The Secrets of Station 14

Briggens House, near Harlow in Essex, was one of the most important of the establishments requisitioned by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Its mission was to accomplish Winston Churchill's directive to 'set Europe ablaze', and, initially, the house was used as a finishing school for the Cichociemni, elite Polish saboteurs, to prepare to parachute into Nazi-occupied Poland. In need of false identity documents to avoid the arrest, interrogation and execution of its agents, SOE gradually built up a printing department on site and Station 14 became the organisation's False Document Section.

This is the true story of the house and its highly skilled wartime personnel, including British officers, Polish agents and the women of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. For the resident staff it was a relatively safe posting, but tension built as the Poles, fighting their own battle for Polish independence, competed for scarce resources in wartime Britain.

SOE historian Des Turner uses first-hand accounts, memoirs and official records to reveal long-forgotten stories of tragedy, humour and frustration, giving long-overdue credit to the men and women of Briggens House who were prevented by the Secrets Act from ever speaking about their wartime work.

Auteur

Des Turner trained as a draughtsman with English Electric and worked in the aircraft industry and on guided missile design as a precision instrument maker, draughtsman, engineer and procedures writer. He also briefly served in the RAF. Now retired, he has studied all aspects of the SOE since the 1970s and has amassed a large library of documents and photographs. He has previously written SOE's Secret Weapons Centre, Station 12 for The History Press. He lives in Stevenage.

Texte du rabat

Initially Briggens was established to train Poland's elite fighting force, the Cichociemni, members of the Polish Home Army who had escaped the atrocities in Poland. Here they were taught to command men, parachute, fight hand to hand and carry out acts of sabotage. When three Poles began forging false identity papers, this inspired SOE to recruit the best printers in Britain and so began the other important work of Station XIV, the forging of counterfeit documents to deceive the enemy using miniature and microphotography techniques. The forgeries had to be perfect; any error could mean arrest, interrogation, torture and assassination. Central to supporting both Briggens groups were the women of FANY who provided cooking, laundry, transport and counselling. Des Turner spent 11 years researching Briggens, and reveals the history of this important SOE station through moving human stories of bravery, courage, skill, tragedy and humour.