About the Author
Terry Crowdy is the author of a number of military history books and articles, including Napoleon's Infantry Handbook (Pen Sword, 2015) and The Enemy Within: history of Espionage. He is the author of Deceiving Hitler, a study of Allied deception and double cross operations, and his most recent book show more SOE, Churchill's Secret Agents tells the story of the wartime Special Operations Executive. He was given full access to Colonel Dean's papers to produce this memoir of a soldier through two world wars. Terry lives in Kent, UK. show less
Works by Terry Crowdy
Military Misdemeanors: Corruption, incompetence, lust and downright stupidity (General Military) (2007) 77 copies
French Warship Crews, 1789–1805: From the French Revolution to Trafalgar (2005) 44 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1970
- Gender
- male
- Short biography
- Terry Crowdy is a military history author specialising in the Napoleonic Wars and espionage / 'secret war' history. His latest book is 'Napoleon's Infantry Manual', an essential guide to daily life in Napoleon's Grande Armée based on contemporary French instruction manuals and orders.
Previous to this he wrote 'Incomparable', the incredible story of Napoleon's 9th Light Infantry Regiment. He edited the popular memoirs of Donald Dean VC, a Kentish hero who fought in both world wars. His espionage titles include 'The Enemy Within', and 'Deceiving Hitler'.
Terry won the 'Best Military Paper' category in the 2014 Napoleon Series Writing Contest.
Terry Crowdy is a safety adviser for Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity which manages the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House Whitehall, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, and Hillsborough Castle.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terry-Crowdy/... - Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Associated Place (for map)
- United Kingdom
Members
Reviews
This is a readable unit history following the 9th Light Infantry of the French Army through the Napoleonic period. The writer is a competent stylist, and has gathered some telling anecdotes and personal histories. It is more personal that Mark Urban's book on the 95th Rifles of the opposing British Army. the exact makeup of the internal organization is hidden in the footnotes, and the book could use some more maps especially of the latter years of the Peninsula campaign. But overall, a show more laudable effort, and I will look for other works by the same author. show less
Well illustrated and a useful overview of SOE, although I could not but feel it was a little lightweight - perhaps that's unkind, given the book has only 64 pages. All too common a criticism of Shire books is the indexing but, unlike many in the Share Library, at least this has an index, albeit not a good one; the very first entry in the index is mis-spelled: Atlee, Clement - the Prime Minister was Attlee, of course. Individual officers named are not given ranks in the index and key words show more and phrases like Collaborator, Commando, Forgery, Kidnap, Signals Directorate, Wireless Station and 'Set Europe Ablaze' do not appear in the index at all - nor does Yolande Beekman, Billy Moss (W Stanley Moss) or T E Lawrence. It's disappointing that the list of Further Reading does not include 'Ill Met by Moonlight' and there is a half-page that is blank that could have listed a few of the films (such as Odette (1950), Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) and The Man with the Iron Heart (2017)) and TV documentaries such as those based on work by Ben Macintyre. show less
Low expectations, well exceeded. A smooth, interesting read, if a bit disjointed, with extensive use of a handful of memoirs from the regiment.
Very few books in English exist that cover the history of the French Navy. This one helps to fill the void.
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Members
- 559
- Popularity
- #44,692
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 5
- ISBNs
- 48
- Languages
- 1
