MI9: The History of Escape and Evasion in Europe in the Second World War.
Helen Fry
When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zig-zagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9's wartime role. Central to its success were figures such as Airey Neave, Jimmy Langley, Sam Derry, and Mary Lindell - one of only a few women parachuted into enemy territory for MI9. This astonishing account combines escape and evasion tales with the previously untold stories behind the establishment of MI9 and reveals how the organization saved thousands of lives. Helen Fry also provides a major new and exciting reassessment of MI9 as an intelligence gathering organisation on a par with MI5, MI6, Bletchley Park and GCHQ.
Book Details:
- Author: Helen Fry
- On Submission
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- UK: Yale University Press
Helen Fry
Helen Fry was raised in North Devon and went on to graduate from the University of Exeter with a degree and Ph.D. She has written over 25 books on the Second World War with particular reference to the 10,000 Germans and Austrians who fought for Britain, and intelligence, espionage and prisoners of war. Her highly acclaimed book The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of WWII was in the top 8 Daily Mail’s Books of the Year in War, and has been optioned for film. It has been the subject of numerous documentaries and continues to receive media attention.&n...
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Book Reviews
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"a finely researched appraisal of an outfit whose principal role was to help British prisoners of war to escape from enemy-occupied territory…Fry has undertaken prodigious research for her book, with much of her material coming from declassified files in the National Archives, as well as unpublished memoirs, biographies, private letters and interviews with descendants of MI9 personnel. The book is a fitting tribute to the hundreds of men and women who risked their lives in assisting Allied escapees, and a welcome salute to those who broke out of their PoW camps that they might be returned to the battlefront. "
Sunday Times