Revealing the back-room politics and scandal behind the birth of the Special Operations ExecutiveThe Special Operations Executive was conceived by Churchill in 1940 to "set Europe ablaze." Yet, SOE was to have many enemies at home before it was even officially sanctioned. As Britain fought for survival, SOE struggled to fend off and outwit Whitehall rivals who threatened its very existence. Revealing a back-stabbing climate of secrecy, rivalry, confusion, and duplication, this book discusses the true cost of that rivalry, the steps that were taken to snuff out SOE, and the tragic effect that a campaign to discredit SOE had upon Operation Frankton, the iconic, small-unit commando raid of World War II that has passed into military legend as the Cockleshell Heroes. In the raid, frail canoes paddled deep into the heart of enemy territory to plant limpet mines on German shipping in Bordeaux harbor in December 1942. It was a raid that cost the lives of all but two of those who took part. Had there been better liaison and cooperation between SOE and its rival, Combined Operations, Operation Frankton need never have been mounted and young lives need never have been squandered. Layer by layer, this history reveals for the first time the true and tragic story that lies behind the raid that has passed into legend.