Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat

This is an awesome account of so many brave men and women who had an invaluable impact on the last Great War.

We're nearing the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, but that conflict continues to exert an unyielding grip on our imaginations, as any visit to the "history" section of a bookstore will reveal. Most histories focus on the battles and invasions, or depict the war as a conflict pitting Hitler against Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt. Giles Milton's newest offering chronicles a different war: the one waged by unremarkable looking but earnest men and women laboring in factories and laboratories to supply other nondescript but earnest men and women with the tools they needed to carry out campaigns of sabotage and terror.Winston Churchill was a man of many gifts, one of the most important being his willingness to engage in lateral or "outside the box" thinking. When he became Prime Minister in the face of what seemed certain defeat in 1940 he immediately sought out and encouraged other lateral thinkers, men willing to be "ungentlemanly" by fighting off what seemed inevitable with every ingenious new trick possible. In turn these men recruited other men and women, some of them brilliant engineers and mathematicians and all of them gifted with fiendishly clever imaginations, to devise new weapons with which to fight in an underhanded manner. These weapons, often made from the most ordinary materials like candies and condoms, were then put into the hands of men who had been trained in unexpected ways to murder and maim their enemies.The exploits of these brave and ingenious fighters make James Bond films seem tame and unexceptional in comparison. Enemy ships apparently safely embargoed in neutral ports were pirated out from under their surprised crews' noses, factories were blown up while being heavily guarded by elite German troops, trains carrying vital supplies were derailed without warning, bridges spanning impossibly steep crevasses were brought crashing down by expertly placed explosives, and perhaps most importantly a Norwegian heavy water plant was sabotaged, destroying Hitler's efforts to create an atomic bomb in the process.I thoroughly enjoyed Milton's recounting of these and many other tales of heroism and valor, replete with nice little human touches here and there, including the heavy water saboteurs who kindly let a Norwegian watchman go and retrieve his glasses before blowing the factory sky-high. If, after reading Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare you are eager for more true tales of derring-do laced with brazen audacity, I suggest Milton's earlier work Russian Roulette or Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat and Rogue Heroes.

I expected this book to be a serious look into how guerrilla warfare got started and maintained in the UK during World War II, sort of a companion book to one of the serious histories about the war, but instead found a mildly interesting book mostly full of general information and memoirs. As such it was not bad, and I mostly enjoyed reading it, but the basic theme of the book seems to be that World War II was largely won by the underground guerrilla movement and I think that is wrong. None of that is meant to detract from the courage of those who were trained and inserted into occupied Europe or to disparage their efforts. Some of their actions were central to the Allied success and the people involved were heroes, one and all, but I believe that the war was largely won by the Allied infantry, armor and air arms.All of those benefitted from the guerrilla efforts and many lives were certainly saved by those same efforts, but the Das Reich Tank Division's effort to get to Normandy to oppose the landings was largely stopped by the overwhelming air superiority of the US and UK air forces. Had they travelled by train, as intended, they would have suffered from the same air attacks that stopped almost all rail operations in that area.There is some interesting information in the book about some of the covert actions, and it is worth reading, but there are also some puzzling comments. For example I have no idea what "algebraic logarithms" are supposed to be. I know about algebra, both regular and modern, and I know about logarithms, but have never heard of "algebraic logarithms". On the other hand it was interesting to learn that the shaped charge came about because of British work on explosives and the genius of some of the people involved in developing explosives for the guerrilla movement.All in all this book is a paean of praise for the efforts of a select and very courageous set of both men and women who gave all of their efforts, and in some cases their lives, to aid the Allied victory. In their own way they were every bit as brave and resourceful as the millions of soldiers, sailor and airmen and air women who fought in World War II and saved us all.

Now this developed fast....and it could only really happen in Britain where being eccentric is celebrated and sheds are places where genius occurs.When I started reading this book I was a little bit disappointed because I thought it was a book that over egged a few oddball people who really were little more than amateurs with little real impact.How wrong I was.Essentially this is the history of a small group of men and women who set up from nothing what would eventually turn into the basis for all covert operations, guerrilla warfare, secret agents, resistance movements and James Bond. And to be honest Mi(r) as it became known as were little different from what we see in the Bond movies where agents are taught how to kill and use mad professor gadgets to destroy enemy equipment.The idea came to a chap called Gubbins who at the start of the war decided what Britain needed was a group who would invent new and interesting ways to kill Germans and destroy infrastructure as well as put agents behind enemy lines to cause mayhem. He started off with one secretary and eventually developed a network of agents across Europe and a weapon development and manufacturing base that supplied everyone with novel and effective equipment. The US couldn't get enough of the stuff. Sticky bombs, anti-submarine weapons called the 'Hedgehog,' and a plethora of other stuff that could have come from a movie.On top of that this group of oddballs decided that killing Germans was not a gentlemanly sport but one that should be done as effectively as possible in order to get the job done. To that end a training camp was set up to teach the best and hardest men and women how to kill like assassins. The normal military were horrified at Gubbins ideas as they were ungentlemanly and underhand.But they were effective. From this small group came the raid on St Nasaire, the destruction of the German nuclear program in Norway, targeted destruction of factories and power plants. Put simply this is James Bond stuff for real. And of course as one Mr Ianl Flemming would draw from as he was part of the team.Even the US came and learned from these madmen. And from those early teachings the US set up their very own system with help from Gubbins team. It's now known as the CIA.Honestly, when you read this you get the impression that the Germans were doomed from the start. We often have the impression that Germany was all conquering and unbeatable man for man, but in fact the British from early on started to hit back and hit hard in such a way that Germany started to lose almost immediately. The Germans were nasty sods who killed innocents en masse but the British played far dirtier with spectacular results, leaving the German army powerless to stop it.Anyway, a truly superb book that encapsulates the generation that my grandparents belonged to and deservedly known as 'The Greatest Generation.'

Written with Boys' Own gusto - which makes for a compelling read. Based on facts which have been carefully researched, the underlying theme is the conflict between very conservative army, navy, air force Services and Civil Service chiefs, and those believing that guerrilla tactics and sabotage were essential tools to win the war. Churchill gave his full support to the latter who then enjoyed apparently unlimited funding.One of the clearest positive outcomes was the design and productions of new weapons of destruction - limpet mines, anti-tank rockets etc. - which were eventually mass-produced, and used very widely by Allied forces.The very assorted characters of the people involved in the development of the sabotage work are brilliantly portrayed: their hopes and frustrations are a particular strength of the book. Their often irregular habits were thorns in the side of those who valued conventional standards in military life.This is not intended as a balanced academic study: it is a fascinating narrative which gives important insights into WW2 structures.

Fascinating, and a valuable history lesson - even If only showing how much of the successful defeat of Hitler was due to the production of these 'ungentlemanly' devices. We hear much about Enigma, etc., and other valuable inventions (such as the Spitfire and its too-often ignored companion the Hurricane) and it is a disgrace that the Bomber Command part of the victory has been criticised and played down by facile, 'do gooder' mentalities who cannot come to terms with the practicalities of such a desperate struggle. However, with all that, I have never previously read any account of these devices and how utterly valuable they were, when used by agents abroad who were actually more effective in destroying crucial targets than the bombers. Or of the bunch of inventors, starting with a pre-war designer/builder of double/decker caravans, and the fighting men such as the designers of the famous Commando fighting knife who got 'right up the noses' of the square-headed, stuck-in-the-19th-century military mentalities, who thought all this was 'simply not cricket.'

An absolutely great book.The stories of these chaps reads like something out of Boy's Own - and yet their activities were anything but fiction.Incredible bravery and derring-do on the face of things and yet the planning, attention to detail and sheer brilliance, behind the scenes is what allowed these acts of effective guerrilla warfare to succeed.Written with pace, without overshadowing the detail, this book kept me hooked from the start to the very end. But now what...? I have to find something else to read, when I really just want to read another 500 pages of this book!I raise my glass to the gentlemen, and indeed, the many ladies whose activities are laid out within this book and can only wish I had had the chance to spend an evening in the company of these now, long-gone heroes of the past.Thank you, Mr. Milton, a great book!

This book really gripped me, so much so that I could scarcely wait for my Kindle FIre to re-charge so that I could finish reading it. The author has written a very detailed account of the creation and development of groups of saboteurs that Churchill wanted ' to set Europe ablaze' by attacking the Nazis in occupied countries using ungentlemanly methods, which were frowned on by army generals and other highly placed officials. The effectiveness of these methods was proved beyond doubt and they played a significant role in shortening the Second World War. I have read several other books by this author and enjoyed them; this book is a worthy addition to this list. Read it and be amazed by the exploits of the people involved; you will not be disappointed.