A Quiet Company of Dangerous Men

There have always been special warriors; Achilles and his Myrmidons are the obvious classical examples. What we now think of as ''special operations,'' however, were born in World War II, and one of the earliest and most exciting units formed was Britain''s SOE. In the early years of the war, when Britain stood alone against the Nazis, Winston Churchill put them on a mission to ''set Europe ablaze'': to foment local revolt, to gather intelligence, to blow up bridges, and to do anything that could help to disrupt the Axis cause. A Quiet Company of Dangerous Men follows four SOE officers who distinguished themselves in this fight: the Spanish Civil War veteran Peter Kemp, the demolitions expert David Smiley, the born guerrilla leader Billy McLean, and the political natural Julian Amery. With new and extensive research, including unprecedented access to private family papers that reveal the men''s unbreakable bonds and vibrant personalities, Shannon Monaghan has uncovered a story of war i