This week in 1940 was what Winston Churchill described as a "collosal military disaster" as France was invaded by Germany and British forces had to evacuate back to home shores to avoid being captured. Codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, more than 338,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940.
Following the fall of France in June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill tasked Hugh Dalton with forming SOE with the instruction to 'set Europe ablaze' by helping local resistance movements and conducting espionage and sabotage in enemy-held territories. Eighty six years later I find that I am writing up the descriptions of two recent additions to Folio Society collection; "SOE. An Outline History of The Special Operations Executive 1940-1946" and "Enigma - The Battle for the Code". These beautifully produced books capture the development of SOE, its function and how it interacted with the other security agencies such as MI5/6. They also shine a light on the history of 'Enigma', the Polish codebreakers who nearly cracked it and the 'Codebreakers of Belchley Park', who spent hours meticulously working through the mass of information coming through via radio transmitters from German troops and UBoats in the Atlantic.
If like me, you are fascinated by this period in our history then these two Folio Editions will give you an indepth understanding of how espionage and the deliberate use of misinformation helped to win the war. However, in saying that I realise that in our globally connected world, deliberate misdirection and misinformation are constantly used today as ways to influence what we read, what we say, and how we act; mmmm..a post for another day I think.
You can see and buy both books from our Collection of 'Folio Society Editions', which you will find on our home page.
https://daisyroots-book-shop-2.myshopify.com/collections/folio-editions