Colin Beavan: Operation Jedburgh: D-Day and America's First Shadow War

On D-Day, three hundred young American and Allied soldiers were dropped behind enemy lines to launch a secret sabotage mission code-named Jedburgh. Working with the French Resistance, the "Jeds" launched a stunningly effective guerrilla campaign against the German war machine. In this compelling narrative, Colin Beavan, whose grandfather Gerry Miller helped direct the operation for the OSS, tells the incredible story of the rowdy daredevils who carried out America's first special-forces mission.

Drawing on scores of interviews with Jeds, Beavan's history reads like a spy thriller. Dodging Gestapo spies, the Jeds armed and trained fighters who liberated Paris, snarled German transport throughout France, and provided essential cover to the invading Allied forces. Beavan focuses on key figures like William Colby, Stewart Alsop, and John Singlaub-all of whom went on to high-profile postwar careers-and shows how Jedburgh pioneered the special forces procedures still used in Iraq and Afghanistan today. This gripping history of the original special op mission makes a major contribution to the literature of American warfare.

Colin Beavan is the author of Fingerprints: The Origins of Crime Detection and the Murder Case that Launched Forensic Science. He has written for numerous national magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Men's Journal and Wired, and received his doctorate from the University of Liverpool in England. He lives in New York City with his wife, the journalist Michelle Conlin, and their daughter Isabella.