The Hidden Army: MI9’s Secret Force and the Untold Story of D-Day
Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne reveal MI9’s Operation Sherwood and the helpers who sheltered 152 airmen for D-Day.
- Author
- Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne
- Publisher
- John Blake Publishing
- Price
- £18.99
- ISBN
- 9781912624086
- Published
- 2018
The Hidden Army: MI9’s Secret Force and the Untold Story of D-Day by Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne
This study shines a light on MI9’s Operation Sherwood, the secret camps hidden in the Forêt de Fréteval that sheltered 152 Allied aircrew within sight of a German ammunition dump. Airey Neave, Lucien Boussa and local Resistance organisers orchestrated the concealment of evaders while wet-wood smoke signals warned of enemy patrols.
Richards and Langthorne revisit the escape lines that fed the camp, from Comète to Shelburn, and the tense relationships between Belgian agents, American airmen and British planners. The book follows the liberation of the forest by reconnaissance patrols under Captain Peter Baker and the subsequent relief columns led by Neave and the US Army.
An engrossing tribute to the helpers whose courage underpinned the success of D-Day.
John Blake Publishing. £18.99. ISBN 9781912624086.