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.

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