David Smiley

Albanian Assignment

Albanian Assignment is one of the finest special forces memoirs to come out of the Second World War. Readers of Damien Lewis, Ben Macintyre and Patrick Leigh Fermor will be enthralled by this book. In 1940 Winston Churchill established the Special Operations Executive to "set Europe ablaze." Three years later David Smiley and Billy McLean were parachuted into northern Greece and crossed the border into Albania to do just that. For the next eight months Smiley mediated between the competing resistance factions and organised them to conduct ambushes and acts of sabotage on fascist armies and infrastructure. His actions were rewarded with an immediate Military Cross, yet his work in Albania was not done. Soon after he had left the country tensions between the Albanian resistance movements had deteriorated into open conflict meaning that Smiley and McLean were once again forced to parachute into the country to reconcile the guerrilla forces whilst continuing the fight against the Nazi forces. Smiley's account of his time in Albania is a remarkable book that uncovers the operations and its difficulties of an SOE agent in one of the forgotten fronts of World War Two. "David Smiley, a regular officer of the Blues, was an early arrival in the country. His memoir of the time he spent there deserves to become one of the classics of special operations literature" John Keegan, The Sunday Times "wartime memoirs are often exaggerated and boastful, and sometimes the authors' roles can safely be halved. But the writer here is an extremely modest man and the opposite precaution will be a help." Patrick Leigh Fermor "This engrossing memoir recounts British intelligence agent Smiley's two missions in 1943 and 1944 to Albanian resistance fighters." Library Journal "David Smiley's tale of his war-time escapades in the SOE in Albania should have a broad appeal with its racy, comic and serious political aspects" Financial Times