Operation ETNA

In early July 1942, Colonel George Hill, the representative of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Kuybyshev, Russia, informed Major Harold Seddon, the Head of SOE’s Russian Section in London, that the NKVD, the Soviet Ministry of the Interior, had two Pickaxe agents destined for Italy. They were being prepared for the mission and one of them was unable to be parachuted. Who was George Hill? What was the Special Operations Executive? Why was Hill in Kuybyshev? What was he doing there? Who was Harold Seddon? What was the NKVD? What link was there between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1942? What were Pickaxe agents? Who were the two agents destined for Italy? What were they doing in Russia? Were there other Italians who were going to be sent? What was their mission in Italy? Why was one of them unable to be parachuted? What happened to them? Readers will probably have seen James Bond or similar spy films or read spy novels. Whilst the authors of this genre include excitement, sex, violence and sophisticated gadgets, the reality of Second World War espionage, sabotage and subversion included some of these but what about the people behind the scenes who planned the hero or heroines’ mission? Nicoletta Maggi and Bernard O’Connor’s book provides insight into the day-to-day activities of members of the British and Soviet intelligence services and the difficult and often delicate negotiations that went on behind the scenes between the War Office, Foreign Office, Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), MI6, MI5, the SOE, the RAF, Navy and Army as well as members of the diplomatic communities in overseas embassies and consulates. It also investigates the Italians who fled fascist persecution and settled in the Soviet Union, some of whom volunteered to be sent back to their homeland during the Second World War.