When we owe so much to so few, which few are they?

I was recently walking through Waterstones to see if there was anything that took my fancy as I wasn't sure what kind of mood I was in. I looked on a stand that was advertising their "book of the month" and it is a book called Double Cross by Ben Macintyre.

I looked at the book and the premise was that the book is about the secret agents that helped to fool the Axis forces in the second world war with a focus on their actions in the lead up to D-Day.

I'm sure that the book is good, but I couldn't help but feel a little shocked that it seems to be near identical to a book that I bought and read a couple of weeks before called Operation Fortitude by Joshua Levine, which is about the exact same topic and even the covers are similar.

Basically at the end of the day, it simply means that you are spoilt for choice when it comes to books concerning the Double Cross system in WWII.

Operation Fortitude by Joshua Levine is a really good read, and one of the best parts about it is that although it is a non fiction work, it reads like a story making it very easy to plough through it.

Winston Churchill suggested that the best truths must be protected by a bodyguard of lies. That is the best way to sum up the Double Cross system that was developed by a man named Dudley Clarke.

Dudley Clarke is the man that masterminded the system for creating double agents in the war. I wish that Ken Follett had read this book before writing his book Winter of the World, which whilst amazing, is so very wrong when it discusses spies during the Spanish Civil War.

Operation Fortitude is a fascinating read that shows you how it was that a few individuals took it on themselves to spin a web of lies that the Germans would believe. In many of these cases, these men were Germans who knew that whilst their actions were traitorous they knew that Germany had to be rid of the horrors that Hitler had brought. In reading this you get to find out how it was the Germans sent so few spies to Britain because the double agents that were working in the country had created so many fake agents that the Weirmacht believed that they did not need more agents in Britain.

There are brilliant little tales such as how one agent took his money from the Weirmacht, put it down at a card table just to scare his handler, a certain Lieutenant Flemming, which would become the inspiration for Casino Royale. Or how Sir David Sterling when creating his SAS force, asked Dudley Clarke what he should call his new special forces unit. Clarke replied that he should call it the SAS as he had created a fake SAS unit to confuse the Germans in Africa and that if there was a real unit fitting the description of his fictional one, it would back up all the fake reports he was feeding the Germans. Lastly how both the camp and the board of people that regulated its activities were called Camp Twenty, as twenty in Roman numerals is XX. Shocking that the Germans never worked that one out. And of course, the rest is history.

One chapter of this book that wound me up is the over whelming evidence that Britain warned the United States that Pearl Harbour would be attacked for months before the attack but due to bungling idiot J Edgar Hoover (head of the FBI, famous for hating homosexuals and Jewish people, although himself a cross dresser and its STRONGLY hinted that he and his male assistant were overly friendly) the attacks went ahead. How no one stepped us to shoot that idiot I do not understand.

It is sad that although the people of Britain owe so much to such a few men, they have never really gained any recognition for their heroic actions. Because many of these eccentric men had to live in worlds of their own creation, they did not transition well back into normal life after the war and they also feared revenge from Germany.

A great read, I would say that it is certainly a holiday book for many.