Tag archives for WW2
Into Darkness [WW2 SOE] – June Write Club Story
Into Darkness is the story I wrote for June's Write Club, which is a local group to encourage us to write and share feedback with each other. There were eight stories this month, which is the third time the group has met, but the first time I've managed to join. I did submit a story for the first time, and wrote one for the second time but it got way over the word count and I didn't send it in. I found it a very friendly and supportive group, and it was a pleasure to read the stories that the others had written. The theme was to write something involving a letter. Write Club meets on the second Saturday of the month, with the stories due in a week before that. Right now it's meeting via zoom, although that wasn't…
Sticky End [Flash Fiction] [WW2 SOE]
Sticky End is my flash fiction for the first round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge this year. The first round was last weekend and the group I'm in were assigned a spy genre story to be set in a prison cell and featuring glue. The story had to be under one thousand words and written within 48 hours. (Last year I wrote Down the Harbour and Burning to Leave for the 2017 flash fiction challenge). I spent a bit of Saturday thinking about it, the hard bit for me was trying to work in the glue naturally and believably. Some help from Google showed me that the WW2 Special Operations Executive (SOE) used to include tubes of bostik adhesive in the containers that they dropped to the Jedburgh teams. The bostik was used to camouflage improved explosive devices…
What if? Building an alternate history
Photograph of Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States, with an unidentified officer, at the - NARA - 199243 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Last week I had dinner with a friend who asked me a "what if?" question that set me thinking about building an alternate history for a game and a story. We were talking about SOE in the spring and summer of 1944. The period is rich in possibilities and decisions for players on a game. However there's an awful lot of hindsight getting in the way of being able to properly game the period. The Problem with Hindsight The invasion is inevitable, and even when previous games have given the allies latitude over where and when the German players don't act the way the Germans did. It's impossible to create the same uncertainty in the German High…
Vera Atkins: A Life in Secrets by Sarah Helm [Book Review]
A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. by Sarah Helm My rating: 5 of 5 stars A Life in Secrets has been on my shelf for a few years. I've had an interest in SOE since I read Carve Her Name With Pride when I was about 11. Since writing Hunting Nazis I've collected more and more material about SOE with the background thought that I might write some more historical fiction with the same characters. Vera Atkins: A Life in Secrets Vera Atkins in 1945 as a WAAF officer (but still serving with SOE) I found A Life in Secrets a very thorough piece of investigation by Sarah Helm. It builds on what has come before, especially the work of Jean Overton Fuller and adds to it using primary research with documents, interviews and…
Woman in Arms by Russell Braddon [Book Review]
Woman in Arms by Russell Braddon My rating: 4 of 5 stars Nancy Wake (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I re-read this over the holidays. Woman in Arms is one of the books I've owned the longest of those on my shelves. The story is just as remarkable now as it was when I first read Woman in Arms around 1990. Nancy Wake was born in NZ, grew up in Australia and moved to France where she worked as a journalist before WW2. She married a frenchman just after the outbreak of WW2 and worked to help people escape from the nazis. Eventually the Gestapo were after her and she too escaped to London. She then trained as an SOE agent and went back in 1944 to wreak havoc between the invasion and liberation. Woman in Arms Woman in Arms was originally…