Operations Most Secret

Little is known and much less has been written about the Malayan theatre of operations of SOE from 1942-45. In this, his second book, Ian Trenowden, working closely with the wartime commander of Force 136, Group B, has built up a surprisingly complete picture of those operations and traces the evolution of the local SOE headquarters from a single desk in London’s Baker Street to the independent Ceylon HQ which, by the end of the war had put a total of 400 British officers and other ranks into Japanese-occupied territory where they assisted local residents, armed them and planned and carried out sabotage operations. The author has drawn upon all currently available sources, and interviewed surviving participants including field operatives, staff officers and naval and air force personnel.

Little is known and much less has been written about the Malayan theatre of operations of SOE from 1942-45. In this, his second book, Ian Trenowden, working closely with the wartime commander of Force 136, Group B, has built up a surprisingly complete picture of those operations and traces the evolution of the local SOE headquarters from a single desk in London’s Baker Street to the independent Ceylon HQ which, by the end of the war had put a total of 400 British officers and other ranks into Japanese-occupied territory where they assisted local residents, armed them and planned and carried out sabotage operations. The author has drawn upon all currently available sources, and interviewed surviving participants including field operatives, staff officers and naval and air force personnel.

Ian Trenowden died in September 2012. He was an Architect and the author of three published histories of various aspects of the Second World War. This edition edited by Mark Trenowden