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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger by Hall, Roger - 2004

by Hall, Roger

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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger by Hall, Roger - 2004
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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger

by Hall, Roger

  • Used
  • very good
  • Paperback
  • first
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004. Reprint Edition. First Bluejacket Books Printing [stated]. Trade paperback. very good. 219, [5] pages. Wraps. Reprint of the edition originally published in 1957. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a wartime intelligence agency of the United States during World War II, and a predecessor of the modern Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning. The author was an American Army officer assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. Roger Hall, wrote a memoir of his wartime years in the secret service - You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (1957) - that was thought so frivolous, even subversive, in Eisenhower's America, that CIA officers greeted new recruits by pointing to the offending object and saying: "We don't want this to ever happen again." Across the following half century its account of US preparations for descent into Europe to aid resistance forces became a much sought-after work, and has been reissued. Mr. Hall's 1957 bestseller, dedicated "to whom it may concern," was based on his time in the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime precursor to the CIA. The appeal was in Mr. Hall's narrative as a man of nerve battling the enemy and his pompous superiors. Hayden Peake, a former Army intelligence and CIA agent and an authority on the literature of intelligence, called the book "one of the best OSS memoirs," saying it was written by "someone who could perform [dangerous work] but was a kind of a free spirit." Critic Charles Poore, writing in the New York Times in 1957, called the memoir "the funniest (unofficial, that is) record of rugged adventure in the O.S.S." The son of a Navy captain, Mr. Hall grew up in Annapolis. He said the OSS book was not meant to show "contempt for authority, but bridling at authority." Mr. Hall described himself as an ideal match for the OSS, which was interested less in formal military expertise than in recruiting agents who could use their wits and innovation in sticky situations to win the war. "There were no parameters, and you did what the hell you wanted, up to legal and military limits," he told The Washington Post in 2002. "The more creative you were, the more they liked it." One of his favorite OSS stories involved a colleague sent to occupied France to destroy a seemingly impenetrable German tank at a key crossroads. The French resistance found that grenades were no use. The OSS man, fluent in German and dressed like a French peasant, walked up to the tank and yelled, "Mail!" The lid opened, and in went two grenades. Mr. Hall learned guerrilla warfare at Congressional Country Club, which the OSS had taken over for training, and infiltrated a Philadelphia circuit breaker plant on a test run. He not only got a job at the plant, but the handsome trainee also wangled a date with a woman in the personnel office who happened to be the company vice president's daughter. His made-up identity included a falsehood about being wounded while parachuting into Sicily, and the vice president was so taken with his bravery that he invited Mr. Hall to speak at a company war bond rally. He did the job so well that news of his rousing speech was published in a local paper. "You're supposed to be a spy, not a bond salesman," an OSS companion said. Mr. Hall spent much of the war in Great Britain, training and working alongside a motley gang of paratroopers: new recruits, war-hardened Poles and the occasional rising star, such as future CIA director William E. Colby. (He later was an usher at Colby's first wedding.) Ultimately, Mr. Hall arrived in a war zone, the little-known but strategic Norwegian theater of operations. "Operation Better-Late-Than-Never," he called it. One of his tasks was to oversee the surrender of thousands of Germans to his small contingent. Mr. Hall said the German colonel who surrendered to him pulled out a ceremonial dagger and told Mr. Hall that his men were like blades -- temporarily sheathed. Mr. Hall grabbed the dagger and broke it on the ground with his feet, one of his proudest dramatic moments.
  • Bookseller Ground Zero Books US (US)
  • Format/Binding Trade paperback
  • Book Condition Used - very good
  • Quantity Available 1
  • Edition Reprint Edition. First Bluejacket Books Printing [stated]
  • Binding Paperback
  • ISBN 10 1591143535
  • ISBN 13 9781591143536
  • Publisher Naval Institute Press
  • Place of Publication Annapolis, MD
  • Date Published 2004
  • Keywords WWII, Strategic Services, Mil. Intelligence, Espionage, Humor, Satire, Special Operations, OSS, Sabotage, Spies, O.S.S., William Colby, Parachute, Clandestine Operations, Training, Behind-the-Lines

We have 3 copies available starting at $51.08.

You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books)

You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books)

by Hall, Roger

  • Used
  • very good
  • Paperback
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Paperback
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9781591143536
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1591143535
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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books) by Roger Hall
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You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger (Bluejacket Books) by Roger Hall

by Roger Hall

  • Used
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Used
ISBN 13
9781591143536
ISBN 10
1591143535
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2
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Franklin, Tennessee, United States
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YOU'RE STEPPING ON MY CLOAK AND DAGGER
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

YOU'RE STEPPING ON MY CLOAK AND DAGGER

by HALL. R

  • Used
  • good
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Good
Jacket Condition
No D/W.
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9781591143536
ISBN 10
1591143535
Quantity Available
1
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HEREFORD, Herefordshire, United Kingdom
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USA: BLUEJACKET BOOKS/ NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS, 2004. Soft cover. Good/No D/W.. THIS TITLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1957. THIS IS THE FIRST BLUEJACKET BOOKS PRINTING IN 2004. A GOOD COPY. THERE IS A SLIGHT BEND ON THE TOP CORNER OF PAGES 100 TO 168. OTHERWISE INTERNALLY VERY GOOD. THE REAR COVER HAS FADED FROM YELLOW TO WHITE AROUND THE EDGES. LIGHT SHELFWEAR ON THE COVERS. THE MEMOIR OF ROGER HALL, AN OSS OFFICER DURING WW2.
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