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Alan Ogden has written several books on the history of S.O.E. - it was when researching its activities in Greece and the Far East that he came across the occasional scant reference to the travel writer Peter Fleming and became determined to tell the story of his hitherto little known and extraordinary wartime activities. Based in London, Alan has also lectured and written extensively on Romanian history and culture, including a monograph about Patrick Leigh Fermor in pre-war Romania. He is currently the archivist of the Grenadier Guards and a lecturer for Martin Randall Travel.
A study of the adventurer's wartime capers ... filled with details you couldn't invent. 4/5 stars. * The Daily Telegraph * Peter Fleming has been best remembered as an adventurous travel writer and brother of author Ian Fleming, making him an uncle of James Bond. In this readable account we are introduced properly to Peter Fleming, the wartime intelligence officer and master of the arts of deception against the Japanese Army in South East Asia. Alan Ogden's well researched biography reveals a little understood period in the life of an exceptional human being. * Professor Sir David Omand, former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator * Alan Ogden's masterly study of Peter Fleming, a man as brilliant as a Second World War intelligence officer (and brother of the better-known Ian) as a Times journalist, is a book about military intelligence at its best during the Second World War. Fleming's plans for 'stay behind' guerrilla units in Sussex and Kent (to fight the Wehrmacht on British soil, had the Nazis invaded Britain), his courageous (and highly explosive) acts of sabotage against the advancing German forces in Greece, as well as the intricate and intellectually refined strategies of deception and future 'Imperial Intelligence' that he developed to help win the war in the Far East, make this crisp study of the breadth and the depth of Fleming's skills a gripping introduction to the field. * Professor Anthony Glees, Director, Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, The University of Buckingham *
