Winning the World War II was about more than military force. It required guile, and tremendous acts of bravery by Special Forces and intelligence operatives who had the odds stacked against them. Using hundreds of documents and images from The National Archives, including some that have never been seen in print before, this book reveals some of World War II’s most audacious missions. These include the SOE dossier of the plot to assassinate Hitler which shows that it was practically impossible; Operation Frankton, where commandoes paddled 100 miles upriver in canoes to Bordeaux to blow up Axis shipping; and the joint British-American Operation Fortitude where a phantom US army of inflatable tanks was planted in Kent, fooling Hitler into thinking D-Day would occur at Calais.