Plot
Professor Alan Stacy visits Jersey to complete his biography of his friend and pre-World War II fellow academic Harry Martineau, but arrives on the day of Harry's funeral. Only one mourner is present, Dr. Sarah Drayton. Invited back to her house, he is told by Sarah that the two of them worked for Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the war. She shows Stacy a photo of them posing with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and then tells the story behind the photo.
In the aftermath of the Slapton Sands disaster, Hugh Kelso, a US Army colonel, is washed ashore on Jersey, He is rescued by Hélène de Ville, who contacts London. Brigadier Dougal Munro of SOE is aware that Kelso is one of the few officers who know the details of the planned D-Day landings. He decides that Kelso must either be rescued or eliminated.
He recruits Harry Martineau, a former academic and ruthless killer, now retired, and Sarah Drayton, a nurse with connections in, and local knowledge of, Jersey. Harry is persuaded to undertake one last job. Having previously operated in Germany, he becomes SD Standartenführer Max Vogel. He is supplied with a forged letter of authority signed by Hitler and Himmler. Sarah's cover is that of Anne-Marie de la Tour, his expensive French mistress.
The two are smuggled to France and then travel to occupied Jersey. Harry sails on a naval vessel, but Sarah, as a civilian, must travel on a cargo boat commanded by Captain Guido Orsini, an Italian naval officer. Kelso is alarmed by their arrival, as he knows of Harry's reputation as a cold-blooded killer. The plan to evacuate the wounded Kelso is upset by the arrival of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel on a surprise tour of inspection. But no one in the party and only one of the German officers is aware that ‘Rommel’ is actually Corporal Erich Berger, an actor who serves as Rommel's double. The real Rommel has been drawn into a plot to assassinate Hitler and needs to be temporarily away from Germany.
A small airplane is sitting at the airfield for the weekly mail flight, but the flight cannot be commandeered except by special authority. Harry unmasks ‘Rommel’ as Berger and gets him to give that authority. Berger agrees to cooperate and reveals that he is actually Heini Baum, a German Jew who has assumed the identity of the dead Berger and has survived as a soldier.
The operation is nearly upset by the arrival of a German military policeman who holds them at gunpoint, but he is overpowered and placed in a car which is set on fire and pushed over a cliff. Sarah, Harry, Baum and Orsini, who has agreed to assist them, commandeer the plane and fly towards France. The crew are overpowered and ordered to fly to England.
The plan is discovered, too late, but a Luftwaffe night fighter is dispatched to shoot them down. One of the crew is killed, and Harry orders the pilot to drop to almost sea-level, drawing down the pursuing fighter, which crashes. They continue to England, now in radio contact with the RAF.
On landing, they are surrounded by armed soldiers. Baum rushes excitedly forward and is shot by a guard, ostensibly by accident but probably on Munro's orders. As he dies, he begs Harry to say Kaddish for him.
The action returns to the present, and Sarah reveals that she later married Orsini and lived in Florence as Contessa Orsini. She tells Stacy that Harry continued to work for SOE but was shot down by friendly fire a few months later. His body, buried in the Essex marshes, was not found until recently and he has now received a much belated burial.
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel was a German Generalfeldmarschall during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox, he served in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, as well as in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and the army of Imperial Germany.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa had prevented the Axis from advancing further into Egypt.
Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC was a British-French Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured, and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.
The German Africa Corps, commonly known as Afrika Korps, was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the formation fought on in Africa, under various appellations, from March 1941 until its surrender in May 1943. The unit's best known commander was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
Cecile Margot Lefort served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and in France for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
John Ashford Renshaw Starr, code names Emile and Bob, was a British artist and an agent in France of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II. He was the organiser (leader) of the Acrobat network which operated in Dijon. The purpose of SOE in occupied France was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance. SOE agents allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
The SOE F Section timeline lists the significant events in the history of Section F of the Special Operations Executive. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a clandestine organization of the United Kingdom during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Section F was responsible for many of SOE's activities in France which was occupied by Nazi Germany.
The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts, in Morocco and Algeria, and in Tunisia. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States officially entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942.
Sonia Olschanezky was a member of the French Resistance and the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Olschanezky was a member of the SOE's Juggler circuit in occupied France where she operated as a courier until she was arrested by the Gestapo and was subsequently executed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.
The Battle of Gazala, also the Gazala Offensive was fought near the village of Gazala during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, west of the port of Tobruk in Libya, from 26 May to 21 June 1942. Axis troops of the Panzerarmee Afrika consisting of German and Italian units fought the British Eighth Army composed mainly of British Commonwealth, Indian and Free French troops.
Englandspiel, or Operation North Pole, was a successful counterintelligence operation of the Abwehr from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. German counter-intelligence operatives, headed by Hermann Giskes of the Abwehr and Joseph Schreider of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents' radios and codes to dupe the United Kingdom's clandestine organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), into continuing to infiltrate agents, weapons, and supplies into the Netherlands. The Germans captured nearly all the agents and weapons sent by the United Kingdom (Britain).
Hotel Berlin is an American drama film made by Warner Bros. in late 1944 to early 1945 starring Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey and Andrea King. Directed by Peter Godfrey, it set in Berlin near the close of World War II, and is based on the novel Hotel Berlin by Vicki Baum.
Worldwar: Tilting the Balance is an alternate history novel by the American writer Harry Turtledove. It is the second book in the Worldwar tetralogy and in the extended Worldwar series, which includes the Colonization trilogy and the novel Homeward Bound.
The Eagle Has Flown is a book by Jack Higgins, first published in 1991. It is a sequel to The Eagle Has Landed.
Claude Marie Marc Boucherville de Baissac, DSO and bar, CdeG, known as Claude de Baissac or by his codename David was a Mauritian of French descent who was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization in France during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England.
Female Agents is a 2008 French historical drama film directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starring Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, Déborah François, and Moritz Bleibtreu. Written by Salomé and Laurent Vachaud, the film is about female resistance fighters in the Second World War. Jean-Paul Salomé, the director, drew inspiration from an obituary in The Times newspaper of Lise de Baissac, from Mauritius, one of the heroines of the SOE, named "Louise Desfontaines" in the film and played by Sophie Marceau. The film was partly funded by BBC Films.
Raymond Couraud, was a French soldier and gangster, who through his World War II military exploits became a highly decorated member of the French-section of the British Army's Special Air Service.
The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, often abbreviated BIZ, was a German weekly illustrated magazine published in Berlin from 1892 to 1945. It was the first mass-market German magazine and pioneered the format of the illustrated news magazine.
Night of the Fox is a World War II spy thriller novel by Jack Higgins, first published in 1986. It was adapted into the 1990 television film Night of the Fox, starring George Peppard as Martineau and Michael York as Erwin Rommel.
