rapidfire Visit a Spy Novel S

hadow Patriots (Tom Doherty Associates, 2005), by Lucia St. Clair Robson, is a Revo- lutionary War spy novel. While a number of

historical intelligencers (the period term for spies) ex- isted, little is known about operative 355, called Kate in the novel. Robson writes 355 was the only member of the real-life Culpers’ spy ring to be arrested by the British and ultimately hanged. General George Washington ordered the ring’s establishment and often directed its operations. The ring’s name comes from the aliases Samuel Culper Sr. and Samuel Culper Jr. used by the group’s two main operatives. The novel occurs primarily in New York City and Philadelphia (below) and tells of the devastation of both cities. It’s filled with historical tidbits, from wig cages (to keep mice away from the flour used to whit- en wigs) to a fun French import, l’incroyable (a yo-yo). Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical

Park (www.nps.gov/inde) encompasses 20 historic city blocks and includes Elfreth’s Alley, dating back to the 1720s. In New York, the Fraunces Tavern Mu- seum, used for years after the war as offices for the departments of Foreign Affairs, War, and Treasury, has an extensive collection of Revolutionary War art and artifacts housed in an 18th-century building on Pearl Street in southern Manhattan; it was also the site of Washington’s farewell to his officers. — Col. Glenn Pribus, USAF (Ret), and Marilyn Pribus

In Review

Kidnap in Crete: The True Story of the Abduction of a Nazi General. By Rick Stroud. Bloomsbury, 2015. $28. ISBN 978-1-4088-5175-3.

Commando raids and spy op- erations are popular stories in World War

II historiography, but few stories are as exciting as that of the successful ab- duction of a Nazi general by British agents on the German-occupied island of Crete in April 1944. With suspenseful narra-

tive, Rick Stroud tells how two fl amboyant special op- erations executive agents and a team of ruthless and colorful Cretan partisans kidnapped the island’s second-in-command, General Karl Kriepe, in a late-night roadside am- bush. They then bluff ed through 22 roadblocks and evaded aggressive German patrols for 17 days, until they could get the general to Egypt by boat. Stroud also describes

the 1941 German invasion of Crete in a nearly disas- trous parachute operation, the bitter fi ghting, the Cretan people’s stoic brav- ery in resistance, vicious German reprisals against the civilian population,

22 MILITARY OFFICER JULY 2015

and the creation of the much-feared Cretan resis- tance fi ghters, called the “Men of Darkness.”

The Hidden History of America at War: Untold Tales From Yorktown to Fallujah. By Kenneth C. Davis. Hachette Books, 2015. $30. ISBN 978-1-4013-2410-0.

Best-selling historian Kenneth C. Davis, creator of the “Don’t Know Much

About” book series, of- fers an intriguing view of American military history, using six battles to illus- trate obscure and over- looked historical truths that have infl uenced American military and national identity. He explains the victory

at Yorktown (1781) was only possible with French ground and naval support and illuminates why Gen. Dwight Eisenhower al- lowed the Russians to cap- ture Berlin in 1945. The Battle for Hue

(1968) brought the futil- ity of Vietnam into stark reality through television in the fi rst “Living-Room War,” while Fallujah, Iraq, (2004) unmasked the ever- increasing use of private military contractors to en- force U.S. foreign policy. — William D. Bushnell

PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK