Three days after Hitler formally decided to “eliminate England,” the real England found its voice. Churchill informed the War Cabinet of the creation of a body “to coordinate all action by way of subversion and sabotage against the enemy.” The body was described for the record as Special Operations Executive, otherwise known as the Baker Street Irregulars. The identity of British Security Coordination was not disclosed until the United States came into the war; its headquarters in New York was never officially acknowledged.
I had never heard of the BSC before reading this book, but it was a unique organization created to deal with a difficult environment. The US was not yet in the War. As Britain’s war efforts appeared to fail and FDR increasingly feared facing the Nazi war machine without allies, he assigned William Donovan to liaise with Britain’s William Stephenson in a sub rosa atrempt to influence the course of the war.
