Fluent in French and with a very well-developed political nose, Richards opens with a brilliant account of the politics of the Fall of France and how de Gaulle came to lead those Frenchmen who sought to carry on the fight. Brooks also explains the genesis of the SOE and SIS and their often prickly relationship, and difficulties of working with ... Read morethe Free French, whose initial amateurishness and woefully poor grasp of security caused endless problems. There are a number of photographs of people and boats that put flesh on the bones of the stories recounted. This is an important, permanent work of naval history - Army Rumour Service Show Less