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SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944. Revised edition. By M. R. D. Foot. Portland, Oreg.: Frank Cass, 2004. ISBN 0-7146-5528-7. Maps. Photographs. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Index. Pp. xxxi, 526. $99.95.
SOE in France first appeared in 1966 (amended in 1968) as an official British government publication, at a time when documentation on World War II clandestine operations was hard to come by. Michael Foot, a well-qualified academician (University of Manchester) who had had war experience with SAS (Special Airborne Service), agreed to undertake the task of explaining what SOE was and what it did. Although hampered by incredible restrictions from officialdom, he nevertheless had exclusive access to SOE archives and to the official in-house history written by W. J. M. Mackcnsie, later edited by Foot and published in 2000. (Reviewed in JMH 65 [October 2001]: 1134-35.) Publication of SOE in France represented a first acceptance by a major government that under special circumstances (in this case French concerns), the...