This cursory review discusses the unorthodox military formations that evolved during WW II. Warner, a former lecturer at Sandhurst, pays particular attention to British "irregulars'' such as the Chindits, the Commandos and the Special Air Service, but there are also brief summaries of the campaigns of U.S. units such as Merrill's Marauders, Darby's Rangers and Wendell Fertig's "private army'' in the Philippines. Not only tactical units are considered here. There is a section on the British "Y Service,'' for instance, which monitored German military communications, and another on the codebreaking efforts of Allied cryptographers. Warner summarizes the work of Jaspar Maskelyne, a professional magician who organized military subterfuge on a grand scale by building mock harbors, dummy ammunition dumps and the like. Addressed neither to the technician nor to the layperson, the book is disappointingly short on details, personalities and drama. Photos.
Warner, an accomplished British writer of popular military history, surveys the use and development of ``secret forces'' by the British and Americans during World War II. He covers a spectrum ranging from relatively conventional airborne and commando formations, through small-scale raiding organizations like the Long Range Desert Group, to the saboteurs of the SOE and the OSS. Despite the volume's brevity, Warner effectively conveys a sense of the deeds of the covert forces he describes. He is less successful in establishing their respective contributions to Allied victory. Nevertheless, general readers will find this a useful introduction to the subject of unconventional warfare between 1939 and 1945.-- Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs
