The dirty tricks department : the untold story of the real-life Q Branch, the masterminds of Second World War secret warfare

Lisle, John2023

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Summary

In a makeshift laboratory built on a golf course in Maryland, chemist Stanley Lovell led a secret team of scientists that developed the secret gadgets and weapons of the Second World War. Their 'Dirty Tricks Department' was the real-life equivalent of James Bond's legendary Q Branch. If a spy or saboteur needed a forged passport for cover, a silent pistol for executions, an incendiary device for starting fires, or a cyanide pill to kill themselves with before being captured alive, the scientists created it. Moreover, they developed poisons to assassinate foreign leaders, chemical and biological weapons to deploy against enemy soldiers, and truth drugs to interrogate prisoners of war. This book focuses on the daring, exciting, and often tragic exploits of the men and women who made and used these devices.