Des Turner trained as a draughtsman with English Electric and worked in the aircraft industry and on guided missile design as a precision instrument maker, draughtsman, engineer and procedures writer. He also briefly served in the RAF. Now retired, he has studied all aspects of the SOE since the 1970s and has amassed a large library of documents and photographs. He has previously written SOE's Secret Weapons Centre, Station 12 for The History Press. He lives in Stevenage.