JOSEPH PERSICO - Piercing the Reich. The Penetration of Nazi Germany By OSS Agents During World War II

London England, Michael Joseph, 1979. First Edition, Binding: Cloth, Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0718117832 Hardback After the successful invasion of France in 1944 and Hitler's refusal to surrender, it became imperative for the Allies to learn what was happening in the most thoroughgoing police state the world has ever known. How the Office of Strategic Services achieved the impossible by infiltrating the Third Reich with more than two hundred agents is one of the most heroic and ingenious chapters in the history of Intelligence. This was a far more perilous operation than the well-known earlier penetrations of occupied Europe with the help of sympathetic native resistance groups, and it remained in top secret files until the thirty-year limit expired in 1976. The many missions, from the tragedy of four agents and a traitor parachuted into Austria, to the boldest of all, the dropping of men into Berlin itself, are recounted with a force and suspense more usually found in fiction. The infinitely painstaking and imaginative preparations, involving the creation of new identities with forged German documents and authentic clothing bought from refugees, and the monitoring arrangements, also make a magnificent story. In his determination to pay just tribute to these remarkable men and women, Joseph E. Persico researched thousands of hitherto secret documents and tirelessly traced and interviewed survivors. Illustrated.