They did not wear uniforms on parade grounds.
They did not march to the sound of brass bands.
They travelled by bicycle along rutted lanes, or walked quietly through market squares, or sat in unlit rooms listening to the faint crackle of a wireless set.
The Special Operations Executive was formed in 1940 with a blunt directive from Churchill: to “set Europe ablaze.” It was an organisation built for sabotage, subversion and resistance inside Nazi-occupied territory. It required secrecy,...