Spies, Supplies and Moonlit Skies, Volume II: The French Connection, April-June 1944: Code Name Neptune During the critical period of World War II leading up to D-Day the United States Army Air Forces activated the first Air Special Operations Group for clandestine activity against the Nazi enemy in Occupied Europe. While the daylight Bombardment and Fighter Groups of the Army Air Forces cleared the skies of Nazi planes in a brutal war of attrition before the invasion, the 801st Bombardment Group, on night operations from their secret base near Harrington in the United Kingdom dropped supplies and agents to the Resistance forces of Europe in preparation for D-Day on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944. This is their story. A brief comment from a well-known author of 8th Air Force History, received on 17/02/2005 via email: Dear Thomas Ensminger, Yesterday I was surprised and delighted to receive the copy of your Volume II. What an amazingly comprehensive work this is, and it obviously took a great effort and much time to produce. It certainly is THE reference for Carpetbagger activities and finds a welcome place on my library shelves. Congratulations to you and your team for this superb contribution to the history of the Second World War and the sterling work of the Carpetbaggers. Sincere thanks, Roger A. Freeman 8th Air Force Historian

The book describes the problems of instigating resistance in France and the slow development of the clandestine warfare and special operation forces, equipment, training, delivery, communication, command, control and intelligence techniques.It covers the wide variety of organizations involved including OSS, SAS, US Operational Groups, Polish 'Bardsea' teams, Jedburgh and Sussex teams, Inter-Allied Missions, MI9, Evasion and Escape Groups, Special duties/Carpet Bagger Air Delivery Squadron, The Secret Flotillas and Radio security and surveillance services.The book starts at close of Operation Dynamo and ends with Operation Titanic, the SAS deception ploys and the last of the pre-invasion activities.

He was born in Buenos Aires and educated in Geneva and Cuba. He was a daring WWII paratrooper who parachuted behind enemy lines on D-Day. He was a handsome, charming man who briefly worked as a Hollywood stuntman. He was also a spy who may have killed John F. Kennedy. The shocking new book Target JFK reveals page-after-page of incredible, never-before-reported evidence that a mysterious Argentinian with a stranger-than-fiction life story is the missing link in the assassination mystery that has puzzled America for half a century.

SOE agent Violette Szabó was one of the most incredible women who operated behind enemy lines during the Second World War. The daughter of an English father and French mother, and widow of a French army officer, she was daring and courageous, conducting sabotage missions, being embroiled in gun battles and battling betrayal. On her second mission she was captured by the Nazis, interrogated and tortured, then deported to Germany where she was eventually executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Violette was one of the first women ever to be awarded the George Cross, and her fascinating life has been immortalised in film and on the page. Written by her daughter, Violette (formerly Young, Brave and Beautiful) reveals the woman and mother behind this extraordinary hero.

Special Operations Success establishes a new benchmark in military theory in this deeply analytic and innovative work. It answers several pressing questions: How successful have American special operations been over the past quarter-century? Are special forces fated to cycles of expansion and misuse? Will special forces invariably exceed the authorities granted to them because of they are? Is a general theory of special operations feasible given the range of activities and conditions that fall under the category? Kiras' work is based on two decades of practical, teaching, and consulting experience within different special operations communities, and its analysis and conclusions are designed to inform practitioners, policymakers, educators, and the general public. The book develops a framework, in the form of a theory comprising capabilities and control, for the comprehensively evaluating special operations success, and is divided into three parts: Part I lays the foundation for a general theory of special operations, Part II explores the two component parts of theory, capabilities and control, and Part III uses various aspects of the theory, depending on available information, to assess the success of special operations over a twenty-year period in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States.

This study, first published in 1966, has been updated from closed government records, to offer a more complete overview of the activities of the SOE and how it fitted into the Allied war effort in the French theatre of operations.