The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle - Softcover

Bailey, Roderick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845950712 ISBN 13: 9781845950712

Publisher: Vintage, 2009

Synopsis

In 1943, small teams of elite British soldiers began parachuting into the mountains of Axis-occupied Albania. They were members of Britain's Special Operations Executive, and their task was to find and arm bands of local guerillas and harass the Axis as best they could. None had been to Albania before, or knew what awaited them.

Trying to survive in extreme conditions and formidable terrain, these young Britons lived in constant danger of capture and death, and were plagued by illness, lice and frostbite. Casualties were appalling and most guerillas keener to kill each other than fight Italians and Germans. In his extraordinary new book, Roderick Bailey draws on interviews with survivors, long-hidden diaries and recently declassified files to tell the full story of this remarkable corner of SOE history and finally settle the question of whether or not British communists in SOE, perhaps even colleagues of the Cambridge spies, had conspired to betray British interests.

About this title

About the Author

Roderick Bailey is a historian at the University of Oxford where he specialises in the history of medicine and the study of war and conflict. His previous books include the Sunday Times bestseller Forgotten Voices of the Secret War and, as an official SOE historian appointed by the Prime Minister, Target: Italy – The Secret War against Mussolini. Away from academia he has worked widely as an official observer of international elections in post-conflict and post-communist countries. In 2011 he deployed to Afghanistan as a British Army reservist and was awarded a Queen’s Commendation.

From the Back Cover

This is a gripping account of two wars a rich and rounded account he has mastered a mass of complex material, and analysed it with great clarity and fairness it is hard to imagine the task being done better than this Sunday Telegraph

A tremendous work of scholarship Daily Telegraph

From the summer of 1943, small teams of elite British soldiers began to parachute into Axis-occupied Albania. They were members of Britain s Special Operations Executive, and their task was to find and support bands of local guerrillas and harass the Axis as best they could. None had been to Albania before, or knew what awaited them.

Trying to survive in extreme conditions and formidable terrain, SOE troops lived in constant danger of capture and death, and were plagued by illness, lice and frostbite. Casualties were appalling and most guerrillas seemed keener to kill each other than fight Italians and Germans. In his extraordinary new book, Roderick Bailey draws on interviews with survivors, long-hidden diaries and recently declassified files to tell the full story of this remarkable corner of SOE history and finally settle the question of whether or not British communists in the SOE, perhaps even colleagues of the Cambridge spies, had conspired to lead British policy astray.

Thanks to the excellent investigative work of Roderick Bailey we now have this gripping account of the British soldiers who fought with the partisans in occupied Albania this is an unknown but important chapter in war history, which has now found a fine chronicler Financial Times

Powerful...good to see these courageous British agents given another life in the pages of this work Daily Mail

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845950712
• ISBN 13: 9781845950712
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432