Of spies & stratagems: Lovell, Stanley P: Amazon.com: Books

Before there was Major Boothroyd, of "Q" Branch, there was Stanley "Professor Moriarty" Lovell, of the OSS, and his technical wizards. After decades of security, Lovell was finally able to write about some of the weird and wonderful devices he and his people came up with for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) -- the predecessor of the modern CIA. He sometimes even mentions examples of how these devices were used by brave OSS agents, behind enemy lines, to help win the covert war! His account of having to deal with conventionally minded regular officers, and with office politics, while keeping his department going, are quite illuminating and amusing. Some later books on the OSS have mentioned some of his gadgets and escapades, but this book, written back in the 60s, was the first. Find out about "Aunt Jemima" (the exploding flour that could be baked into biscuits and cookies), "Casey Jones" (the railroad sabotage device), "Firefly" (a mini-bomb which could be covertly dropped into a vehicle's gas tank while it is refueling), and many more items which could have featured in a Bond movie set in WWII. He even mentions some of the failures, such as "Beano" -- a contact-detonating grenade that killed its admittedly negligent user during a demonstration in front of top brass!