As a fully documented study of a Second World War Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) operative, Our Man in Yugoslavia is absolutely unique. Its subject is Owen Reed, an army officer recruited into SIS in the summer of 1943 and then parachuted in to German-occupied Croatia to work with Tito's Partisans and other Allied secret organisations. After reporting back to London in July 1944, Reed returned to Yugoslavia to find relations with the Partisans deteriorating. His erstwhile comrades began working against him and the intelligence he passed to the SIS came increasingly to focus on the communist takeover. Reed found himself at the centre of the first great confrontation of the Cold War. Blending biography and operational history, Our Man in Yugoslavia is a remarkable case study, illustrating how SIS operatives were recruited and trained, and describing their work in detail.

The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6) is one of the world's most secretive organisations. SIS is not bound by the 30 Years Rule, under which British government departments release their records to the National Archives, and consequently hardly any documented histories of its activities have been written. As a fully documented study of a Second World War SIS operative, Our Man in Yugoslavia is therefore unique. Its subject is Owen Reed, an army officer recruited into SIS in Cairo in the summer of 1943. Reed was parachuted in to German-occupied Croatia, where he worked successfully with Tito's Partisans and with other Allied secret organisations, such as the Special Operations Executive, gathering intelligence, arranging airborne supplies and helping escaped prisoners of war to reach freedom. But after reporting back to London in July 1944, Reed returned to Yugoslavia to find relations with the Partisans deteriorating. His erstwhile comrades now began working against him, and the intelligence he passed to the SIS came increasingly to focus on the communist takeover, rather than residual German resistance. In the spring of 1945, Reed found himself at the cen

The author begins with a general survey of British aircraft manufacturing in the inter-war period, focusing on the technical and productive capacity of the industry prior to rearmament and on government thinking on wartime expansion. Subsequent chapters examine Air Ministry production policy, airframe and aero-engine production, manpower supply and utilization, finance and investment and contractual relations between state and industry. The final chapter is concerned with the mobilization of the aircraft industry on the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the revision of pre-war development and production programmes, the emergency measures of 1940 and the formulation of longer-term plans for the remainder of the war.

The author begins with a general survey of British aircraft manufacturing in the inter-war period, focusing on the technical and productive capacity of the industry prior to rearmament and on government thinking on wartime expansion. Subsequent chapters examine Air Ministry production policy, airframe and aero-engine production, manpower supply and utilization, finance and investment and contractual relations between state and industry. The final chapter is concerned with the mobilization of the aircraft industry on the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the revision of pre-war development and production programmes, the emergency measures of 1940 and the formulation of longer-term plans for the remainder of the war.

Operation Market Garden, often depicted as one of the most decisive military actions of the Allied campaign, offered an opportunity to conclude hostilities with Hitler's Germany before 1945 but its disastrous failure left the Allies facing another seven months of difficult and costly fighting. In this revised new paperback edition of Arnhem: Myth and Reality, Sebastian Ritchie demonstrates that the operation can only be properly understood if it is considered alongside earlier airborne ventures and reassesses the role of the Allied air forces and the widely held view that they bore a particular responsibility for Market Garden's failure. By placing Market Garden in its correct historical setting and by reassessing Allied air plans and their execution, this groundbreaking book provides a radically different view of the events of September 1944, challenging much of the current orthodoxy in the process.