Böcker av Bernard O'Connor

According to recently declassified documents in the British National Archives, twenty-four women were engaged to provide assistance to officers of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) working clandestinely in Italy. The oldest was 64 and the youngest was 21. The average age was 32, older than might have been expected. Of those who provided details of their occupation, five were students, three had office jobs and two were housewives. Others were a shopkeeper, teacher, dressmaker, designer and a novelist. Four were married, two were widows, two were separated and the rest were single. Two of the older women had daughters living at home who were also engaged to help SOE as couriers and escorts. Fourteen described their work as a courier but most provided other services as well, for example, providing food and accommodation for the organiser and sometimes the wireless operator; hiding supplies like explosives and arms for the partisans and providing military intelligence. One prepared sabotage material. One took photographs of sabotaged targets and another was a propagandist for the BBC. Bernard O'Connor's documentary history tells their stories, most for the first time, using personnel files, mission reports, autobiographies, biographies, history books and websites.

In February 1944, the Nazis began planning R-Netz, networks of trained espionage agents, wireless operators, saboteurs and assassins. Once the Allies invaded Western Europe, their missions were to stay behind in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Italy and Greece; to collect military, economic and political intelligence to be brought back or transmitted by wireless to their German controllers; to acquire new identity cards, currency and ration books; to locate and sabotage military and industrial targets and assassinate key military and political leaders. Operation EASTER EGG involved the burial of over 1,000 dumps of explosives and sabotage equipment before the retreat of the German forces to Germany. Only a select few knew of their existence. When British, American and Canadian troops advanced through France, some of the stay-behind agents surrendered. As counter-intelligence officers threatened them with execution as enemy agents, some revealed the location of the sabotage dumps and hidden wireless sets. Most provided details of the schools where they had been trained, their instructors, the syllabus, their missions and the names and descriptions of other students. As the Allies advanced northwards through Italy, more arrests were made which reduced the effectiveness of Hitler's R-Netz. Some destined to sabotage targets in Rome handed themselves in to the American authorities, admitted that they had been trained by the Germans, denounced others and revealed the location of the hidden explosives and sabotage material. Bernard O'Connor's Destroying Hitler's R-Netz Volume V is a documentary history which tells for the first time the human stories of the stay-behind agents in Rome, their Nazi instructors and the Allied counter-intelligence officers who helped neutralise the potentially very serious threat to the Allies' occupation plans.

In February 1944, the Nazis began planning R-Netz, networks of trained espionage agents, wireless operators, saboteurs and assassins. Once the Allies invaded Western Europe, their missions were to stay behind in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Italy and Greece; to collect military, economic and political intelligence to be brought back or transmitted by wireless to their German controllers; to acquire new identity cards, currency and ration books; to locate and sabotage military and industrial targets and assassinate key military and political leaders. Operation EASTER EGG involved the burial of over 1,000 dumps of explosives and sabotage equipment before the retreat of the German forces to Germany. Only a select few knew of their existence. When British, American and Canadian troops occupied Southern Italy, some of the stay-behind agents surrendered or were denounced and captured. As counter-intelligence officers threatened them with execution as enemy agents, ome revealed the location of the sabotage dumps and hidden wireless sets. Most provided details of the schools where they had been trained, their instructors, the syllabus, their missions and the names and descriptions of other students. As the Allies advanced northwards, more arrests were made which reduced the effectiveness of Hitler's R-Netz. But there were other reasons why the stay-behind agents failed to achieve their German masters' dreams. Bernard O'Connor's Destroying Hitler's R-Netz Volume IV tells for the first time the human stories of Nazi intelligence officers, their stay-behind agents in Italy and the Allied counter-intelligence officers who helped neutralise the potentially very serious threat to the Allies' occupation plans.

'There's Life in Pattingham, Staffordshire' provides insight into the lives of people who lived, worked and died here since newspapers were published nearly three centuries ago. It includes articles on births, engagements, marriages, divorces, accidents, deaths, crime, sport, leisure activities, auctions and sale particulars.

Following Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain negotiated an agreement with their Soviet ally to supply them with military aid. There was also a secret agreement to bring Soviet agents on the Arctic convoys back to Scotland and facilitate their infiltration into occupied Western Europe. The Special Operations Executive, a top-secret British organisation established under Winston Churchill's order to "set Europe ablaze by sabotage," was tasked with the mission. They created a Russian Section and its Director was keen to recruit Russian-speakers to assist them, some to provide intelligence on the Soviet Union, some to help identify other potential recruits and others to be trained as secret agents and be infiltrated behind enemy lines.White Russians, men and women who had emigrated from Russia and settled in Britain were identified. Others who had settled in France but escaped to Britain following Germany's invasion were investigated. It was from this group that Britain looked to recruit agents for espionage and subversion. Four members of the Russian nobility were considered but investigation by Britain's Intelligence Services revealed that they or their families had close contacts with people connected to the Germans. This mitigated against their recruitment. Two brothers from a medical family were vetted successfully and were recruited. Both were sent to work with Force 136, an SOE military organisation in Southeast Asia. One of them was awarded the MBE for his work in India and Malaya. A father and son, both professional wrestlers, joined SOE and taught unarmed combat, one in Canada, one in Italy. One of them received an MBE for his efforts.Two had escaped to China where, recruited by SOE for action against the Japanese, they assisted the British in Shanghai, Hongkong and Chungking. Both were evacuated to India and one subsequently worked in Cairo. Of the three who received full SOE training, one was eventually found unsuitable to be infiltrated behind enemy lines so was transferred to the Americans for Allied propaganda work. Another was infiltrated into France to work with the resistance in liberating their country. He received the King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom. The last was sent first to Serbia and then to India where the work he did led to him being awarded the MBE. Bernard O'Connor's 'Churchill's Russian Secret Agents' tells these unusual stories for the first time.

'Nobby' Clarke, after leaving Greenwich Hospital School, fought in France and Italy during the First World War, winning a Military Cross. Settling in Bedford, he set up the Low Loading Company in the 1920s. His inventive skills came to the attention of Stuart Macrae, entrusted by the War Office at the beginning of the Second World War in manufacturing explosives. Nobby went on to command a special training school at Brickendonbury Manor, near Hertford, where secret agents destined for occupied Europe learned some deadly skills.His son John, who attended Bedford School, described life in wartime Bedford and provided a detailed insight into his father's activities. Using these, Macrae's autobiography and other contemporary sources, Bernard O'Connor sheds light on one of Bedford's lesser known wartime heroes.

After years of economic depression, when Adolph Hitler came to power in the 1930s he re-armed Germany's army, navy and air force. Even before war broke out, French and Polish intelligence requested British assistance in restricting German imports of oil from Romanian oilfields. They wanted help to sabotage the barge 'tankers' carrying oil up the River Danube to Austria and then down the River Rhine to Germany's industrial heartland. Reducing oil reaching German refineries would mean less fuel for their warplanes, their submarines, warships, tanks, trucks and military transport. The British Ministry of Economic Warfare devised plans for Section D, the sabotage organisation of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), to blow up the cliffs of the Iron Gates gorge and block the Danube by sinking barges carrying cement and scrap iron. They transferred French and British barges to Turkey and devised plans to pay tug boat pilots not to work for the Germans. Bernard O'Connor's 'Blowing up the Danube' is a documentary history which includes declassified correspondence between the Foreign Office, SIS, the War Office, Section D, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Political Warfare Bureau, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force operating in the Mediterranean and, from July 1940, the Special Operations Executive, a top secret subversive organisation ordered by Winston Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze by sabotage.' It also uses contemporary newspaper reports and post-war historical research, biographies and autobiographies to provide a day-to-day account of the successes and failures of British intrigues in the Balkans during the Second World War.

In the two centuries after the Norman invasion, Britain's population more than tripled. Demand for food meant more land had to be brought under cultivation. As the climate was generally warmer than it is today, it was possible to grow cereals and vegetables on higher land. On the Clee Hills in Shropshire, between Ludlow and Bridgnorth, woods were cleared and the timber used in the construction of new houses. Boulders and rocks were moved from the soil and used for building walls. The newly exposed soil was ploughed, seeded, weeded and harvested to feed the growing population. Many new settlements grew up on the slopes below abdon Clee, Clee Burf and Titterstone Clee. Some of them are still in existence but a number have been deserted. Studying deserted medieval villages began in the 1960s and Maurice Beresford, Trevor Rowley, Neha Patil and other historians and archaeologists have researched and written about those in Shropshire. Whilst many believe that the Black Death was responsible for massive rural depopulation, there were a number of other reasons why people deserted these settlements including economic hardship due to climate change, crop failures, animal diseases and wealthy landowners wanting the land for sheep grazing, for parkland and to remove unsightly buildings which spoilt their view.Bernard O'Connor's Deserted Medieval Settlements on the Clee Hills uses extracts from books, the Alchetron, OpenDomesday, the Victoria County History, Shropshire History, British History, Historic England, English Heritage and other websites to detail the deserted settlements of Abdon, Ashfield, Balsam's Heath, Bitterley, Bockleton, Broncroft, Brookhampton, Lower Cleeton, Cleestanton, Coldgreene, Cold Weston, Corfham, Corfton, Culmington, Ditton Priors, Downton, Egerton, Heath, Holdgate, Kinson, Lackstone, Lawton, Leverdgrene, Lydehole, More, Neen Savage, Newton, Great Oxenbold, Shipton, Ruthall, Shipton, Thonglands, Tugford, Wheathill, Witchcot and Yelds.

Built in the 1660s and named the Blue Boar Inn in 1637, this Ludlow pub has served the local community for nearly four hundred years. Local author Bernard O'Connor's 'There's Life in the Blue Boar' includes hundreds of articles from local and national newspapers and extracts from websites which provide a fascinating insight into the life and times of the landladies, landlords, staff and customers of this unique pub. It includes stories of auctions, inquests, meetings, sports club results, drunkenness, assaults, thefts, arguments over rights of way and more.

Britain allied with Russia and France during the First World War but the October Revolution in 1917, the Russian Civil War and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 led to a decline in diplomatic relations. Although the Soviet Union was allowed an embassy in London in 1924, the British Embassy in Moscow did not open until 1929. The economic depression during the 1930s was accompanied with widespread political disagreements. Left-wing opposition to right-wing policies led to demonstrations, strikes and in some cases violence. The more conservative political parties viewed the Communist Party as a threat. Although some countries made membership of a communist party illegal, the British conservative government instructed its Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to collect information about its membership and activities and to identify and potentially defuse threats. Adolf Hitler's annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 led Joseph Stalin to offer to move Soviet military forces to the German border to support France and Britain. As it would entail movement through Poland, the offer was refused. Fearing a Russian attack, Hitler ordered Joachim Ribbentrop, his Foreign Secretary, to meet Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Secretary, and negotiate a ten-year peace deal with the Soviet Union. It included a secret agreement to divide Eastern Europe between them. Having invaded Norway, the Low Countries and France in June 1940, the German armed forces failed to invade Britain. Winston Churchill ordered the creation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a subversive intelligence organisation with a mission 'to set Europe ablaze by sabotage.' In June 1941 Hitler reneged on his agreement with the Soviet Union and ordered Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of Russia. This prompted urgent meetings between Britain and the Soviet Union which led to a top-secret agreement between the two countries and their intelligence services having to collaborate for the first time. Bernard O'Connor's 'The decline of Anglo-Soviet relations during the Second World War' is a documentary history which uses previously classified files in the British National Archives and other sources to investigate the collaboration between the British Foreign Office, the SIS and the SOE with the Soviet intelligence service, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

96-year-old Doreen Roberts is the oldest resident of Bouldon, a hamlet of fourteen houses and a dairy farm at the foot of the Brown Clee in Shropshire.Born in Brighton in 1926, she grew up in London, Birmingham, Guernsey and Weston-super-Mare. She came from a theatrical family but, not having a singing voice like her mother and grandmother, had drawing talent. She studied part-time at the Central London Art School and worked in a book shop and Rowney's art supplies factory before getting seasonal work at Glyndebourne Opera House in Sussex. She later worked full time in the wig room at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden before giving up to marry Norman Roberts, a canal boat builder in Birmingham. They retired to live a quiet secluded life in 1984 where she joined the Corvedale Artists and, over the years, exhibited many of her drawings and watercolours.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O'Connor's four-volumed 'SOE Bonzos' has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of over fifty anti-Nazis who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Volume One includes the stories of Heinz Doring, Alois Buchtik, Paul Penczok and Alfred Lengenfeld. Some succeeded in getting back to Britain. It provides details of the successes and failures of their missions and includes accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE's German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, the Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O'Connor's four-volumed 'SOE Bonzos' has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of over fifty anti-Nazis who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Volume Two includes the stories of Johann Hoch, Gerhard Taplick, Will Vonderheidt, Erich Klau, Horst Weber, Werner Porzig, Andreas Wiedemann, Heinrich Wellings, Valentin Raab and August Kunzig. Some succeeded in getting back to Britain. It provides details of the successes and failures of their missions and includes accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE's German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, the Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O'Connor's four-volumed 'SOE Bonzos' has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of over fifty anti-Nazis who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Volume Three includes the stories of Pierre Dehe, also known as Peter Eidt, Georg Friedrich, Peter Schloder, Karl Guss, Alfred Von Bovert, William Wiechern and Will Mattner. Some succeeded in getting back to Britain. It provides details of the successes and failures of their missions and includes accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE's German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, the Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O'Connor's four-volumed 'SOE Bonzos' has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of over fifty anti-Nazis who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Volume Four includes the stories of Wilhelm Borstelmann, Peter Kaumanns, Jakob Bauer, Walter Ryplewitz, Werner Piske, Erich Behl and Jakob Bauer, Erich Ballion, Heinz Bleich, ? Gaertner, Gunter Traulsen, Hermann Niebuhr and Herbert von Scheven.. Some succeeded in getting back to Britain. It provides details of the successes and failures of their missions and includes accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE's German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, the Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany.

After the attack on Pearl Harbour the US joined the war and President Roosevelt allocated a USAAF Squadron to help the RAF in supplying the resistance in occupied Europe. Known as the 'Carpetbagges', this squadron had to spend a month at RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire UK (Churchill's MOST SECRET Airfield) learning how to fly without lights during the moon period to parachute supplies and secret agents behind enemy lines. This book details the origins of William Donovan's Office of Strategic Services and their work in Britain as well as providing accounts of their missions and the experiences of the Carpetbaggers at what they called 'The Tempsford Academy'.

In June 1941, Britain's Royal Navy sank a German meteorological observation ship in the Arctic to obtain the codes it used to send messages to German U-Boats. Richard Kuehnel, one of the captured crew, informed his interrogators that he was anti-Nazi, provided them with naval intelligence and volunteered to work against Hitler's regime. Accompanied by a German-speaking 'minder', he was accommodated in the vicarage at Bayford, near Brickendonbury Manor, Hertfordshire, a specialist industrial sabotage school run by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's top-secret clandestine warfare organisation. He was trained and equipped for Operation CHAMPAGNE, a sabotage and subversion mission in Hamburg. In April 1942, he was taken by a British trawler to the Norwegian coast, a small fishing boat was lowered into the sea which he then sailed to Bergen. Although two messages were sent in secret ink, the British never found out what happened to Keuhnel. A message from Norway in November 1942 suggested he had not been able to complete his mission and needed help to return through Sweden and Norway to Britain. As some of the detail contradicted what they knew, SOE were dubious. They thought he was an agent provocateur and instructed their Scandinavian contacts to have nothing to do with him Using primary sources from Kuehnel's personnel and mission files, Operation CHAMPAGNE sheds light not just on the changing fortunes of Britain's first German secret agent but also on the mind-set of intelligence officers working round the clock in their attempts to fight a war against the Nazis. Bernard O'Connor has managed to discover what British Intelligence failed to do in 1945. He has located German sources which shed some light,

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain's TOP SECRET subversive organisation during the Second World War, were informed before and after D-Day that some surrendered or captured German prisoners of war who had been brought to camps in England claimed not to be supporters of Hitler. They had been compelled to join the Wehrmacht, the German army, and, when asked, volunteered to be trained and infiltrated back into Germany by the Allies on sabotage, subversion and assassination missions. Bernard O'Connor's 'SOE BONZOS' has used recently released personnel files, country section correspondence, training reports and mission papers to tell for the first time the stories of about sixty prisoners who were brave enough to return to Germany on secret operations. Eight, termed PERIWIG BONZOS, were selected for similar missions which involved making contact with members of the German resistance. Such an organisation did not exist but SOE had a plan to convince the Gestapo that it did thereby diverting attention from the Allies' invasion plans. Three were reported to have been dropped with faulty parachutes and documents implicating leading Germans as members of a resistance group which used the symbol of a prancing horse. 'SOE's PERWIG BONZOS' is a documentary history which provides details of Gerhard Bieneke, Leonhardt Kick, Otto Heinrich, Frans Lengnick, Kurt Tietz, Siegel, Ciesinski and Schiller, the successes and failures of their missions and accounts of conditions in Germany towards the end of the war. There are also details of SOE's German Section officers who planned the operations, having to negotiate with the Bayswater Interrogation Section, SOE's Training, Camouflage, Forgery, Finance and Quartermaster Sections; officers in other country sections; the American Office of Strategic Services; the RAF who arranged parachute drops and the Special Forces operating with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force operating in France, Belgium and Germany. Visit Bernard O'Connor's author page: www.lulu.com/spotlight/coprolite