WWII Espionage

[Story]

Catalogue of wartime British spy gadgets discovered
A rare wartime book documenting the ingenious James Bond-style gadgets invented by British 'spooks' to help prisoners of war escape has been discovered.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...f-wartime-British-spy-gadgets-discovered.html

 

[Story]

Son of a Canadian pilot shot down reunited with the French woman who saved the pilot from capture

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Priceless+encounter+with+Gisele+rescued+bomber/7529878/story.html

 

[AmateisGal]

Catalogue of wartime British spy gadgets discovered
A rare wartime book documenting the ingenious James Bond-style gadgets invented by British 'spooks' to help prisoners of war escape has been discovered.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...f-wartime-British-spy-gadgets-discovered.html

It would be awfully swell if they could re-publish this. What a treasure!

 

[Story]

During World War II, (Allen) Dulles ran American espionage operations in neutral Switzerland. Soon after arriving in Bern, he found a mistress, Mary Bancroft, a dynamic woman of the world who had grown up on Beacon Hill in Boston under the wing of her doting step-grandfather, C. W. Barron, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Dulles hired Bancroft to write political analysis, but there was little doubt where his interest lay.

“We can let the work cover the romance, and the romance cover the work,” he told her as they began their affair.

By her own account, Bancroft developed “overwhelming admiration for his abilities” and fell “completely in love” with him. Later Dulles introduced her to his wife. Somehow, they became close friends. “I can see how much you and Allen care for one another, and I approve,” the wife told the mistress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/opinion/when-a-cia-director-had-scores-of-affairs.html?_r=0

 

[AmateisGal]

Reminds me of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. He fell in love with his wife's best friend and she moved in with them. I don't know that the Duchess wholeheartedly approved, but they lived that way for the rest of her life, I believe.

 

[Story]

Birger Stromsheim , , who has died aged 101, was considered the greatest of the “Heroes of Telemark” who in 1943 launched a daring raid to destroy a crucial part of the Nazi atomic weapons programme.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9681540/Birger-Stromsheim.html

 

[MissMittens]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9681540/Birger-Stromsheim.html

Great story and link

 

[Story]

French resistance hero and Holocaust survivor Stephane Hessel, whose 2010 manifesto "Time for Outrage" sold millions of copies and inspired protest movements worldwide, has died at the age of 95, his wife said Wednesday.

Hessel joined Charles de Gaulle in exile during World War II, was waterboarded by the Nazis, escaped hanging in concentration camps and took part in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...esistance-hero-and-activist-hessel-dies-at-95

 

[TomS]

Great stuff!

 

[Story]

As good a thread as any -

Nearly 70 years after Benito Mussolini's death, new images and video of what the Italian media are calling Mussolini's last bunker have emerged, revealing a hideaway underneath the dictator's Palazzo Venezia headquarters in Rome.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/mussolini-bunker-revealed-rome-open-public_n_2949578.html

ALBANY -- René Joyeuse shot his way out of a Nazi ambush and provided vital information to the Allies before the D-Day invasion, exploits that earned him one of the U.S. military's highest medals, with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower pinning the Distinguished Service Cross on the Swiss-born spy at the end of World War II.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/...ar-ii-spy-to-be-buried-at-arlington-1.4795594

 

[Story]

This is a *must listen to* interview

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/03/28/rene-joyeuse-spy

 

[Story]

Winnie the Pooh and the Tao of Plastique & Lies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...ist-and-the-lies-about-German-atrocities.html

 

[Story]

Such is the interest surrounding whether a mini-submarine lies on the river bed, that a specially arranged meeting was held at Londonderry Harbour yesterday - involving everyone from the Environment Minister to the Royal Navy.

The purpose of the meeting was to find the best way to investigate what was described as an “underwater anomaly” which many believe to be a WWII submarine, perhaps a German mini-submarine.

http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk/news/local/navy-to-solve-mystery-1-3738067

 

[W4ASZ]

WW II Deception On PBS - Ghost Army

They tried to slip this by us, but most PBS stations will air this on Tuesday, May 21 :

http://www.ghostarmy.org/index.php?page=homepage

I've read lots on the subject, including Gawne's Ghosts of the ETO, which I found very satisfying.

This will likely be better than the Gatsby remake. :eeek:

 

[Story]

A formerly secret World War II and Cold War naval communications centre in Powys has been branded a blot on the landscape after years of vandalism. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-22485354

 

[Story]

The Real Inglorious Bastards recounts the thrilling story of Operation Greenup, the most successful intelligence-gathering OSS operation of World War II. Two young Jewish-American refugees team up with a conscientious deserter, parachuting one perilous night into the Austrian Alps. Through vivid first-person accounts, re-enactment, CGI, archive and historian commentary, the film reveals how their efforts disrupt a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front and bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces

http://www.realinglorious.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxBGfxsD_Y

 

[Story]

What seemed like innocent, even mundane, letters home from a World War II prisoner of war to his family contained secret intelligence that is only now being revealed.

Sub Lieut. John Pryor's letters -- which touch on topics like gardening and vegetable patches -- contained messages for the British military and a secret code that died with him. Now, the veteran's son and a team of historians and mathematicians have finally cracked that code, unearthing encrypted information and supply requests in letters sent from a German POW camp to his family in Cornwall, England. Mark Phillips shows how the code was broken and what it revealed Friday morning on "CBS This Morning."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57584831/preview-secret-wwii-code-revealed-in-pow-letters/

 

[Story]

The Dirty Dozen was a Hollywood hit, but it was based — loosely — on a true-to-life WWII paratrooper regiment. Jake McNiece led the group, whose exploits inspired the 1967 movie and earned the nickname "The Filthy Thirteen." McNiece died in January at the age of 93.

While the movie took liberties with The Filthy Thirteen, the real-life McNiece was no less colorful than Maj. John Reisman, the character played by actor Lee Marvin. As McNiece recalled in an interview a few years ago, he considered himself "the head troublemaker" of a group of troublemakers.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/27/186273553/jake-mcniece-wwii-hero-and-self-described-troublemaker

 

[Story]

World War Two’s Most Glamorous Spy: Christine Granville
Jul 7, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

You’ve probably never heard her name, but Christine Granville was a Polish beauty queen who had it all—courage, style, looks, and deadly skills—and she became one of Britain’s most valuable spies. Emma Garman on a new book that finally gives her remarkable life its due—and her tragic, pointless death.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...s-most-glamorous-spy-christine-granville.html

 

[Story]

10 signs your co-worker is a spy
Commentary: Why colleagues might be making it harder to do your job
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-your-co-worker-a-spy-2013-07-19

The document is an operating manual for agents and saboteurs produced by U.S. intelligence during the Second World War. It was written by the Office of Strategic Services, the fore-runner of the Central Intelligence Agency. It revealed covert techniques for undermining economic activity – originally, that of Nazi-occupied Europe.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26184/pg26184.html

Pulled directly from the manual, here are ten giveaways that your co-worker, boss or employee is a highly-trained government agent trying to undermine your company:

1. They refuse to speed things up by taking sensible short-cuts. “Insist on doing everything through ‘channels,’” the field manual advises the agent. “Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.”

2. They talk and talk and talk when you are trying to get work done. “Make speeches,” the government advises agents. “Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments….Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.”

3. They love committee meetings. “When possible, refer all matters to committees, for ‘further study and consideration,’” the agent is advised. “Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.” Then “hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.”

4. They nitpick. “Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions,” says the field manual. “Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products” and “send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw.”

5. They keep trying to re-open settled decisions. Does your co-worker frequently “refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision?” Spy.

6. They delay everything with endless worries. “Advocate ‘caution,’” the manual advises the operative who is trying to undermine an organization. “Be ‘reasonable’ and urge your fellow-conferees to be ‘reasonable’ and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.” They worry about “whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.” They “apply all regulations to the last letter.” Do you have someone in your office who acts like this? They may be a spy.

7. They grind you down with endless, pointless bureaucracy and form-filling. They “multiply paperwork in plausible ways,” according to the manual. They “multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on” and “see that three people have to approve everything where one would do.”

8. They “spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.”

9. Mismanage. Government agents in management have a powerful arsenal at their disposal. “To lower morale and with it, production,” the intelligence agency advises them, “be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.” Does your boss favor the office idiot? Do you have incompetent co-workers who are constantly getting perks or promotions they don’t deserve? Is your hard work constantly overlooked? Your boss is a saboteur secretly working for the intelligence service.

10. And if all else fails, the saboteur can simply be incompetent. “Work slowly,” the manual advises the saboteur. “Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once… Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment,” and “snarl up administration in every possible way.”