The Wildest Province

SOE in the Land of the Eagle

Roderick Bailey

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Paperback

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English

Vintage
15 March 2009

European history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Second World War; International relations; Special & elite forces

The full story of Britain's Special Operations Executive in Albania and the extraordinary challenges and conditions they faced.

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.

By: Roderick Bailey
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 299g
ISBN: 9781845950712
ISBN 10: 1845950712
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 15 March 2009
Recommended Age: From 0 years
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Born in 1974, Roderick Bailey is a graduate of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and a former Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. His PhD looked at SOE operations in the occupied Balkans and in 2003 he was appointed to run a major project to acquire new material for the Imperial War Museum's SOE collections. He is also the author of Forgotten Voices of D-Day and Forgotten Voices of the Secret War.

Reviews for The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle

A tribute to average men with the guts to be extraordinary... The author's research is monumental * Sunday Express * Beautifully written and impeccably researched... a compelling work and by far the most comprehensive yet undertaken on the subject...The Wildest Province is a must-have acquisition for anyone remotely interested in the region, the war, its politics or the experiences of the men who fought there. I devoured the book quickly * The Times * Reminiscent of John Buchan and The Thirty-Nine Steps... Extreme stuff * Daily Mail * 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... History more breathtaking than any thriller * Sunday Telegraph * What makes Bailey's book so readable is not only his grasp of strategy but his hold on tactics and personalities.... The Wildest Province...establishes him as a modern historian of great skill... Anyone interested in human nature under stress, or problems of counter-insurgency, or sheer adventure, will read it with profit * Literary Review *