Behind Enemy Lines: Gender, Passing and the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War (Cultural History of Modern War)

Juliette Pattinson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719075696 ISBN 13: 9780719075698

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2007

Behind enemy lines is an examination of gender relations in wartime using the Special Operations Executive as a case study. Drawing on personal testimonies, in particular oral history and autobiography, as well as official records and film, it explores the extraordinary experiences of male and female agents who were recruited and trained by a British organisation and infiltrated into Nazi-Occupied France to encourage sabotage and subversion during the Second World War. With its original interpretation of a wealth of primary sources, it examines how these ordinary, law-abiding civilians were transformed into para-military secret agents, equipped with silent killing techniques and trained in unarmed combat. This fascinating, timely and engaging book is concerned with the ways in which the SOE veterans reconstruct their wartime experiences of recruitment, training, clandestine work and for some, their captivity, focusing specifically upon the significance of gender and their attempts to pass as French civilians. This examination of the agents of an officially-sponsored insurgent organisation makes a major contribution to British socio-cultural history, war studies and gender studies and will appeal to both the general reader, as well as to those in the academic community.

Review:

'[a] meticulously researched and fascinating study - Behind enemy lines offers new insights into the complexities of gender relations during the Second World War ' --Helen Jones, Reviews in History

Synopsis:

This is an original contribution to the literature on gender and war, which to date has focused upon women in the British auxiliary services. It is a significant contribution to the existing literature on the SOE, which, to date, has been anecdotal, descriptive and gender-blind. It breaks new ground in this field in its extensive use of a wealth of primary sources in order to illustrate how the war impacted differently upon men and women. It adopts a uniquely interdisciplinary approach, using both oral and written personal testimony. The timeliness of this book is a key strength. There has been a resurgence of interest in texts about war recently and the SOE in particular has been a popular topic with documentary makers, authors and journalists.