Princess Fuzzypants here: We just watched a very good show on women agents behind the lines during WW II so this book was a timely read. It was dangerous enough to be a common or garden spy but add in the complexities of the machinery and the difficulty in transporting it and keeping its location hidden and you have danger on steroids.

It took some courageous, resourceful and dedicated individuals to gather information, convert it into code and then send it back to the people who could make good use of it. In many cases nerves of steel does not begin to describe it. These people needed to be trained to be good agents as well as technicians. One could not call up a service repairman if something went wrong. In this area, the British were the gold standard in training and while credit is often glossed over in favour of a good book or movie, even the Americans could not have succeeded behind enemy lines without their assistance in training.

The book does a good job of telling the stories of different fronts and the people who got out reconnaissance crucial to the war effort. The conditions in which they toiled were quite different but the cost of failure was the same- a gruesome and often excruciating death. The odds of coming home safely were not great but these heroes did it anyway.

Kudos to the brave souls who did the job and kudos in telling their stories. Four purrs and two paws up.

4.5 stars

“The radio specialists were the first in, the first out and, if caught with their equipment, the first to be killed.”

This book details the lives of some of the bravest and most high-skilled individuals in WWII: those who dared to operate radios behind enemy lines, transmitting highly important information about the enemy to the allies.

Unlike the rest of the books I have read in the past about radio operators in WWII (there have been many), this one is not restricted to descriptions of agents working in occupied France. While Hebditch details the actions of agents in Central Europe, he also conducted research regarding agents from many different countries operating in Northern Europe and the Pacific Theatre.

“As if in defiance of their original life expectancy, many of these gallant individuals lived on into their eighties and nineties.”

The amount of research that went into this book was incredible. Hebditch manages to cover the individual backstories of many agents and go into detail about the technical aspects of cryptology and radio transmission in the 40s. For anyone who enjoys historical fiction about this topic, this is a great introduction to the nonfiction side. If you’ve already read a lot on the subject, Hebditch goes beyond the areas and actors usually discussed in this subgenre. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more. It is also a great book for those who love reading books that make you want to pick up a million more books about individuals or events mentioned in passing.

Thank you so much to Pen & Sword and Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book tells the story of radio agents in WWII, which is a story not often told. It covers agents all over Europe as well as the Solomon Islands.

Well researched and meticulous detail are the hallmark of this book. There are tales of derring-do interspersed with logistical nightmares and the sad end of some of the radio agents. Being a radio agent was very risky work and there are a lot of soldiers who owe their lives to these men and women.

I particularly liked the story of Tommy Macpherson - what a character! And I am considering learning morse, now that I know you can do a course online. Talk about melding 20th century smarts and 21st century technology.

Enjoyable book! Dare I say it - quite a nerdy one. If you are a radio enthusiast, you will love it. Or someone who loves cyphers and codes.

5 stars from me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pen & Sword.

An excellent, well-written book about covert radio operations during WWII. It is apparent the author went to great lengths to research available materials about the individuals and operations and training aspects of covert radio operatives. Vast amounts of details about covert radio operatives left me with a lot to reflect upon and added greatly to my knowledge about this aspect of the war.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book to read and review. The opinions expressed here are my own honest opinions written voluntarily.

A solid, thorough read about exactly what you think it's about: covert radio operatives during WWII. The book is organised by chapter to deal with the various fronts of the war, ranging from Norway to Australasia before landing in the USSR and France. This structure makes for a wide-ranging read, kept manageable by the relatively narrow subject matter, and I appreciated the commitment to a comprehensive approach. That said, the narrow focus does mean that I suspect a reader would benefit most from this book by having some prior knowledge. This is not to say that anyone could not pick up this book and have a fun time! But I have done prior research into SOE operations and the Shetland Bus program, which I feel served me well in the Norway chapter; I know very little about Soviet intelligence operations and consequently felt a little lost in the Soviet chapter. This is not necessarily a failing of the book, just something for potential readers to take into account. The tone meanders between factual and narrative, with the author juggling the telling of facts with the telling of stories. I thought this was accomplished well; I was absorbed throughout. Occasionally the factual tone was abandoned to throw some shade (cough, William Colby), and I did enjoy this as well.

The eighth and final chapter of the book is a series of technical briefings which explain how the radios and technologies of the time worked, including a lengthy explanation of several ciphers of which I understood very little. I do not understand the Playfair cipher and I suspect I never will! I understand the polyalphabetic cipher, but this is likely only because I have read Bitterblue several times. Apparently the antennae of 1940s radios could be extended 18m to catch signal, which I found very funny. I wish my phone had an 18m antenna, maybe Optus would do a better job of giving me my data that I pay for. Anyway, the author recommends at the start of the book to maybe go and read that part first, and having not followed his suggestion I now support it - I probably would have been better off.

The most important thing this book taught me was that Australian radios and all their attendant necessities weighed 168kg and required 12 men!!!! to move anywhere. This is incredibly cursed. Their SOE contemporaries were parachuting into Europe with their radios attached to them??? I understand that portability was not as large a priority as protection from fungus, but surely there is a happy medium between "suitcase-sized" and "requires 12 men to move". I have wailed to several friends about this fact already and will certainly bring it up in as many future conversations as I can. For this alone I think this book was worth reading. I hope other readers also find their own deeply cursed factoids to bring out of it. Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Very well written book, lots of details, gives a good sense of the training and amount of pression these agents went on during war. I love to learn more about the war time and how people lived in that time.

Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via netgalley!

Fascinating book into the covert radio agents! The author researched well this book and educates us on how they trained, their jobs/ duties and the risks they took! Highly recommended for history buffs!

Author David Hebditch published the book “Covert Radio Agents, 1939–1945: Signals From Behind Enemy Lines” in 2021 (April). Mr. Hebditch has published three books.

I categorize this book as ‘G’. The book tells the stories of several covert radio agents acting behind enemy lines in WWII. Most served in the European Theater of Operations, but a few are from the Pacific.

Included is a chapter that provides many details on the equipment used. Details of the procedures are also included. Allied agents followed strict rules to send and encrypt their messages. The German radio direction finding units had their own rules to follow.

I enjoyed the 8.5 hours I spent reading this 320-page WWII history. I had read about some of the activities before, but this book certainly contained a lot of new material. I found the technical details towards the end of the book to be particularly interesting. You will find this book of special interest if you are researching SOE & OSS activities during the war. I do like the chosen cover art. I give this book a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.

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