SOE, OSS and Maquis (Amber Books, October 2015)

Peter Jacobs, Setting France Ablaze: The SOE in France During WWII (Pen & Sword, November 2015)

Bernd Horn, A Most Ungentlemanly Way of War: The SOE and the Canadian Connection (Dundurn, January 2016)

Sue Elliott, I Heard My Country Calling: Elaine Madden, the Unsung Heroine of SOE (The History Press, January 2016)

Stewart Kent and Nick Nicholas, Agent Michael Trotobas and SOE in Northern France (Pen & Sword, February 2016)

Jean Claude Guiet, Dead on Time: The Memoir of an SOE and OSS Agent in Occupied France (The History Press, June 2016)

Brian Lett, SOE's Mastermind: The Authorised Biography of Major General Sir Colin Gubbins KCMG, DSO, MC (Pen & Sword, July 2016)