During the Second World War daring and highly unusual missions were mounted by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) - formed on Churchill's orders 'to set Europe ablaze' - and its American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In sixteen separate chapters the author describes how the fearless individuals in these clandestine organisations were recruited, trained and armed, and examines some of their guerrilla operations in Europe, Africa and the Far East, such as the raid on Fernando Po, the destruction of Gorgopotamos Bridge in Greece and the strike against Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. Also covered are the means SOE and OSS used to subvert the enemy, by employing black propaganda, forgery, pornography and black market currency manipulation. It may well read like fiction but the stories are fact, and shows to what lengths the Allies were prepared to go to crush the Axis powers.

The true history of the secret world of spooks, the people they spied on, and those they betrayed--includes declassified MI5 info and new evidence from previously unpublished memoirsThe shadowy world of espionage has an enduring fascination for us all. "Spy and Counterspy "explores the tangled web of agents and double-agents that spanned the globe before, during, and after World War II. It sheds new light on those who worked for, and against, such covert organizations as Britain's MI5 and MI6; America's OSS and its successor, the CIA; the Soviet NKVD; the Nazi security services; and the dreaded Japanese Tokko or "thought police." They were men and women who lived extraordinary lives, always on the edge of exposure and at risk of death. Many of them were so in love with the Great Game of spying that some betrayed their countries without a qualm; others penetrated to the very heart of the governments they were spying on. Just as important as HUMINT (human intelligence) in this war of subterfuge was SIGINT (signals intelligence), and the contribution of brilliant cryptographers is not overlooked here. With the help of ULTRA intelligence and, later, VERONA, their expertise exposed the extraordinary extent of spy rings in both Britain and the United States, in peace as well as war. Using new information from previously unpublished sources and declassified documents, "Spy and Counterspy" vividly depicts this conflict in the shadows which still continues to this day.