SOE, the Special Operations Executive, was a small, tough British secret service, a dirty tricks department established in July 1940 and encouraged by Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze'.

Recruited from remarkably diverse callings, the men and women who were members of this most secret agency lived in great and constant danger. Their job - as saboteurs, informers, partisans, couriers or secret agents - was to support and stimulate resistance behind enemy lines; their credentials fortitude, courage, immense patience and a devotion to freedom.

In this classic study M.R.D. Foot, sheds light on the heroism of individual SOE agents across the world and provides us with a spellbinding account of the Executive's crucial wartime work.

With an introduction by David Stafford.