The Tiger Claw: Research and Reading
I owe any knowledge I have of Sufism to books by Hazrat Inayat Khan, Idries Shah, Coleman Barks, Anne-Marie Schimmel and William Chittick. Misunderstandings of their teachings and philosophy are my own responsibility. Andrew Rawlinson's survey of spiritual teachers from the East in The Book of Enlightened Masters provided a context for the Sufism and times of Hazrat Inayat Khan.
I am indebted to Sarah Fishman's We Will Wait, and Margaret Collins Weitz’s Sisters in the Resistance for understanding the concerns and privations of wives of French prisoners of war. I acknowledge and recommend Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France by Richard Weisberg. Among many memoirs to which I referred, Lucie Aubrac's Outwitting the Gestapo, Gaston's War by Alan Mayer, Memoirs of a Secret Agent of France by "Remy," The House Near Paris by Dorothy Blackman Tartiere, The Whims of Fortune by Guy de Rothschild and Escape from Espionage by Roland Rieul stand out. For details on Drancy I acknowledge and recommend Maurice Rajsfus' Drancy: Un Camp de Concentration tres Ordinaire and the testimonies of holocaust survivors from Yale University's Fortunoff Video archives. I appreciated background information in Les Juifs Pendant L’Occupation by Andre Kaspi, Betrayal at the Vel d'Hiv by Claude Lévy and Paul Tillard; Legacies of Dachau by Harold Marcuse, Resistance and Betrayal: a life of Jean Moulin by Patrick Marnham, Justice at Dachau by Joshua Greene, and Alice Kaplan's The Trial of Robert Brasillach. I recommend Max Hasting’s Bomber Command. Earl Beck’s Under the Bombs: the German Home Front 1942-45
provided background information on Germans experiencing WWII. The works of Amartya Sen and Paul Greenough assisted me with information on the causes and course of the 1943-45 famine in India. Details of life under the German occupation of France came from the works of many historians writing in French and English – Russo, Burrin, Paxton, Weitz and others. Also from memoirs and personal interviews. Much of my information on prices in Paris in 1943 is from Henri Amouroux’s La Vie Des Français Sous L’Occupation.
Many non-fiction books have been written about the SOE since World War II – each added something to this narrative. The collapse of SOE's PROSPER network is chronicled in the official History of the SOE, and in many other works. I recommend All the King's Men by Robert Marshall and Inside the SOE by Cookridge.
Specific citations:
| Author | Rearick, Charles, 1942- |
| Title | The French in love and war : popular culture in the era of the World Wars / Charles Rearick. |
| Publisher | New Haven : Yale University Press, c1997. |
| Author | Ethell, Jeffrey L. |
| Title | Bomber command / Jeffrey L. Ethell. |
| Publisher | Osceola, WI, USA : Motorbooks International, 1994. |
| Author | Rothenstein, William, Sir, 1872-1945. |
| Title | Men of the R. A. F. [Forty portraits with some account of life in the R. A. F., by Sir William Rothenstein; A layman's glimpse, by Lord David Cecil; a foreword by Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; a poem by John Masefield and a complete list of R. A. F. drawings by Sir William Rothenstein, November 1939 - October 1941] |
| Publisher | London, New York [etc.] Oxford university press, 1942. |
| Author | Sanchez, Thomas. |
| Title | Day of the bees : a novel / Thomas Sanchez. |
| Publisher | New York : A.A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2000. |
| Edition | 1st ed. |
| Author | Péladeau, Paul. |
| Title | On disait en France. Préface d'Edouard Montpetit. |
| Publisher | Montréal, Les Éditions Variétés, 1941. |
| Author | Malle, Louis, 1932- |
| Title | Au revoir les enfants : a screenplay / by Louis Malle ; translated from the French by Anselm Hollo. |
| Publisher | New York : Grove Press, 1988. |
| Edition | 1st ed. |
| Author | O'Toole, Christopher. |
| Title | The holiday naturalist in France / Chris O'Toole and Linda Losito ; illustrations by Paula Chasty. |
| Publisher | Lexington, Mass. : S. Greene Press, 1987. |
| Author | Hunt, Antonia. |
| Title | Little resistance : a teenage English girl's adventures in occupied France / Antonia Hunt. |
| Publisher | New York : St. Martin's Press, c1982. |
| Edition | 1st U.S. ed. |
Scenes from the End: The Last Days of World War II in Europe
by Frank Edward Manuel
A Quiet Courage: The story of SOE's women agents in France by Liane Jones (Corgi Books, 1990).
An account of the activities of English women sent to help organise the French resistance.
Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks (HarperCollins, 2000) £7.99
As a cryptographer, Marks became head of communications at SOE. This witty and engaging memoir relates the courageous determination he witnessed through his close relationships with several female agents.
Carve her name with pride by R J Minney (Newnes, 1956). Out of print but may be available through libraries.
The story of Violette Szabo, who was parachuted into France and eventually captured and shot in Ravensbruck concentration camp.
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks (Vintage, 1999) £6.99
Fictional tale of a Scottish Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent in the service of the French resistance, whose second, personal mission is to find an RAF pilot who has not returned from an operation.
Churchill and Secret Service by David Stafford (Abacus, 2000) £10.99
Churchill's fascination with code-breaking and espionage is captured in this detailed account of the rejuvenation of the British Intelligence services under his leadership.
Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan (Madelaine) by Jean Overton Fuller (East-West Publications, 1988) £5.95
A biography of one of the best-known SOE agents, whose heroism was recognised posthumously with the George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
Secret Agent: The true story of the Special Operations Executive by David Stafford (BBC Books, 2000) £16.99
Stafford focuses particularly on the criticisms and political skirmishes that hampered SOE's creation, but also relates its successes through first-person accounts from agents.
The German Penetration of SOE by Jean Overton Fuller (George Mann Books, 1996) £9.95
During her research into the disappearance of an agent, Overton Fuller exposed several government investigations and subsequent whitewashes. This fascinating work expounds the idea that British incompetence led to the deaths of many of their own secret agents.
The Life of Violette Szabo by Susan Ottoway (Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, February 2002) £19.95
A well-researched biography of Szabo who volunteered for the SOE. After being parachuted into Nazi-occupied France, she was captured by the Germans, tortured and killed in Ravensbruck concentration camp, aged only 23.
The Secret History of SOE: Special Operations Executive 1940-1945 by William Mackenzie (St Ermin's Press, 2000) £30
This highly classified official war history of SOE was commissioned by the Cabinet Office after the war and was only declassified in 1998.
The White Mouse by Nancy Wake (Macmillan, 1997) £19.99
In this vivid account of her own experiences in the SOE, Wake confirms a personality summed up well by a fellow resistance fighter, Henri Tardivat: 'She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.'
Undercover by Patrick Howarth (Phoenix Press, 2000) £9.99
As a member of SOE, Howarth wrote these accounts of SOE's agents and their trials, in order that their stories should not be forgotten as a result of the destruction of records after the war.