When the Network's Martyn Cox with MI6 veteran Geoffrey Pidgeon on board were on their way back from a recce for their Whaddon event in May, they happened to be passing close-by to the riverside village of Hurley, near Henley-on-Thames - so they dropped in to join more than a hundred local residents hear Philip Williams talking about his new book: OSS Station Victor: Hurley's Secret War
Here's the Amazon 'blurb' about Phil's book -
"... during the Second World War Hurley was used as a top secret communication centre, known by its code name Station VICTOR. "Established in 1943 by the American OSS, Station VICTOR communicated with secret agents throughout occupied Europe and within the German Reich. VICTOR’s role was to receive and send coded messages in order to obtain vital intelligence on Hitler’s Panzer Divisions, secret weapons and industrial war machine. This is the story of Station VICTOR, from is conception, construction and operation and about the lives of those agents who risked torture and death in order to rid Europe of the Nazi tyranny.
"Operations such as the SUSSEX plan and the liberation of France used Hurley as their base station where even General Eisenhower as Supreme Commander and Prime Minister Churchill were seen as visitors. It is only now that the story of OSS Station VICTOR can be told due to the declassifying of VICTOR’s operational war diary by the CIA and the discovery of a remarkable set of official photographs. Hurley’s long-forgotten wartime secret can now be revealed."
Geoffrey Pidgeon's own book THE SECRET WIRELESS WAR had inspired and helped Phil Williams with his early research, and as soon as he acknowledged Geoffrey in the audience he was getting almost as much attention as Phil!