Product Description

The true story of women agents of the secret World War II Special Operations Executive, mandated by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze" by organizing resistance in occupied Europe during the prelude to D Day. Intrigue and heroism, adventure and betrayal figure in this account of British-led efforts to defeat the Nazis in wartime France, based on extensive research in records, documents, letters and memoirs, and the author's interviews with surviving agents and officials. Despite sporadic defeat and betrayal, SOE leaders managed to delay the arrival of German reinforcements to the Normandy beachhead, contributing to the eventual Allied victory. Details of the operations of SOE recounted here remained secret for decades after the war, finally revealing the human cost of the reconnaissance and sabotage efforts that helped to shorten the conflict.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182479 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-20
• Released on: 2008-05-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 338 pages

About the Author
Rita Kramer's previous books include Maria Montessori: A Biography, At Tender Age, Ed School Follies, and When Morning Comes. Her articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, American Heritage, Commentary, The American Spectator, the Wilson Quarterly, City Journal and other magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and abroad. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Flames in the Field Electrifies
Flames in the Field is a searing account of the heroic efforts of British and French resistance fighters during World War II. Rita Kramer manages to combine both historical detail and subtle character studies in a story that has suspenseful and surprising twists. Although the book is meticulously researched, it reads more like a spy novel that you can't put down. I recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about the unsung heroes who helped to vanquish the Nazis; the under-reported role of women in that courageous mission and the political machinations that turned heroes into pawns in a larger game plan. This book is exciting to read and an important contribution to uncovering the hidden story behind the Allied victory.

Inspiring, Heart-Rending
These stories will break your heart. Four courageous women go to their deaths after being captured one by one, usually because of treachery on the ground and sometimes stupid bureaucratic blundering in London. Rita Kramer -- whose abilities as a writer and researcher were already well established -- gives life and vitality to four forgotten heroines of history's most devastating conflict. "Flames in the Field" is a keeper.

Illuminating history
"Flames in the Field" is a mesmerizing, eye-opening account of a World War II secret operation, still little known, and of four of its women operatives. It is the most vivid kind of historical writing and though it tells a story whose terrible ending the reader knows from the beginning-- all four died in a concentration camp in France because of their work-- it reads like a mystery or suspense tale. This is a book you cannot put down, because of the tension the author maintains as she weaves together different strands from different people, places and politics. The complex tapestry that results illuminates not just the role of women in the Special Operations Executive (SOE), not just the kind of anti-Semitism that the French as well as the Nazis practiced, but the Machievellian triage that goes on in wartime, the inescapable treacheries, the score-keeping and the record-keeping, the pettinesses and the heroism. This is one of the few history books I know that I will want to read again.