Hello IMdb review readers. I really enjoyed the episodes I've watched of this series so far online. I confused this with two other military history series that go by similar names. The earliest is from around 1977, it's called The Secret War, that series is very technical orientated and as a military veteran electronics technician personally, I loved it. Plus it actually will tell you stuff you never knew of even after all these years since it was made. The other of the three is from the late 90s or early 2000s called Secrets Of War, this is possibly (or not) a higher budget product. Charlton Heston narrates and it is dozens of episodes instead of the other two's, which are only about a dozen each. It is always entertaining. Now to Secret War, I was surprised that I found it thinking I was watching The Secret War, but was so happy that I watched another episode after it! The reenactment footage is a plus. A great series, I highly recommend it if you come across it like I did online.
4 Reviews
Excellent Series about World War Two clandestine missions.
Big Cat 1216 March 2012
This TV show is a documentary series about World War Two clandestine missions. So far, most of the episodes are about the combat activities of the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) in Europe. The SOE's primary objective was to oversee and participate in espionage and sabotage operations behind enemy lines.
Each episode stands alone and tells about either an individual agent or specific mission. Photos and actual World War Two film clips are shown; along with simulations of events using actors.
As a bonus, M.R.D. FOOT (a former SOE agent, and author of numerous World War Two books) comments occasionally during this show. Sadly, FOOT passed away less than two months after "Secret War" premiered.
If any reader is interested in these types of documentaries, I highly recommend watching this series.
Each episode stands alone and tells about either an individual agent or specific mission. Photos and actual World War Two film clips are shown; along with simulations of events using actors.
As a bonus, M.R.D. FOOT (a former SOE agent, and author of numerous World War Two books) comments occasionally during this show. Sadly, FOOT passed away less than two months after "Secret War" premiered.
If any reader is interested in these types of documentaries, I highly recommend watching this series.
Heavily padded
djpass-970-97864317 February 2014
This series contains inherently interesting material about the Special Operations Executive which operated in occupied territory during the second world war. To the credit of the producers, there is a minimum of the "talking head" shots so often seen in programs of this type. The problem is that there are not, of course, a lot of archival footage of spies at work. Much of the film is taken from "Now It Can Be Told" and "School for Danger." (I've seen the former and recommend it.) But you will see the same shots repeatedly in various episodes. I noticed Jacqueline Nearne jump out of the same plane three times in one episode. Also, some episodes are repetitive which I imagine was necessary to fill the hour. All in all, it would have been better as 40 minute radio programs.
Propaganda at its ugliest
bmck-15 April 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Is Europe at war? Nothing else could explain the outrageous propaganda that characterises the episode 'Double Cross Deal'.
There are two players: British agent Monty Woodhouse and the main Greek resistance movement EAM-ELAS. Woodhouse was in a team parachuted into Greece in order to sabotage the German supply line by blowing up a major railway bridge, the Gorgopotamos. The mission was led by Brigadier Myers and included British saboteurs and partisans led by Ares of ELAS and Zervas of the much smaller group EDES.
No credit is given to the role of ELAS (Ares' judgement and leadership and the competence of his men were essential to the operation, while Zervas himself was simply a handicap, wanting to go home at the first sign of trouble, as Myers reported to London.)
It appears that the British quickly realised that EAM-ELAS were controlled by communists, and that their motives were of the worst. Woodhouse apparently sent a message to London warning that ELAS was planning a coup. At this point the historicity of the programme starts to fall apart. Reports from British agents at the time do not warn of an imminent coup. The real problem is that , EAM-ELAS, after years of a monarchy-supported Metaxas dictatorship, hoped for a democratic republic. The British were equally determined to restore the monarchy, though 80% of Greeks were against it. The agents, the Foreign Office and Churchill referred to the question of the monarchy, of having a government favourable to Britain, constantly. It is extraordinary that the programme does not mention this issue.
However the British still needed ELAS, in particular for the 'Animals' campaign, a series of sabotage operations to make the Germans think the allied landing was going to be in Greece. The partisans were congratulated on 18 July by General Wilson: "These operations carefully prepared by us and executed with great precision by you, contributed and were conducive to the successes of the allied armies in Sicily'. The major role by far was played by ELAS. From 26 May 1943 to October 1944 ELAS engaged in 327 operations against the enemy occupation.
The claim that ELAS's unwillingness to destroy the Asopos bridge was an act of treachery and an attempt to undermine 'Animals' is a fabrication – the operation had been mooted months before Myers knew about 'Animals'.
Once the tide of the war had turned ELAS was no longer needed; it was time to make a move against them. On 15 September 1943, the British Cabinet agreed to break with EAM-ELAS and make propaganda against them. So the government's success in another age in making the British people believe that Napoleon ate babies was to be repeated now.
There followed a vicious smear campaign against the Greek Resistance. ELAS were no longer heroes but monsters, with Ares an arch-sadist. The BBC was ordered by Churchill not to report anything positive about ELAS, nor to say anything negative about the collaborationist Security Forces(!). If EDES attacked ELAS, it was reversed to make ELAS responsible. When the small group EKKA attacked ELAS, killing several of its men, it was a clash initiated by ELAS, and when ELAS counterattacked, it was termed a massacre, and the execution of EKKA's leader a brutal murder. (Afterwards half of EKKA's officer joined ELAS, while the rest went to join the Security Battalions and the Germans). The confirmation (by Zervas) that the Athens arm of EDES was collaborationist was smoothly changed to a claim that ELAS was collaborating with the enemy, a claim that even now sits in the official British war history.
On 3 December of 1944 250,000 people demonstrated in Athens (the total population of Greece was 7 million), protesting at the proposal that ELAS disarm but the right keep their weapons. The demonstrators were unarmed and jocular. Suddenly the police opened fire, killing 28 people and wounding many more. The next day armed gangs fired on the again defenceless funeral procession. The ensuing riots, which developed into a small war in which the British played a major part, complete with tanks and aircraft, are known as the December events. In no way can they be seen as a calculated bid for power. However this programme makes no reference to the tragedy of the demonstration, but asserts that the events were an attempted coup by EAM-ELAS.
After the ceasefire ELAS disbanded and disarmed and there followed a British-sponsored reign of terror against the left. Members of ELAS were rounded up and imprisoned, collaborators not only walked free but roamed in gangs beating, raping and killing. The offices of left-wing newspapers were destroyed. At an official level, there were an enormous numbers of arrests (84,000 in the first year), and in 1946 they started to execute people, sometimes hundreds in a day. Resistance members were arrested for killing collaborators, and in some cases German soldiers. Resistance heroes Glezos and Santas, who stole the swastika flag from the Acropolis, were both imprisoned, and Glezos condemned to death. Greece was the only occupied country that did not punish its collaborators, but instead victimised those who fought for freedom.
The programme was presumably done on the cheap, but there is no excuse for the failure to interview a single member of EAM-ELAS, the makers preferring to vilify the Greek Resistance in their absence. Chris Woodhouse went on to join the British Embassy in Iran, where he played a significant role in the coup that removed the democratically elected government and installed the Shah.
In 1986 Jane Gabriel made a documentary for Britain's Channel 4 made a film called the Hidden War, consisting mainly of interviews with Woodhouse, Myers, ex-partisans and other figures. The idealism, the awareness, but at the same time the very ordinariness of the partisans, some of whom spent decades in prison or exile, is startling. The film was banned by the British Government, and all except one copy destroyed.
There are two players: British agent Monty Woodhouse and the main Greek resistance movement EAM-ELAS. Woodhouse was in a team parachuted into Greece in order to sabotage the German supply line by blowing up a major railway bridge, the Gorgopotamos. The mission was led by Brigadier Myers and included British saboteurs and partisans led by Ares of ELAS and Zervas of the much smaller group EDES.
No credit is given to the role of ELAS (Ares' judgement and leadership and the competence of his men were essential to the operation, while Zervas himself was simply a handicap, wanting to go home at the first sign of trouble, as Myers reported to London.)
It appears that the British quickly realised that EAM-ELAS were controlled by communists, and that their motives were of the worst. Woodhouse apparently sent a message to London warning that ELAS was planning a coup. At this point the historicity of the programme starts to fall apart. Reports from British agents at the time do not warn of an imminent coup. The real problem is that , EAM-ELAS, after years of a monarchy-supported Metaxas dictatorship, hoped for a democratic republic. The British were equally determined to restore the monarchy, though 80% of Greeks were against it. The agents, the Foreign Office and Churchill referred to the question of the monarchy, of having a government favourable to Britain, constantly. It is extraordinary that the programme does not mention this issue.
However the British still needed ELAS, in particular for the 'Animals' campaign, a series of sabotage operations to make the Germans think the allied landing was going to be in Greece. The partisans were congratulated on 18 July by General Wilson: "These operations carefully prepared by us and executed with great precision by you, contributed and were conducive to the successes of the allied armies in Sicily'. The major role by far was played by ELAS. From 26 May 1943 to October 1944 ELAS engaged in 327 operations against the enemy occupation.
The claim that ELAS's unwillingness to destroy the Asopos bridge was an act of treachery and an attempt to undermine 'Animals' is a fabrication – the operation had been mooted months before Myers knew about 'Animals'.
Once the tide of the war had turned ELAS was no longer needed; it was time to make a move against them. On 15 September 1943, the British Cabinet agreed to break with EAM-ELAS and make propaganda against them. So the government's success in another age in making the British people believe that Napoleon ate babies was to be repeated now.
There followed a vicious smear campaign against the Greek Resistance. ELAS were no longer heroes but monsters, with Ares an arch-sadist. The BBC was ordered by Churchill not to report anything positive about ELAS, nor to say anything negative about the collaborationist Security Forces(!). If EDES attacked ELAS, it was reversed to make ELAS responsible. When the small group EKKA attacked ELAS, killing several of its men, it was a clash initiated by ELAS, and when ELAS counterattacked, it was termed a massacre, and the execution of EKKA's leader a brutal murder. (Afterwards half of EKKA's officer joined ELAS, while the rest went to join the Security Battalions and the Germans). The confirmation (by Zervas) that the Athens arm of EDES was collaborationist was smoothly changed to a claim that ELAS was collaborating with the enemy, a claim that even now sits in the official British war history.
On 3 December of 1944 250,000 people demonstrated in Athens (the total population of Greece was 7 million), protesting at the proposal that ELAS disarm but the right keep their weapons. The demonstrators were unarmed and jocular. Suddenly the police opened fire, killing 28 people and wounding many more. The next day armed gangs fired on the again defenceless funeral procession. The ensuing riots, which developed into a small war in which the British played a major part, complete with tanks and aircraft, are known as the December events. In no way can they be seen as a calculated bid for power. However this programme makes no reference to the tragedy of the demonstration, but asserts that the events were an attempted coup by EAM-ELAS.
After the ceasefire ELAS disbanded and disarmed and there followed a British-sponsored reign of terror against the left. Members of ELAS were rounded up and imprisoned, collaborators not only walked free but roamed in gangs beating, raping and killing. The offices of left-wing newspapers were destroyed. At an official level, there were an enormous numbers of arrests (84,000 in the first year), and in 1946 they started to execute people, sometimes hundreds in a day. Resistance members were arrested for killing collaborators, and in some cases German soldiers. Resistance heroes Glezos and Santas, who stole the swastika flag from the Acropolis, were both imprisoned, and Glezos condemned to death. Greece was the only occupied country that did not punish its collaborators, but instead victimised those who fought for freedom.
The programme was presumably done on the cheap, but there is no excuse for the failure to interview a single member of EAM-ELAS, the makers preferring to vilify the Greek Resistance in their absence. Chris Woodhouse went on to join the British Embassy in Iran, where he played a significant role in the coup that removed the democratically elected government and installed the Shah.
In 1986 Jane Gabriel made a documentary for Britain's Channel 4 made a film called the Hidden War, consisting mainly of interviews with Woodhouse, Myers, ex-partisans and other figures. The idealism, the awareness, but at the same time the very ordinariness of the partisans, some of whom spent decades in prison or exile, is startling. The film was banned by the British Government, and all except one copy destroyed.
See also
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