The
Special Operations Executive (
SOE) (sometimes referred to as
"the Baker Street IrregularsThe Baker Street Irregulars are any of several different groups, all named after the original, from various Sherlock Holmes stories.-The original:...
") was a
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
organisation of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. It was officially formed by
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the political leader of the United Kingdom and the Head of Her Majesty's Government...
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
and
Minister of Economic WarfareThe Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive.-Ministers of Economic Warfare 1939-1945:...
Hugh DaltonEdward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC, generally known as Hugh Dalton was a British Labour Party politician, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947...
on 22 July 1940, to conduct
warfareWarfarerefers to the conduct of conflict between opponents, and usually involves escalation of aggression from the proverbial "war of words" between politicians and diplomats to full-scale armed conflicts, waged until one side accepts defeat or peace terms are agreed on.Warfare between groups, and...
by means other than direct military engagement. Its mission was to encourage and facilitate
espionageEspionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as the legitimate holder of the information may change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
and
sabotageSabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions...
behind enemy lines and to serve as the core of the
Auxiliary UnitsThe Auxiliary Units were specially trained highly secret units created with the aim of resisting the expected invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, a
British resistance movementResistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
.
It was also known as
"Churchill's Secret Army" or
"The MinistryA ministry is a specialised organisation responsible for a sector of government public administration, sometimes led by a minister, but usually a senior public servant, that can have responsibility for one or more departments, agencies, bureaus, commissions or other smaller executive, advisory,...
of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and was charged by Churchill to
"set EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
ablaze."
The SOE directly employed or controlled just over 13,000 people. It is estimated that SOE supported or supplied about 1,000,000
operatives worldwide.
Origins
The organisation was formed from the merger of three existing secret departments. Immediately after
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
annexAnnexation is the legal incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities...
ed
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
(the
AnschlussThe ' , also known as the ', was the 1938 de facto annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime....
) in March 1938, the Foreign Office created a
propagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
organisation known as Department EH (after Electra House, its headquarters), run by
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
newspaper
magnateMagnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...
Sir Campbell Stuart. Later that month, the
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
(SIS, also known as MI6) formed a section known as Section D, under Major Lawrence Grand, to investigate the use of sabotage, propaganda and other irregular means to weaken an enemy. In the autumn of the same year, the
War OfficeThe War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
set up a department, nominally for the purpose of research into
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is the irregular warfare warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army....
and known initially as GS (R), headed by Major J. C. Holland. GS (R) was renamed MI R in early 1939.
These three departments worked with few resources until the outbreak of war. There was much overlap between their activities and Section D and EH duplicated much of each others' work. On the other hand, Section D and MI R shared information. Their heads were both officers of the
Royal EngineersThe Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It provides combat engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces...
and knew each other. They agreed a rough division of their activities; MI R researched irregular operations which could be undertaken by regular uniformed troops, while Section D dealt with truly undercover work.
During the early months of the war while based at the Metropole Hotel, Section D attempted unsuccessfully to sabotage deliveries of vital strategic materials to Germany from neutral countries, by mining the
Iron GateThe Iron Gate is a gorge on the Danube River. It forms part of the boundary between Serbia and Romania. In the broad sense it encompasses a route of ; in the narrow sense it only encompasses the last barrier on this route, just beyond the Romanian city of Orşova, that contains a hydroelectric dam,...
on the River Danube. MI R meanwhile produced pamphlets and technical handbooks for guerrilla leaders. The section was also involved in the formation of
"Independent Companies", which would later develop into the
British CommandosThe British Commandos were first formed by the British Army during World War II in June 1940, as a well-armed but non-regimental raider force employing unconventional and irregular tactics to assault, disrupt and reconnoitre the enemy in mainland Europe and Scandinavia.Four current units of the UK...
, and the
Auxiliary UnitsThe Auxiliary Units were specially trained highly secret units created with the aim of resisting the expected invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, stay-behind resistance groups which would act in the event of an
AxisThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
invasion of
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, as seemed possible in the early years of the war.
Formation
On 13 June, 1940, at the instigation of newly-appointed Prime Minister
Winston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer...
,
Lord HankeyMaurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and who later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office.The third son of R. A. Hankey, Maurice Hankey was born at Biarritz...
persuaded Section D and MI R that their operations should be coordinated. On 1 July, a
CabinetA Cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. It can also sometimes be referred to as the Council of Ministers, an Executive Council, or Executive Committee.- Overview :...
level meeting arranged the formation of a single sabotage organisation. On 16 July,
Hugh DaltonEdward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC, generally known as Hugh Dalton was a British Labour Party politician, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947...
, the
Minister of Economic WarfareThe Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive.-Ministers of Economic Warfare 1939-1945:...
, was appointed to take political responsibility for the new organisation, which was formally created on 22 July. Dalton used the
Irish Republican ArmyThe Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...
(IRA) during the
Irish war of IndependenceThe Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla war mounted against the British government in Ireland by the Irish Republican Army . It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence, and ended with a truce in July 1921...
as a model for the organisation.
The Director of the organisation was usually referred to by the initials "CD". The first Director to be appointed was Sir Frank Nelson, a former head of a trading firm in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, a
back benchIn Westminster parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a Member of Parliament or a legislator who does not hold governmental office and is not a Front Bench spokesperson in the Opposition...
Conservative
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a unique title, such as senate, and thus also have unique titles for its members, such as senators. Members of...
and
ConsulThe title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the country to whom he or she is...
in
BerneThe city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with 122,658 people, the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 343,600...
. Majors Grand and Holland both returned to regular army service and Campbell Stuart left the organisation.
Development
In August 1941, following quarrels between the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Ministry of Information over their relative responsibilities, the propaganda department (which had been renamed SO1) was removed from SOE and became an independent organization, the
Political Warfare ExecutiveDuring World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....
.
Dalton was replaced as Minister of Economic Warfare by
Lord SelborneRoundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne, CH, PC was a British Conservative politician, known as Viscount Wolmer from 1895 to 1941....
in February 1942. Selborne in turn replaced Nelson, who had suffered ill health as a result of his hard work, with Sir
Charles HambroCharles Eric Alexander Hambro, Baron Hambro was a banker and politician in the United Kingdom.- Background:Hambro was the last family chairman of the Hambros Bank, the merchant bank founded by Carl Joachim Hambro...
, head of the English banking firm
Hambro'sHambros Bank was a British bank based in London. The Hambros bank was a specialist in Anglo-Scandinavian business with expertise in trade finance and investment banking, and was the sole banker to the Scandinavian kingdoms for many years...
. Hambro had been a close friend of Churchill's before the war and had received the
Military CrossThe Military Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
for his efforts in the
Great WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
.
Selborne and Hambro cooperated closely until August 1943, when they fell out over the question of whether SOE should remain a separate body or coordinate its operations with those of the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland and...
in several theatres of war. Hambro felt that this loss of control would cause a number of problems for SOE in the future. At the same time, Hambro was found to have failed to pass on vital information to Selborne. He was dismissed as Director, and became head of a
raw materialA raw material is something that is acted upon or used by or by human labor or industry, for use as a building material to create some product or structure. Often the term is used to denote material that came from nature and is in an unprocessed or minimally processed state. Iron ore, logs, and...
s purchasing commission in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, which was involved in the exchange of nuclear information.
As part of the subsequent closer ties between the
Imperial General StaffChief of the Imperial General Staff was the title of the professional commander of the British Army from 1908 until 1964.From the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Sovereign was able to wrest considerable control of the armed forces from Parliament with the appointment of a "General in...
and SOE, Hambro's replacement as Director from September 1943 was the former Deputy Director,
Major GeneralMajor General or Major-General is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of Sergeant Major General. A Major General is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of Lieutenant General and senior to the ranks of Brigadier and Brigadier General...
Colin GubbinsMajor-General Sir Colin McVean Gubbins KCMG, DSO, MC was the prime mover of the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War....
. Gubbins had wide experience of
commandoThe term commando, in English, means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means élite light infantry and/or special forces units, specialised in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and effect...
and
clandestine operationA clandestine operation is an intelligence or military operation carried out in such a way that the operation goes unnoticed.The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by governmental departments or...
s and had played a major part in MI R's early operations. He also put in practice many of the lessons he learned from the IRA during the
Irish war of independenceThe Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla war mounted against the British government in Ireland by the Irish Republican Army . It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence, and ended with a truce in July 1921...
.
SOE cooperated fairly well with Combined Operations Headquarters during the middle years of the war, usually on technical matters as SOE's equipment was readily adopted by commandos and other raiders. This support was lost when
Vice AdmiralVice Admiral is a naval rank equivalent to Lieutenant General in seniority. A Vice Admiral is typically senior to a Rear Admiral and junior to an Admiral. In many navies, Vice Admiral is a three star rank.-Rank Insignia:...
Louis MountbattenAdmiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC was a British admiral and statesman and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
left Combined Operations, though by this time SOE had its own transport and had no need to rely on Combined Operations for resources. On the other hand, the
AdmiraltyThe Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. Originally exercised by a single person, the office of Lord High Admiral was from the 18th century onward almost invariably put "in commission", and was exercised by a Board of Admiralty.In...
objected to SOE developing its own underwater vessels, and the duplication of effort this involved.
SOE's relationships with the Foreign Office and with SIS, which the Foreign Office controlled, were usually more difficult. Where SIS preferred placid conditions in which it could gather intelligence and work through influential persons or authorities, SOE promised turbulent conditions and often backed anti-establishment organisations such as the Communists in several countries. At one stage, SIS actively hindered SOE's attempts to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied France.
SOE's activities in enemy-occupied territories also brought it into conflict with the Foreign Office on several occasions, as various governments in exile protested at operations taking place without their knowledge or approval, which sometimes resulted in Axis
reprisalIn warfare, a reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of the laws of war to punish an enemy who has already broken them. A legally executed reprisal is not an atrocity....
s against civilian populations. SOE nevertheless generally adhered to the rule,
"No bangs without Foreign Office approval."
Organisation
The organisation of SOE continually evolved and changed during the war. The Director of SOE had either a Deputy from the Army, or (once Gubbins became Director) an Army officer as
Chief of StaffA chief of staff, also known as a principal staff officer, is the coordinator of the supporting staff and primary aide to an important individual, such as an Office of the Prime Minister-Civilian:*Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister...
. The main controlling body of SOE was its Council, consisting of around fifteen heads of departments or sections. About half were from the
armed forcesThe armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external and internal aggressors. In some countries...
(although some were specialists who were only commissioned after the outbreak of war), the rest were various civil servants, lawyers, or business or industrial experts.
Operations were controlled by Sections, each assigned to a single country. Some enemy-occupied countries had two or more sections assigned to deal with politically disparate resistance movements. (
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
had no less than six). Training of agents was also part of the broad
"Operations" department.
The other departments were variously concerned with development or acquisition and production of equipment, research (for the purposes of selecting effective targets) and administration, although SOE had no central registry or filing system.
There were several subsidiary SOE headquarters and stations set up to manage operations which were too distant for London to control. SOE's operations in the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
were controlled from a headquarters in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, which was notorious for poor security, infighting and conflicts with other agencies. It finally became known in April 1944 as Special Operations (Mediterranean), or SO(M). A subsidiary headquarters was later set up in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
under the Cairo headquarters to control operations in the Balkans. There was also a station near
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
, established in late 1942 and codenamed
"Massingham", which operated into
Southern FranceSouthern France , colloquially known as le Midi is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura Mountains...
.
An SOE station, which was first called the
India Mission, and was subsequently known as
GS I(k) was set up in India late in 1940. It subsequently moved to
CeylonSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
and became known as
Force 136Force 136 was the general cover name for a branch of the British World War II organization, the Special Operations Executive . Force 136 operated in the regions of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II which were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945....
. A
Singapore Mission set up at the same time as the India Mission was unable to overcome official opposition to its attempts to form resistance movements in
MalayaBritish Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula that were colonized by the British from the 18th and the 19th until the 20th century. Before the formation of Malayan Union in 1946, the colonies were not placed under a single unified administration...
before the
JapaneseJapanese Army can refer to:* the Imperial Japanese Army, 1869–1947* the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, 1947–present...
overran
SingaporeThe Battle of Singapore was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. Singapore was the major British military base in South East Asia and nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East"...
. Force 136 took over its surviving staff and operations.
There was also a liaison office in
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, formally titled
British Security CoordinationThe British Security Coordination was a cover organization set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service in May 1940 upon the authorization of Winston Churchill.-Operation:...
, headed by the Canadian businessman Sir
William StephensonSir William Samuel Stephenson, CC, MC, DFC was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessperson, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best-known by his wartime intelligence codename of Intrepid...
. This office also coordinated the work of SIS and MI5 with the American
Federal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and
Office of Strategic ServicesThe Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency .-Origins and activities:...
.
Dissolution
Towards the end of the war, Lord Selborne advocated keeping SOE, or a similar body, in being. He proposed that the organisation could be useful against
"the RussianThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
menace" and
"the smouldering volcanoes of the Middle East", and that it would report to the
Ministry of DefenceThe Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
. The
Foreign MinisterThe Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a member of the Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and responsible for relations with foreign countries, matters pertaining to the Commonwealth of...
,
Anthony EdenRobert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during World War II...
, insisted that his ministry, already responsible for MI6, should control SOE or its successors. Selborne retorted that
"To have SOE run by the Foreign Office would be like inviting an abbess to supervise a brothel." Churchill took no decision, and after he lost the
general electionThe United Kingdom General Election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks...
in 1945, the matter was dealt with by the
LabourThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Prime Minister,
Clement AttleeClement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
.
Although Selborne told Attlee that SOE still possessed a worldwide network of clandestine radio networks and sympathisers, Attlee replied that he had no wish to own a British
CominternThe Comintern was an international Communist organization founded in Moscow in March 1919...
, and closed Selborne's network down at 48 hours' notice. SOE was dissolved officially on 15 January 1946. Most of its personnel reverted to their peacetime occupations (or regular service in the armed forces), but 280 personnel were taken into the
"Special Operations Branch" of MI6. Some of these had served as agents in the field, but MI6 was most interested in SOE's training and research staff. Sir
Stewart MenziesMajor General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC was Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after World War II....
, the head of MI6 (who was generally known simply as "C") soon decided that a separate branch was unsound, and merged it into the general body of MI6.
Locations
SOE maintained a large number of training, research and development or administrative centres. It was a joke that
"SOE" stood for
"Stately 'omes of England", after the large number of country houses and estates it requisitioned and used.
After working from temporary offices in Central London, the headquarters of SOE was moved on 31 October 1940 into
64 Baker Street64 Baker Street, London was the address of the headquarters of the Special Operations Executive. The organisation moved to Baker Street in September 1940.-See also:*221B Baker Street...
(hence the nickname
"the Baker Street IrregularsThe Baker Street Irregulars are any of several different groups, all named after the original, from various Sherlock Holmes stories.-The original:...
"). Ultimately, SOE occupied much of the western side of Baker Street.
Another important London base was Aston House, where weapons and tactics research were conducted. However, the main weapons and devices research was carried out by two establishments;
The Firs, near
AylesburyAylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in south east England. In the 2001 census the Aylesbury Urban Area, which includes Bierton, Fairford Leys, Stoke Mandeville and Watermead, had a population of 69,021, which included 56,392 for the Aylesbury civil parish.-History:The town name is of...
in
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury and the largest town in ceremonial Buckinghamshire is Milton Keynes....
, and Station IX at
The FrytheThe Frythe is a country house set in its own grounds in rural Hertfordshire, just outside the village of Welwyn, about 30 miles north of London....
, a former hotel outside
Welwyn Garden CityWelwyn Garden City is a town in Hertfordshire, England, the second garden city in England and one of the first new towns ....
where, under the cover name of ISRB (Inter Services Research Bureau) SOE developed radios, weapons, explosive devices and
booby trapA booby trap is a trap designed to kill or severely injure a human. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is triggered when the victim performs some type of everyday action...
s.
Station XV, at the
Thatched BarnThe Thatched Barn was a two-storey mock-Tudor hotel built in the 1930s on the Barnet by-pass in Borehamwood, that was bought by holiday camp founder, Billy Butlin, before being requisitioned as Station XV by the Special Operations Executive in World War Two, and used to train spies...
near
BorehamwoodBorehamwood is a town in southern Hertfordshire, situated north of London. It is part of the borough of Hertsmere within the London commuter belt. As of April 2004, the town had approximately 30,000 residents...
, was devoted to
camouflageCamouflage is a method of crypsis that allows an otherwise visible organism or object to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception. Examples include a tiger's stripes and the battledress of a modern soldier...
, which usually meant equipping agents with authentic local clothing, equipment and documents. Various sub-stations in London, and Station XIV near
RoydonRoydon is a small village located in the Epping Forest district of the County of Essex, England. It is located 1.5 miles west of Harlow, 3.5 miles east of Hoddesdon and 4.6 miles north-west of Epping....
in
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
which specialised in
forgeryForgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents , with the intent to deceive. The similar crime of fraud is the crime of deceiving another, including through the use of objects obtained through forgery...
, were also involved in this task.
The initial training centre of the SOE was at
Wanborough Manor,
GuildfordGuildford is the county town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...
. Agents destined to serve in the field underwent
commandoThe term commando, in English, means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means élite light infantry and/or special forces units, specialised in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and effect...
training at
ArisaigArisaig is a small village in Lochaber, Invernessshire, on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. It lies on the Road to the Isles, the A830 which leads to Mallaig to the north and Fort William to the east....
in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, where they were taught armed and unarmed combat skills by
William E. FairbairnWilliam Ewart Fairbairn was a British soldier, police officer, and exponent of hand-to-hand combat method, the Close combat, for the Shanghai police between the World Wars, and allied special forces in World War II. He developed his own fighting system known as Defendu, as well as other weapons...
and
Eric A. SykesEric Anthony Sykes , born Eric Anthony Schwabe, is most famous for his work with William E. Fairbairn in the development of the eponymous Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife and modern British Close Quarters Battle martial arts during World War II...
, former Inspectors in the
Shanghai Municipal PoliceThe Shanghai Municipal Police was the police force of the Shanghai Municipal Council which governed the Shanghai International Settlement between 1854 and 1943, when the settlement was retroceded to Chinese control....
. They then attended courses in security and
"tradecraft" at Group B schools around
BeaulieuBeaulieu is a small village located on the south eastern edge of the New Forest national park in Hampshire, England and home to both Palace House and the British National Motor Museum.-History:...
in
HampshireHampshire , sometimes historically Southamptonshire, Hamptonshire, , or the County of Southampton, is a county on the south coast of England. The county borders , Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
. Finally, they received specialist training in skills such as
demolitionDemolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
techniques or
morse codeMorse code is a type of character encoding that transmits telegraphic information using rhythm. Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given message...
telegraphyTelegraphy is the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. It is a compound term formed from the Greek words tele = far and graphein = write. Radiotelegraphy or wireless telegraphy transmits messages using radio...
at various country houses in England and
parachuteA parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are made out of cloth, most commonly nylon....
training (if necessary) by STS 51 and 51a situated near
AltrinchamAltrincham is a market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on flat ground south of the River Mersey about southwest of Manchester city centre, south-southwest of Sale and east of Warrington...
,
CheshireCheshire ; also known, archaically, as the County of Chester) is a ceremonial county in North West England. The traditional county town is the city of Chester, although Cheshire's largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Widnes, Runcorn, Macclesfield,...
with the assistance of No.1 Parachute Training School RAF. at
RAF RingwayRAF Ringway, was a Royal Air Force station near Manchester, UK, situated in the parish of Ringway, then in Cheshire. It was operational from 1939 until 1957.-Prewar years:...
(later Manchester Airport)
France
SOE's operations were usually mounted in order to feel out resistance groups willing to work with the
AlliesIn general, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose. In English usage, those who share a common goal and whose work toward that goal is complementary may be viewed as allies for various purposes even when...
in preparation for invasion. In
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, personnel were directed by two London-based country sections. F Section was under British control, while RF Section was linked to
General de GaulleCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II...
's Free French government in
exileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return...
. Most native
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
agents served in RF. There were also two smaller sections: EU/P Section, which dealt with the
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
community in France, and the DF Section which was responsible for establishing escape routes. During the latter part of 1942 another section known as AMF was established in
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
, to operate into
Southern FranceSouthern France , colloquially known as le Midi is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura Mountains...
.
On 5 May 1941,
Georges BéguéGeorges Bégué or George P. Begue was a French engineer and agent in the Special Operations Executive.-Early life:...
(1911-1993) became the first SOE agent dropped into German occupied France. He then set up radio communications and met the next agents
parachuteA parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are made out of cloth, most commonly nylon....
d into France. Between Bégué's first drop in May 1941 and August 1944, more than four hundred F Section agents were sent into occupied France. They served in a variety of functions including arms and sabotage instructors, couriers, circuit organisers, liaison officers and radio operators. RF sent about the same number; AMF sent 600 (although not all of these belonged to SOE). EU/P and DF sent a few dozen agents each.
SOE included a number of women (who were often commissioned into women's branches of the armed forces such as the
First Aid Nursing YeomanryThe First Aid Nursing Yeomanry is a British independent all-female unit and registered charity affiliated to, but not part of, the Territorial Army....
). F Section alone sent 39 female agents into the field, of whom 13 did not return. The
Valençay SOE MemorialThe Valençay SOE Memorial is a monument to the members of the Special Operations Executive F Section who lost their lives for the liberation of France. The memorial was unveiled in the town of Valençay in the Indre département of France on May 6, 1991, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the...
was unveiled at
ValençayValençay is a commune in the Indre department in central France.It is situated in the Loire Valley on a hillside overlooking the Nahon river.-History:...
in the
IndreIndre is a department in the center of France named after the Indre River. The inhabitants of the department are called Indriens.-History:Indre is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
département of France on 6 May, 1991, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the despatch of F Section's first agent to France. The memorial's
roll of honourRoll of Honour may refer to:*A memorial list of names of people who have died in military, police service or other services*Roll of Honour , an Irish Republican song praising the participants in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike...
lists the names of the 91 men and 13 women members of the SOE who gave their lives for France's freedom.
To support the Allied invasion of France on D Day in June 1944, three-man parties were dropped into various parts of France as part of
Operation JedburghJedburgh was an operation in World War II in which men from the British Special Operations Executive, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services joined with men from the Free French Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action , and the Dutch or Belgian Army to parachute into Nazi occupied France,...
, to coordinate widespread overt (as opposed to clandestine) acts of resistance. A total of 100 men were eventually dropped, together with 6,000 tons of military stores (4,000 tons had been dropped during the years before D-Day.) At the same time, all the various sections operating in France (except EU/P) were nominally placed under a London-based HQ titled
État-major des Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur (EMFFI)The French Forces of the Interior refers to French resistance fighters in the latter stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation of these groups to FFI occurred as France's status changed from that of an occupied nation...
.
Poland
SOE did not need to instigate Polish resistance, because unlike the Vichy French the Poles overwhelmingly refused to collaborate with the Nazis. Early in the war the Poles established the Polish Home Army, led by a clandestine resistance government known as the
Polish Secret StateThe Polish Underground State is a collective term for the underground resistance organizations in Poland, both military and civilian, that remained loyal to the Polish Government in Exile in London during World War II...
. Nevertheless, there were many Polish members of SOE and much cooperation between the SOE and the Polish resistance.
SOE assisted the
Polish government in exileThe Polish government-in-exile was the government of Poland after the country had been occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union at the start of World War II...
with training facilities and logistical support for its 605 special forces operatives known as the
CichociemniCichociemni were a secret unit of the Polish Army in exile created to maintain contact with occupied Poland during World War II.-The name:...
, or
"The Dark and Silent". Members of the unit, which was based in
Audley End HouseAudley End House is largely an early 17th-century country house just outside Saffron Walden, Essex, south of Cambridge, England. It was once a palace in all but name and renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. Audley End is now only one-third of its original size, but is still...
,
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
, were rigorously trained before being parachuted into occupied Poland. Because of the distance involved in air travel to Poland, customised aircraft with extra fuel capacity were used in Polish operations such as Operation Wildhorn III.
Sue RyderMargaret Susan Cheshire, Baroness Ryder of Warsaw and Baroness Cheshire, CMG, OBE , best-known as Sue Ryder, was a British peeress who worked with Special Operations Executive in the Second World War and afterwards led many charitable organizations, notably the charity named in her honour.-Early...
chose the title Baroness Ryder of Warsaw in honour of these operations.
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
member
Krystyna SkarbekKrystyna Skarbek, GM, OBE, Croix de guerre was a Polish-born World War II British Special Operations Executive agent.In 1941 she began using the name Christine Granville, which she legally adopted after the war....
was a founder member of SOE and helped establish a cell of Polish spies in
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
. She ran several operations in Poland,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
,
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
(with
Andrzej KowerskiAndrzej Kowerski was a Polish Army officer and SOE agent in World War II.-Life:During the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Lieutenant Kowerski fought gallantly as a member of Poland's 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade, winning his country's highest military decoration, the Virtuti...
) and France, often using the staunchly anti-Nazi Polish expatriate community as a secure international network.
Non-official coverNon-official cover is a term used in espionage for agents or operatives who assume covert roles in organizations without ties to the government for which they work...
agents
Elzbieta ZawackaElżbieta Zawacka , known also by her war-time nom de guerre Zo, was a Polish university professor, scouting instructor, SOE agent and a freedom fighter during World War II...
and
Jan Nowak-JezioranskiJan Nowak-Jeziorański was a Polish journalist, writer, politician, social worker and patriot. He served during the Second World War as one of the most notable resistance fighters of the Home Army...
perfected the
GibraltarGibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe at the entrance of the Mediterranean overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. The territory covers and shares a land border with Spain to the north...
courier route out of occupied Europe.
Maciej KalenkiewiczMaciej Kalenkiewicz was a Polish engineer and military officer, a podpułkownik of the Polish Army. During the World War II he received training as a Cichociemny and was delivered to occupied Poland, where he assumed the command over the Nowogródek Home Army area...
was parachuted into occupied Poland, only to be executed by the
SovietsThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. A Polish agent was integral to SOE's
Operation FoxleyOperation Foxley was a 1944 plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler, created by the British Special Operations Executive . Although detailed preparations were made, the plan was not carried out...
, the plan to assassinate Hitler.
Thanks to cooperation between SOE and the Polish Home Army, the Poles were able to deliver the first Allied intelligence on the Holocaust to London.
Witold PileckiWitold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army Polish resistance group and a member of the Home Army...
of the Polish Home Army designed a joint operation with SOE to liberate Auschwitz, but the British rejected it as infeasible. Joint Anglo-Polish operations provided London with vital intelligence on the
V-2 rocketAccording to head of Nazi rocket program Walter Dornberger, the V-2 rocket was the world's first ballistic missile and first human artifact to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight. It was the progenitor of all modern rockets...
, German troops movements on the
Eastern FrontThe Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of war between the European Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland , and the Soviet Union which encompassed central and eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9...
, and the Soviet repressions of Polish citizens.
RAF 'Special Duties Flights' were sent to Poland to assist the
Warsaw UprisingThe Warsaw Uprising was a struggle by the Polish Home Army to liberate Warsaw from Nazi German occupation during World War II. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest. It was intended to last for only a few days until the Soviet Army reached the...
against the Nazis. The rebellion was defeated with a loss of 200,000 casualties (mostly German executions of Polish civilians) after the nearby
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
refused military assistance to the Polish Home Army. RAF Special Duties Flights were refused landing rights at Soviet-held airfields near Warsaw, even when requiring emergency landings after battle damage. These flights were also attacked by Soviet fighters, despite the U.S.S.R.'s officially Allied status.
Germany
Due to the dangers and lack of friendly population few operations were conducted in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
itself. The German and Austrian section of SOE was run by Lt. Col. Ronald Thornley for most of the war and was mainly involved with
black propagandaBlack propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side...
and administrative sabotage in collaboration with the German section of the
Political Warfare ExecutiveDuring World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....
. After
D-DayD-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
, the section was re-organised and enlarged with Major General
Gerald TemplerField Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer KG, GCB, GCMG, KBE was a British military commander. He is best known for his defeat of the guerrilla rebels in Malaya between 1952 and 1954...
heading the Directorate, with Thornley as his deputy.
Several major operations were planned, including
Operation FoxleyOperation Foxley was a 1944 plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler, created by the British Special Operations Executive . Although detailed preparations were made, the plan was not carried out...
, a plan to assassinate Hitler, and Operation Periwig, an ingenious plan to simulate the existence of a large-scale anti-Nazi resistance movement within Germany. Foxley was never carried but Periwig went ahead despite restrictions placed on it by
SISThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
and SHAEF. Several German
prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
were trained as agents, briefed to make contact with the anti-Nazi resistance and to conduct sabotage. They were then parachuted into
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
in the hope that they would either hand themselves in to the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
or be captured by them, and reveal their supposed mission. Fake coded wireless transmissions were broadcast to Germany and various pieces of agent paraphernalia such as code books and wireless receivers were allowed to fall into the hands of the German authorities.
The Netherlands
Section N of SOE ran operations in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
. They committed some of SOE's worst blunders in security, which allowed the Germans to capture many agents and much sabotage material, in what the Germans called the
"Englandspiel', also called Unternehmen Nordpol , was an enormous counter intelligence operation launched by the German Intelligence Organisation during World War II. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands and used the agents' codes to fool the Allies into continuing to...
". SOE apparently ignored the absence of security checks in radio transmissions, and other warnings from their chief crytographer,
Leo MarksLeopold Samuel Marks was an English cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:Born the son of an antiquarian bookseller in London, he was first introduced to cryptography when his father showed him a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold-Bug"...
, that the Germans were running the supposed resistance networks.
Eventually, two captured agents escaped to
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
in August 1943. The Germans sent messages over their controlled sets that they had gone over to the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
, but SOE was at last more wary.
SOE partly recovered from this disaster to set up new networks, which continued to operate until the Netherlands were liberated at the end of the war.
Belgium
Section T established some effective networks in
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
, in part orchestrated by fashion designer
Hardy AmiesSir Edwin Hardy Amies KCVO , was a British fashion designer, most well known for being the dress designer for HM Queen Elizabeth II.-Biography:...
, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Amies adapted names of fashion accessories for use as code words, while managing some of the most murderous and ruthless agents in the field.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Normandy, British armoured forces liberated the country in less than a week, giving the resistance little time to stage an uprising. They did assist British forces to bypass German rearguards, and this allowed the Allies to
captureThe Battle of the Scheldt was a series of military operations of the First Canadian Army, led by Lieutenant General Guy Simonds. The battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands during World War II from October 2, 1944 to November 8, 1944By September, 1944, it had become...
the vital docks at
Antwerp||-||-||-||}Antwerp is a city and municipality in Belgium and the capital of the Antwerp province in Flanders, one of Belgium's three regions. Antwerp's total population is 472,071 and its total area is , giving a population density of 2,308 inhabitants per km²...
intact.
After Brussels was liberated, Amies outraged his superiors by setting up a
VogueVogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine published in 16 countries + Latin America by Condé Nast Publications. Each month, Vogue publishes a magazine addressing topics of fashion, life and design.-Style and influence:...
photo-shoot in Belgium. In 1946, he was Knighted in Belgium for his service with SOE, being a
Named Officier de l'Ordre de la CouronneThe Order of the Crown is an Order of Belgium which was first created on 15 October 1897. The Order of the Crown was created under the authority of Leopold II of Belgium and was originally intended to recognize heroic deeds and distinguished service achieved from service in the Congo Free State -...
.
Italy
As both an enemy country, and supposedly a monolithic fascist state with no organised opposition which SOE could use, SOE made little effort in Italy before mid-1943, when
MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
's government collapsed and Allied forces already occupied
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
. SOE appears to have made no effort to recruit agents from among the many thousands of Italian
prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
.
In the aftermath of the Italian collapse, SOE helped build a large resistance organisation in the cities of
Northern ItalyNorthern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative worth, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian nation...
, and in the
AlpsThe Alps are one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
. Italian partisans harassed German forces in Italy throughout the autumn and winter of 1944, and in the
Spring 1945 offensive in ItalyThe Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot, was the Allied attack by Fifth United States Army and British 8th Army into the Lombardy Plain which started on April 6 1945 and ended on May 2 with the surrender of German forces in Italy....
they captured
GenoaGenoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000...
and other cities unaided by Allied forces.
Late in 1943, SOE established a base at
BariBari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
in Southern Italy, from which they operated their networks and agents in the Balkans. This organisation had the codename
"Force 133".
Yugoslavia
In the aftermath of the German invasion in 1941, the
Kingdom of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
fragmented. In
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a country in southeast Europe, at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is Zagreb...
, there was a substantial pro-Axis movement, the
UstašeThe Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement , members known collectively as Ustaše, but sometimes anglicised as Ustashe, Ustashas or Ustashi) was a Croatian anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was blend of fascism, nazism, Croatian ultranationalism, and Roman Catholic...
. In the remainder of Yugoslavia, two resistance movements formed; the royalist
ChetniksThe Chetnik movement or the Chetniks were a Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organization operating in the Balkans before and during World Wars...
under
Draža MihailovićDragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general, now primarily remembered as a World War II collaborator and leader of the Chetnik movement...
, and the Communist
partisansThe Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II resistance movement engaged in the fight against Axis forces and their collaborators in Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav People's Liberation War from 1941 to 1945...
under
TitoJosip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic script: Јосип Броз Тито, (7 or 25 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. He was Secretary-General (later President) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80), and went on to lead the World War II...
.
Mihailović was the first to attempt to contact the Allies, and SOE despatched a party on 20 September 1941 under Major
"Marko" Hudson. Hudson also encountered Tito's forces. Through the royalist government in exile, SOE at first supported the Chetniks, but it became evident to British
Military IntelligenceMI3, the British Military Intelligence Section 3 , was a division of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was originally set up to handle geographical information...
from decrypted German radio messages that the Chetniks were less effective, and were even collaborating with the Italians and Germans against the partisans in some areas. Hence British support was redirected to the partisans, even before the
Tehran ConferenceThe Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference among the Big Three in which Stalin was present...
in 1943.
Although relations were often touchy throughout the war, it can be argued that SOE's unstinting support was a factor in Yugoslavia's maintaining a neutral stance during the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
. However, accounts vary dramatically between all historical works on the
"Chetnik controversy".
Hungary
SOE was unable to establish links or contacts in
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
before the regime of
Miklós HorthyMiklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944...
aligned itself with the
Axis PowersThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
. Distance and lack of such contacts prevented any effort being made by SOE until the Hungarians themselves dispatched a diplomat (László Veress) in a clandestine attempt to contact the
Western AlliesThe term Western Allies refers to a certain political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China,...
. SOE facilitated his return, with some radio sets. Before the Allied governments could agree terms, Hungary was placed under German military occupation and Veress was forced to flee the country.
Two missions subsequently dropped
"blind" i.e. without prior arrangement for a reception party, failed. So too did an attempt by
Basil DavidsonBasil Davidson is an acclaimed British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution ....
to incite a partisan movement in Hungary, after he made his way there from northeastern Yugoslavia.
Greece
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
was overrun by the Axis only after a desperate defence lasting several months. In the aftermath, SIS and another intelligence organisation, SIME, discouraged attempts at sabotage or resistance as this might imperil relations with Turkey, although SOE maintained contacts with resistance groups in
CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
. When an agent, "Odysseus", a former tobacco-smugger, attempted to contact potential resistance groups in Greece, he reported that no group was prepared to cooperate with the monarchist government in exile in Cairo.
In late 1942, at the army's instigation, SOE mounted its first operation, codenamed "Operation Harling", into Greece in an attempt to disrupt the railway which was being used to move materials to the German Panzer Army Africa. A party under Colonel (later Brigadier) Eddie Myers, assisted by
Christopher WoodhouseChristopher Woodhouse may refer to:*Montague Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington, full name Christopher Montague Woodhouse, , Conservative MP*Christopher Woodhouse, 6th Baron Terrington , urologist and son of the former...
, was parachuted into Greece and discovered two guerrilla groups operating in the mountains; the pro-Communist ELAS and the republican EDES. On 25 November 1942, Myers's party blew up one of the spans of the railway viaduct at
GorgopotamosGorgopotamos is a village and a municipality in Phthiotis, Greece located 10 km southwest of Lamia. Its 2001 population was 443 for the village and 4,510 for the municipal district. The seat of the municipality is in Moschochori. It is named after the river which flows nearby...
, supported by 150 Greek partisans from these two organisations who engaged Italians guarding the viaduct. This cut the railway linking Thessaloniki with Athens and Piraeus.
Relations between the resistance groups and the British soured. EDES received most aid from SOE, but ELAS secured many weapons when Italy collapsed and Italian military forces in Greece dissolved. ELAS and EDES fought a vicious
civil warA civil war is a war between organized groups within a single nation state, or, less commonly, between two nations created from a formerly-united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the nation or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies...
in 1943 until SOE brokered an uneasy
armisticeAn armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
(the
PlakaPláka is the picturesque old historical neighbourhood of Athens, clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis, and incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture. Plaka is built on top of the residential areas of the ancient town of Athens...
agreement). When the British needed once again to disrupt the railway across Greece, the resistance groups refused to take part, rightly fearing German reprisals against civilians. Instead, a six-man commando party from the British and New Zealand armies carried out the destruction of the
AsoposAsopos is a municipality in Laconia, Greece. Population 4,187 . The seat of the municipality is in Papadianika....
viaduct on 21 June 1943.
Eventually, the
British ArmyThe British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England and Scotland and...
occupied
AthensAthens , the capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the world's oldest cities, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
and
PiraeusPiraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, and a municipality within Athens urban area, located 10 km southwest of its center....
in the aftermath of the German withdrawal, and fought a street-by-street battle to drive ELAS from these cities and impose an interim government under
Archbishop DamaskinosArchbishop Damaskinos Papandreou was the archbishop of Athens and All Greece from 1941 until his death. He was also the regent of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece in 1946...
. SOE's last act was to evacuate several hundred disarmed EDES fighters to
CorfuCorfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and its northern part lies off the coast of Sarandë, Albania from which it is separated by straits varying in breadth from 3 to 23 km , including one near ancient Butrint, while its southern part lies...
, preventing their massacre by ELAS.
Albania
AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
had been under Italian influence since 1923, and was occupied by the
Italian ArmyThe Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Republic. It has recently become a professional all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 109,703 in 2008...
in 1939. In 1943, a small liaison party entered Albania from northwestern Greece. SOE agents who entered Albania then or later included
Julian AmeryHarold Julian Amery, Baron Amery of Lustleigh, PC was a British politician of the Conservative Party, who served as a Member of Parliament for 39 of the 42 years between 1950 and 1992. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1960. He was created a life peer upon his retirement from the House of...
,
Anthony QuayleSir John Anthony Quayle, CBE was an English actor and director.-Early life:He was born in Ainsdale, Southport in Lancashire educated at the private Rugby School and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932...
,
David SmileyColonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar was a British special forces and intelligence officer...
and
Neil "Billy" McLeanLieutenant-Colonel Neil Loudon Desmond McLean DSO, known as Billy McLean , was a British Army intelligence officer and politician who led a celebrated Special Operations Executive operation in Albania during the Second World War, and later attempted to overthrow Communism in the country...
. They discovered another internecine war between the Communist partisans under
Enver Hoxha' was the Communist leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
, and the republican
Balli KombëtarThe Balli Kombëtar was an Albanian nationalist and anti-communist organization established in 1942. It was lead by Ali Klissura and Midhat Frashëri...
. As the latter had collaborated with the Italian occupiers, Hoxha gained Allied support.
SOE's envoy to Albania, Brigadier
"Trotsky" Davies, was captured by the Germans early in 1944. Some SOE officers warned that Hoxha's aim was primacy after the war, rather than fighting Germans. They were ignored, but Albania was never a major factor in the effort against the Germans.
Czechoslovakia
SOE sent many missions into the
Czech areasThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
of the so-called
Protectorate of Bohemia and MoraviaThe Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
, and later into
SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava...
. The most famous mission was
Operation AnthropoidOperation Anthropoid was the code name for the assassination of top German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich. He was the chief of the Reich Main Security Office , the acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, and a chief planner of the Final Solution, the Nazi German programme for the genocide of the Jews...
, the assassination of SS leader
Reinhard HeydrichReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
. From 1942 to 1943 the
CzechoslovaksCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
had their own Special Training School (STS) at
Chicheley HallChicheley is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The village is about 2½ miles north east of Newport Pagnell.The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means Cicca's clearing...
in
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury and the largest town in ceremonial Buckinghamshire is Milton Keynes....
. In 1944, SOE sent men to support the
Slovak National UprisingThe Slovak National Uprising or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the Slovak resistance movement during World War II. It was launched on August 29, 1944 from Banská Bystrica in an attempt to oust the collaborationist government of Jozef Tiso...
.
Norway
In March 1941 a group performing commando raids in
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
,
Norwegian Independent Company 1Norwegian Independent Company 1 wasa British SOE group formed in March 1941 originally for the purpose of performing commando raids in occupied Norway. It was organized under leadership of Captain Martin Linge...
(NOR.I.C.1) was organised under leadership of
CaptainThe army rank of Captain is an officer rank historically corresponding to command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces. Today a captain is typically the commander, or second in command, of a company or squadron...
Martin LingeMartin Jensen Linge was a former Norwegian actor who, in World War II, became the commander of the Norwegian Independent Company 1 , formed in March 1941 for operations on behalf of the Special Operations Executive.Although Linge was killed during a raid to Måløy , the...
. Their initial raid in 1941 was
Operation ArcheryOperation Archery was a British Combined Operations raid during World War II against German positions on Vågsøy Island, Norway on 27 December 1941....
, the best known raid was probably the
Norwegian heavy water sabotageThe Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of actions undertaken by Norwegian saboteurs during World War II to prevent the German nuclear energy project from acquiring heavy water , which could be used to produce nuclear weapons...
. Communication lines with London were gradually improved so that by 1945, 64 radio operators were spread throughout Norway.
Denmark
Most of the actions conducted by the Danish resistance were railway sabotage to hinder German troop and material movements from and to Norway. However, there were examples of sabotage on a much larger scale especially by
BOPABOPA was a group of the Danish resistance movement operating at the time of the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany during the Second World War....
. In all over 1,000 operations were conducted from 1942 and onwards.
In October 1943 the Danish resistance also saved nearly all of the Danish
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s from certain death in German concentration camps. This was a massive overnight operation and is to this day recognised among Jews as one of the most significant displays of public defiance against the Germans.
The Danish resistance assisted SOE in its activities in neutral
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
. For example, SOE was able to obtain several shiploads of vital ball-bearings which had been interned in Swedish ports. The
DanesDanish people are a nation and ethnic group native to Denmark, who speak Danish. This includes people with a Danish ancestral or ethnic identity, whether living in Denmark, emigrants, or the descendants of emigrants, eg: the Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, a former Danish province.The...
also pioneered several secure communications methods; for example, a
burst transmitter/receiverIn telecommunication, the term burst transmission has the following meanings:# Any relatively high-bandwidth transmission over a short period of time...
which transcribed
Morse codeMorse code is a type of character encoding that transmits telegraphic information using rhythm. Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given message...
onto a paper tape faster than a human operator could handle.
There are a series of Historic Notes written by David Lampe in his
"The Danish Resistance" also called
"The Savage Canary".
Romania
In 1943 an SOE delegation was parachuted into
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
to instigate resistance against the Nazi occupation at
"any cost" (
Operation AutonomousOperation Autonomous was a clandestine operation carried out on the territory of Romania by the Special Operations Executive set up by Churchill for the duration of the war to assist local Resistance movements.-Participants:...
). The delegation, including
Colonel Gardyne de ChastelainAlfred George Gardyne de Chastelain, DSO, OBE was a British businessman, soldier, and secret agent, noted for his actions during World War II...
, Captain Silviu Meţianu and
Ivor PorterIvor F. Porter CMG, OBE is a former British Ambassador and author.-Education:Porter was brought up in the Lake District and educated at Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School and Leeds University.-Special Operations Executive:...
, was captured by the
Romanian GendarmerieJandarmeria Română is the military branch of the two Romanian police forces .The gendarmerie is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform and does not have responsibility for policing the Romanian Armed Forces...
and held until the night of
King Michael's CoupKing Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...
on 23 August 1944.
Other operations in Europe
Through cooperation with the Special Operations Executive and the British intelligence service, a group of
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish volunteers from
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
were sent on missions to several countries in Nazi-occupied Europe from 1943 to 1945.
Abyssinia
AbyssiniaAbyssinia may refer to the Ethiopian Empire that consisted of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea.Abyssinia may also refer to:* SS Abyssinia, 1870 Canadian Pacific steamship* HMS Abyssinia , British armoured ship...
was the scene of some of SOE's earliest and most successful efforts. SOE organised a force of
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast. Its size is 1,100,000 km² with an...
n irregulars under
Orde Charles WingateMajor-General Orde Charles Wingate, DSO and two bars , was a British Army officer and creator of special military units in World War II and Palestine in the 1930s....
in support of the exiled
EmperorAn emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress is the female equivalent. As a title, "empress" may indicate the wife of an emperor or a woman who rules in her own right...
Haile Selassie. This force (named
Gideon ForceThe Gideon Force was a small British-led African regular force which acted as a Corps d'Elite amongst the irregular Ethiopian forces fighting the Italian occupation forces in Ethiopia during the East African Campaign of World War II...
by Wingate) caused heavy casualties to the Italian occupation forces, and contributed to the successful British campaign there. Wingate was to use his experience to create the
ChinditsThe Chindits were a British India "Special Force" that served in Burma and India in 1943 and 1944 during the Burma Campaign in World War II...
in Burma.
Southeast Asia
As early as 1940, SOE was preparing plans for operations in
Southeast AsiaManila
Bangkok
Ho Chi Minh City
Kuala Lumpur
Singapore
Yangon
Bandung
Hanoi
Surabaya
Taichung
Kaohsiung
Medan|-|}...
. As in Europe, after initial Allied military disasters, SOE built up indigenous resistance organisations and guerrilla armies in enemy (Japanese) occupied territory. SOE also launched
"Operation Remorse" (1944-45), which was ultimately aimed at protecting the economic and political status of
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
. Through
Force 136Force 136 was the general cover name for a branch of the British World War II organization, the Special Operations Executive . Force 136 operated in the regions of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II which were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945....
, SOE engaged in covert trading of goods and currencies in
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. Its agents proved remarkably successful, raising £77m through their activities, which were used to provide assistance for Allied prisoners of war and, more controversially, to buy influence locally in order to facilitate a smooth return to pre-war conditions.
Agents
A variety of people from all classes and pre-war occupations served SOE in the field. In most cases, the primary quality required was a deep knowledge of the country in which the agent was to operate, and especially its language, if the agent was to pass as a native of the country. Dual nationality was often a prized attribute. This was particularly so of France. Many of the agents in F Section were of
working classWorking class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation....
origin (some even reputedly from the criminal underworld).
In other cases, especially in the Balkans, a lesser degree of fluency was required as the resistance groups concerned were already in open rebellion and a clandestine existence was unnecessary. A flair for diplomacy combined with a taste for rough soldiering was more necessary. Some regular army officers proved adept as envoys, although others (such as the former diplomat Fitzroy Maclean or the classical scholar
Christopher WoodhouseChristopher Woodhouse may refer to:*Montague Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington, full name Christopher Montague Woodhouse, , Conservative MP*Christopher Woodhouse, 6th Baron Terrington , urologist and son of the former...
) were commissioned only during wartime.
Exiled or escaped members of the armed forces of some occupied countries were obvious sources of agents. This was particularly true of
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
and
HollandThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
. In other cases (such as Frenchmen owing loyalty to
Charles de GaulleCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II...
and especially the Poles), the agents' first loyalty was to their leaders or governments in exile, and they treated SOE only as a means to an end. This could occasionally lead to mistrust and strained relations in Britain.
SOE employed many Canadians; the
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
government recruited Canadian volunteers for clandestine service to either SOE or
MI9MI9, the British Military Intelligence Section 9, was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office, during World War II...
.
SOE was prepared to ignore almost any contemporary social convention in its fight against the Axis. It employed known homosexuals, people with
criminal recordA criminal record is a record of a person's criminal history, generally used by potential employers, lenders etc. to assess his or her trustworthiness. The information included in a criminal record varies between countries and even between jurisdictions within a country...
s or bad conduct records in the armed forces, Communists, anti-British nationalists etc. Although some of these might have been considered a security risk, there is practically no known case of an SOE agent wholeheartedly going over to the enemy.
Communications
SOE was highly dependent upon the security of radio transmissions. There were three factors involved in this: the physical qualities and capabilities of the radio sets, the security of the transmission procedures and the provision of proper
cipherIn cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...
s.
SOE's first radios were supplied by SIS. They were large, clumsy and required large amounts of power. SOE acquired a few, much more suitable, sets from the Poles in exile, but eventually designed and manufactured their own, such as the
ParasetThe Paraset was a small, low-power, vacuum tube CW radio transceiver supplied to the resistance groups in France, Belgium and the Netherlands during World War II.- History :...
. Some of these, together with their batteries, weighed only , and could fit into a small attache case, although larger sets were required to work over ranges greater than .
Operating procedures were insecure at first; operators were forced to transmit verbose messages at fixed times and intervals. This allowed German
direction findingDirection finding refers to the establishment of the direction from which a received signal was transmitted. This can refer to radio or other forms of wireless communication...
teams time to triangulate their positions. After several operators were captured or killed, procedures were made more flexible and secure.
As with their first radio sets, SOE's first ciphers were inherited from SIS.
Leo MarksLeopold Samuel Marks was an English cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:Born the son of an antiquarian bookseller in London, he was first introduced to cryptography when his father showed him a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold-Bug"...
, SOE's chief cryptographer, was responsible for the development of better codes to replace the insecure
poem codeThe poem code is a simple, and insecure, cryptographic method.The method works by the sender and receiver pre-arranging a poem to use. The sender chooses a set number of words at random from the poem and gives each letter in the chosen words a number. The numbers are then used as a key for some...
s. Eventually, SOE settled on single use ciphers, printed on silk.
Equipment
SOE was forced by circumstances to develop a wide range of equipment for clandestine use. Among products developed at Station IX were a miniature folding motorbike (the
WelbikeThe Welbike was a British single-seat motorcycle devised during World War Two at Station IX — the Inter Services Research Bureau — based at Welwyn, UK, for use by Special Operations Executive . It has the distinction of being the smallest motorcycle ever used by the British Armed Forces...
) for use by parachutists, a silenced pistol (the
WelrodThe Welrod was a British bolt action, magazine fed, suppressed pistol devised during World War II at the Inter-Services Research Bureau , based near Welwyn Garden City, UK, for use by irregular forces and resistance groups...
) and several miniature submersible craft (the
Welman submarineThe Welman submarine was a Second World War one-man British midget submarine developed by the Special Operations Executive. It only saw action once and was never particularly successful.-Design:...
and
Sleeping Beauty). A sea trials unit was set up in
West WalesWest Wales is the western area of Wales.Some definitions of West Wales include only Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, an area called "South West Wales" in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Other definitions include Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, but exclude...
at
GoodwickGoodwick is a coastal town in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, immediately west of its twin town of Fishguard. Goodwick was a small fishing village in the parish of Llanwnda, but in 1887 work commenced on a railway connection and harbour, and the village grew rapidly to service this.- Fishguard...
, by
FishguardFishguard is a coastal town in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, with a population of 3,300 . The community of Fishguard and Goodwick had a population of 5043 at the 2001 census. A regular ferry leaves for Rosslare in Ireland from the port of Fishguard Harbour...
(station IXa) where these craft were tested. In late 1944 craft were dispatched to
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
to the
Allied Intelligence BureauThe Allied Intelligence Bureau was a joint United States, Australian, Dutch and British intelligence and special operations agency of World War II. The AIB was responsible for operating parties of spies and commandos behind Japanese lines in order to collect intelligence and conduct guerrilla...
(SRD), for tropical testing.
An agent working clandestinely in the field obviously required clothing, documents and so on which would not arouse suspicion. SOE maintained centres which specialised in producing foreign clothing and forging identity cards, ration cards etc (even to the extent of manufacturing cigarettes which would pass as the local product).
Although SOE used some assassination weapons such as the
De Lisle carbineThe De Lisle carbine or De Lisle Commando carbine was a British carbine used during World War II. The primary feature of the De Lisle was its very effective suppressor which made it extremely quiet in action....
, it took the view that weapons issued to resisters should not require extensive training or care. The crude and cheap
StenThe Sten was a family of British 9 mm submachine guns used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War...
was a favourite. For issue to large forces such as the partisans in
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
, SOE used captured
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
or
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
weapons. These were available in large quantities after the surrender of Italy, and the partisans could acquire ammunition for these weapons (and the Sten) from enemy sources. Most agents received training on captured enemy weapons before being sent into enemy-occupied territory.
SOE also adhered to the principle that resistance fighters would be handicapped rather than helped by heavy equipment such as
mortarsA mortar is a muzzle-loading indirect fire weapon that fires shells at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It typically has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber.- Function :...
or anti-tank guns. These were almost impossible to conceal and required much training in their use. Later in the war however, when the resistance groups staged open rebellions against enemy occupation, some heavy weapons were dispatched, for example to the
Maquis du VercorsThe massif du Vercors is a prominent scenic plateau region in the French départements of Isère and Drôme in Eastern France. It was used by the rural Free French Resistance group, known as the Maquis du Vercors, as a refuge and a sanctuary for the French Resistance against the 1940-1944 German...
.
SOE developed a wide range of explosive devices for sabotage, such as
limpet mineA limpet mine is a type of naval mine attached to a target by magnets; they are so named because of their superficial similarity to the limpet, a type of mollusk....
s, shaped charges and time fuses. These were later also used by commando units. They developed crossbows powered by multiple rubber bands to shoot incendiary bolts. There were two types, known as
"Big Joe" and
"Lil Joe" respectively. They had had tubular alloy skeleton
"stocks" and were designed to be collapsible for ease of concealment.
The SOE made pioneering use of
plastic explosivePlastic explosive is a specialised form of explosive material. It is soft and hand moldable solid material. Plastic explosives are properly known as Putty explosives within the field of explosives engineering....
(the term "plastique" comes from SOE packaged plastic explosive originally destined for France but being taken to the USA instead) It was used in everything from
car bombA car bomb is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle, people near the blast site, or to damage buildings or other property...
s, to exploding rats designed to destroy coal fired boilers. Other, more subtle sabotage methods included
lubricantA lubricant is a substance introduced between two moving surfaces to reduce the friction between them, improving efficiency and reducing wear often used while having sex...
s laced with grinding materials, incendiaries disguised as innocuous objects and so on.
Some of the more imaginative devices included exploding pens with enough explosive power to blast a hole in the bearer's body, guns concealed in pipes, exploding rats and land mines disguised as cow or
elephantElephants are large land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three species of elephant are living today: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant...
dung. For specialised operations or use in extreme circumstances, SOE issued small fighting knives which could be concealed in the heel of a hard leather shoe or behind a coat lapel. Given the likely fate of agents captured by the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
, SOE also disguised
suicide pillA suicide pill is a pill, capsule, ampoule or tablet containing a fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to quickly cause his/her own death...
s as coat buttons.
Transport
With the continent of Europe closed to normal travel, SOE had to rely on its own air or sea transport for movement of people, arms and equipment.
Air MarshalAir Marshal is a 3 star air officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries...
Harris (
"Bomber Harris"), the
Commander-in-ChiefA commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the...
of
Bomber CommandRAF Bomber Command was the organisation that controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II, the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s was at the peak of its postwar power with the V bombers and a...
, appears to have resented the use of bombers for SOE purposes, but he was over-ruled and by April 1942, SOE had the services of
138-History:It was originally formed as a fighter-reconnaissance squadron in September 1918, and was disbanded in February 1919.During World War II, it was reformed in 1941, from No. 1419 Flight, as No. 138 Squadron. It was based at RAF Tempsford, and was tasked with dropping agents and equipment of...
and
161No. 161 Squadron was a highly secretive unit of the Royal Air Force tasked with missions of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Their primary role was to drop and collect secret agents and equipment into and from Nazi-occupied Europe...
squadrons at
RAF TempsfordRAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire, England was perhaps the most secret Royal Air Force airfield in World War II. It was home to the Special Duties Squadrons, No. 138, which dropped Special Operations Executive agents and their supplies into occupied Europe, and No. 161, which specialised in personnel...
. Many stores, and some agents were dropped by parachute. Some aircraft such as the
Westland LysanderThe Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and liaison aircraft produced by Westland Aircraft. It was used during the Second World War and was renowned for its ability to operate from small, unprepared airstrips...
often landed in enemy-occupied territory to deliver or collect agents.
There were also difficulties with the
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early...
, which also was usually unwilling to allow SOE to use its submarines or
motor torpedo boatMotor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Navy.During World War II the US Navy boats were usually called by their hull classification symbol of "PT" and are covered under PT boat though the class type was still...
s. However, SOE often used clandestine craft such as fishing boats or
caiquesKaiki may refer to:*Kaiki Nobuhide, sumo wrestler*Caïque, is a wooden fishing boat usually found among the waters of the Ionian or Aegean Seas....
and eventually ran quite large fleets of these, from
AlgiersAlgiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb . According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630...
, the
Shetland IslandsShetland is an archipelago in Scotland, off the northeast coast. The islands lie to the northeast of Orkney, from the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total area is approximately 1,466 km²...
(a service termed the
Shetland BusThe Shetland Bus was the nickname of a clandestine special operations group that made a permanent link between Shetland, Scotland, and German-occupied Norway from 1941 until the German occupation ended on 8 May 1945. From mid-1942 the official name of the group was "Norwegian Naval Independent Unit"...
), Ceylon etc.
Later analysis and commentaries
The mode of warfare encouraged and promoted by SOE is considered by several modern commentators to have established the modern model that many alleged terrorist organisations emulate, pioneering most of the tactics, techniques and technologies that are the mainstays of terrorism as it is commonly known today.
Filmography (in order of release date)
- Now It Can Be Told (aka School for Danger) (1946)
- Filming began in 1944 and starred real-life SOE agents Captain Harry Rée
Harry Alfred Rée DSO OBE was a British educationist and wartime member of the Special Operations Executive.Harry Rée was born in England, the son of Dr Alfred Rée, a chemist who was descended from an illustrious Danish Jewish family, and Lavinia Dimmick, the American-born great granddaughter of...
and Jacqueline Nearne. The film tells the story of the training of agents for SOE and their adventures in France. The training sequences were filmed using the SOE equipment at the training schools at Traigh and Garramor (South Morar) and at Ringway.
- The Fight over the Heavy Water (1948)
- A French/Norwegian black and white docu-film titled "La Bataille de l'eau lourde"/"Kampen om tungtvannet" (trans. "The Fight Over the Heavy Water"), featured some of the ‘original cast’, so to speak. Joachim Rønneberg has stated; "The Fight over Heavy Water was an honest attempt to describe history. On the other hand 'Heroes of Telemark' had little to do with reality."
- Odette
Odette is a 1950 film that was directed by Herbert Wilcox and used a screenplay by Warren Chetham-Strode. The film starred Anna Neagle as Odette Sansom, an Allied French-born heroine of World War II who joined the Special Operations Executive and was sent to France to work with the resistance....
(1950)
- Based on the book by Jerrard Tickell
Edward Jerrard Tickell was an Irish novelist.Tickell was born in Dublin and educated in Tipperary and London. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps in 1940 and was commissioned in 1941, when he was appointed to the War Office. Between 1943 and 1945 his official duties took him to Africa, the...
about Odette SansomOdette Sansom Hallowes GC, MBE, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur was an Allied heroine of World War II.-Early years:...
, starring Anna NeagleDame Anna Neagle, DBE was a popular English stage and motion picture actress and singer.Neagle proved to be a box-office sensation in British films for over 25 years. She was noted for providing glamour and sophistication to war-torn London audiences with her lightweight musicals, comedies and...
and Trevor HowardTrevor Howard , born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor.-Early life:...
. The film includes an interview with Maurice BuckmasterColonel Maurice James Buckmaster OBE was the leader of the French section of Special Operations Executive....
, head of F-Section, SOE.
- Ill Met by Moonlight
Ill Met by Moonlight , also known as Night Ambush, is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the last film they made together through their Archers production company...
(1957)]
- The Powell and Pressburger
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s, and in were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious award...
film, (released as Night Ambush in the States), based on the book by W. Stanley MossIvan William Stanley Moss MC , known as Bill or Billy, served with the Coldstream Guards and SOE and was a best-selling author in the 1950s. He also travelled around the world....
, starring Dirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was a British actor and novelist. Initially a matinee star in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art house films like Death in Venice...
and Marius GoringMarius Goring CBE was an English stage and cinema actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes...
. It dramatises the true story of the capture of a German general by Patrick Leigh FermorSir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
and W. Stanley Moss.
- Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) is a well-known classic British-made war-drama set in Burma during WW2, during the construction of the Siam–Burma railway through virgin jungle and endless hills and gorges, using malnourished, mistreated allied prisoners of war. A counter-story in the film, which collides with the main story at the climax, relates to a mission to destroy the newly-constructed railway bridge by a fictitious cloak and dagger sabotage organisation called 'Force 316', whose training base is in Ceylon. In fact, this is a thinly-disguised reference to the real-life Force 136
Force 136 was the general cover name for a branch of the British World War II organization, the Special Operations Executive . Force 136 operated in the regions of the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II which were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945....
, part of SOE, who indeed had wartime jungle-training facilities in Ceylon at M.E. 25—Horona.
- Carve Her Name with Pride
Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British drama film based on the book of the same name by R.J. Minney. Set during World War II, the film is based on the true story of the heroism of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo....
(1958)
- Based on the book by R.J. Minney about Violette Szabo
Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell Szabo, GC, MBE, was a World War II Allied secret agent.-Early life and marriage:...
, starring Paul ScofieldDavid Paul Scofield, CH, CBE was an English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, a reprise of the role he played in the stage...
and Virginia McKennaVirginia McKenna OBE is an English stage and screen actress, author and wildlife campaigner.-Early career:McKenna trained as an actress at the Central School of Speech and Drama then worked on stage in London's West End theatres before making her motion picture debut in 1952...
.
- The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley Baker...
(1961)
- Based on a well-known 1957 novel about World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote successful thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both having been made into successful films...
. It starred Gregory PeckGregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1990s...
, David NivenJames David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was an English actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Litton, a.k.a. "the Phantom," in The Pink Panther.-Early life:David Niven was born in London, England...
and Anthony QuinnAnthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
, along with Anthony QuayleSir John Anthony Quayle, CBE was an English actor and director.-Early life:He was born in Ainsdale, Southport in Lancashire educated at the private Rugby School and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932...
(the same Anthony Quayle listed above as serving with SOE in AlbaniaAlbania , officially the Republic of Albania , is a Mediterranean country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south-east...
) and Stanley BakerSir Stanley Baker was a Welsh actor and film producer.-Early career:He was born William Stanley Baker in Ferndale, Rhondda Valley, Wales...
. The book and the film share the same basic plot: the efforts of an Allied commando team to destroy a seemingly impregnable German fortress that threatens Allied naval ships in the Aegean Sea, and prevents 2,000 isolated British troops from being rescued, that were holed up on the island of Kheros in the Aegean, near Turkey.
- The Heroes of Telemark
The Heroes of Telemark is a 1965 war film directed by Anthony Mann based on the true story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during World War II.- Plot:...
(1965)
- Based on an SOE operation to sabotage the heavy water
Heavy water is water that contains a higher proportion than normal of the isotope deuterium, as deuterium oxide, D2O or ²H2O, or as deuterium protium oxide, HDO or ¹H²HO. Its physical and chemical properties are somewhat similar to those of water, H2O...
plant at RjukanRjukan is a town and the administrative center of Tinn municipality in Telemark . It is situated in Vestfjorddalen, between Møsvatn and Tinnsjå, and got its name after Rjukanfossen west of the town. The Tinn municipality council granted township status for Rjukan in 1996. The town has 3 386...
, NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
in 1943.
- Operation Crossbow
Operation Crossbow is a 1965 spy thriller and World War II film, made from a story from Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli and filmed at MGM-British Studios...
(1965)
- A spy thriller and World War II film, made from a story from Duilio Coletti and Vittoriano Petrilli. It is a highly fictionalized account of the real-life Operation Crossbow
Crossbow was the code name of the World War II campaign of Anglo-American "operations against all phases of the German long-range weapons programme—operations against research and development of the weapons, their manufacture, transportation and their launching sites, and against missiles in flight"...
, but it does touch on the main aspects of the operation.
- Where Eagles Dare
Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 World War II spy film directed by Brian G. Hutton and featuring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. The film's screenplay and eponymous 1967 best-selling novel were written almost simultaneously by Alistair MacLean...
(1968)
- A spy film directed by Brian G. Hutton
Brian G. Hutton is an American motion picture actor and director.- Filmography :*High Road to China *The First Deadly Sin *Night Watch *Zee and Co....
and featuring Richard BurtonRichard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award and was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood...
, Clint EastwoodClinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American actor, film director, film producer and composer. He has received five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award and five People's Choice Awards—including one for Favorite All-Time Motion Picture Star.Eastwood is...
, and Mary UreEileen Mary Ure was a Scottish actress of stage and film.-Early life:Born in Glasgow where she studied at the School of Drama, Ure was the daughter of civil engineer Colin McGregor Ure and Edith Swinburne...
. The film's screenplay and eponymous 1967 best-selling novel were written almost simultaneously by Alistair MacLean.
- Operation Daybreak
Operation Daybreak is a 1975 World War II film based on the true story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague - starring Anthony Andrews, Timothy Bottoms and Martin Shaw. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and shot mostly on location in Prague. It was adapted from the book Seven Men...
(1976)
- Based upon a true, dangerous operation in May 1942 to drop a small group of Czech and Slovak S.O.E. agents into their own occupied country with the singular deadly mission to assassinate Reichsführer-SS
was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, became the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...
Heinrich Himmler's protégé, Reinhard HeydrichReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
, Reichsprotektor (representing the Nazi protectorate over the Czech puppet-state) of Bohemia and Moravia, hated as The Butcher of Prague. The mission succeeded, but with tragic results.
- Nancy Wake Codename: The White Mouse (1987)
- A docudrama
A docudrama is a dramatization of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction.-Generalities:Docudramas tend to demonstrate some or most of the following characteristics:...
about Nancy WakeNancy Grace Augusta Wake AC, GM served as a British agent during the later part of World War II. She became a leading figure in the maquis groups of the French Resistance and became one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of the war.-Early life:Born in Roseneath, Wellington, New Zealand,...
's work for SOE, partly narrated by herself.
- Wish Me Luck
Wish Me Luck is a British television drama about the exploits of British women agents during the Second World War. The series was made by London Weekend Television for the ITV network between 1987 and 1989 and created by Lavinia Warner and Jill Hyem, who had previously produced and written the BBC...
(1987)
- A television series that was broadcast between 1987 and 1990 featuring the exploits of the women and, less frequently, the men of SOE, which was renamed the 'Outfit'.
- Charlotte Gray
Charlotte Gray is a 2001 feature film directed by Gillian Armstrong, based on the novel of the same name by Sebastian Faulks. It is set in Vichy France, during World War II and stars Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon and Rupert Penry-Jones....
, (2001)
- Based on a novel by Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Charles Faulks CBE FRSL is a British novelist and journalist.-Biography:Faulks is the son of Pamela and Peter Ronald Faulks, a Berkshire solicitor who later became a judge. He grew up in Newbury. His mother was both cultured and highly strung. She introduced him to reading and music at...
.
- A Documentary about the SOE broadcast on Channel 4 in 2001.
- Foyle's War
Foyle's War is a British detective drama created by screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz, and commissioned by ITV after the long-running series Inspector Morse came to an end in 2000...
, episode "The French Drop" (2004)
- Foyle, a detective in England during WWII, investigates what turns out to be domestic activity of the SOE. The series is known for its attention to historical detail, and many aspects of the real-life SOE are shown.
- A documentary film, with recreation, of the Resistance, on the island of Crete, during the Second World War. Includes a detailed interview with Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
with recreation of the kidnapping of German Major General KreipeKarl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British and Cretan resistance fighters from occupied Crete in April 1944....
.
- A BBC documentary film about the men sent to rescue Hitler's hoard of looted art—including works by Titian, Tintoretto and Van Gogh—which the Nazis had stripped from Europe's greatest galleries and museums and hidden in a salt mine in the town of Alt Aussee in Austria. Including archive footage, eyewitness testimony and contributions from historians.
- Les Femmes de l'Ombre
Les Femmes de l'ombre is a French film about female resistance fighters in the Second World War. Jean-Paul Salomé, the director, drew inspiration from an obituary in The Times newspaper of Lise Villameur, one of the few recognised heroines of the SOE.The international English title of the film is...
- A French film about five SOE female agents and their contribution towards the D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
invasions
Fiction books featuring or based on SOE
- Author Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling Bond's adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories...
, who knew both Maurice BuckmasterColonel Maurice James Buckmaster OBE was the leader of the French section of Special Operations Executive....
and Vera AtkinsVera Atkins, CBE was a British Intelligence Officer during World War II.-Early life:...
, is reputed to have used at least parts of them to create "MM is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. M has been portrayed by Dame Judi Dench since 1995.- Background :...
", and "Miss MoneypennyJane Moneypenny, better known as Miss Moneypenny, is a fictional character in the James Bond novels and films. She is secretary to M, who is Bond's boss and head of the British Secret Service...
" in his James BondJames Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The character has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr...
books. In his first Bond novel, Casino RoyaleCasino Royale by Ian Fleming is the first James Bond novel. It would eventually pave the way for eleven other novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections, followed by many 'continuation' Bond novels by other authors....
, Fleming is said to have based the "Vesper Lynd" character on the SOE agent, Christine Granville. Other agents that Fleming used for his Bond character were Duane HudsonColonel Duane Tyrell Hudson DSO OBE was a British soldier who fought in Yugoslavia during World War II.Hudson, a mining engineer, was a rugby player, swimmer, rider, skier, boxer, and wrestler. He attended St. Andrew's College in Grahamstown, South Africa. He spoke six foreign languages and had a...
and Andrew CroftColonel Noel Andrew Cotton Croft DSO OBE , was a member of the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, with operations in Norway and Corsica, as well as Military attaché to Sweden, an explorer, holding the longest self-sustaining journey in the Guinness Book of Records for more than...
. Chief of SOE Technical Branch and later GS Branch MI6, Charles Bovill was represented in the Bond books as 'Q'.
- Tim Powers
Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare...
' DeclareDeclare is a supernatural spy novel by Tim Powers. It presents a secret history of the Cold War in which an agent for a secret British spy organization learns the true nature of several beings living on Mount Ararat. In this he is opposed by real-life communist traitor Kim Philby, who did travel...
and Charles StrossCharles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy. Stross was born in Leeds....
's The Atrocity ArchivesThe Atrocity Archives contains two stories by British author Charles Stross, consisting of the short novel The Atrocity Archive and The Concrete Jungle, which won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella.The stories are Lovecraftian spy thrillers involving a secret history of the 20th century...
. Fictional versions of SOE turn up as the organisation in charge of occult activities in these books.
- Gravity's Rainbow
Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest...
by Thomas PynchonThomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist based in New York City and noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University...
.
- Jackdaws
Jackdaws is a World War II spy thriller written by British novelist Ken Follett. It was published in hardcover format in 2001 by the Penguin Group. It was reissued as a paperback book by Signet Books in 2002.- Plot teaser :...
by Ken FollettKen Follett is a British author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold a total of 100 million copies. Four of his works have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list : The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple and World Without End.-Early life:Follett was...
. Felicity Clairet, a female SOE agent leads an all women team into France to blow up a telephone exchange.
- Night of the Fox by Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
.
See also
- List of SOE Agents
- List of SOE establishments
- Resistance during World War II
Resistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
- Cichociemni
Cichociemni were a secret unit of the Polish Army in exile created to maintain contact with occupied Poland during World War II.-The name:...
- Edmund Charaszkiewicz
Edmund Kalikst Eugeniusz Charaszkiewicz was a Polish military intelligence officer who specialized in clandestine warfare...
- John Dolphin
John Robert Vernon Dolphin CBE was a British engineer and inventor who became the Commanding Officer of the top secret Second World War Special Operations Executive 'Station IX' where specialist military equipment was developed. During his time there his inventions included the Welman midget...
CBE
- MI5
The Security Service commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of the intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service , Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence Staff...
- MI6
- British military history
The Military history of Britain may refer to the military history of the United Kingdom or the military history of the island of Great Britain see:...
- British military history of World War II
- Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force
In February 1945, when the defeat of Germany appeared imminent, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was provided with a mandate for dispatching troops whose mission would be to secure the safety of Allied Prisoners Of War and to provide for their early evacuation.As a result of its...
- CIA's Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
Official publications / academic histories
- Covers Commando and SOE training in the Highlands of Scotland. It describes the origins of the irregular warfare training at Inverailort House under MI(R) then the move of SOE training to the nearby Arisaig and Morar area.
- SOE had its own laboratories and workshops inventing and developing new weapons, explosives and sabotage techniques.
- Official history commissioned 1980, companion to Foot, SOE, with access to papers (though researched 20 years later than Foot's book, when many participants had died, see Preface)
- The best book to read for an overview of SOE and its methods. Foot won the Croix de Guerre as a SAS operative in Brittany, later becoming Professor of Modern History at Manchester University and an official historian of the SOE. All his SOE books are well worth reading.
- (orig. 1966, Government Official Histories, pub Frank Cass revised edition 2000, further edition 2004. Written with access to F Section files, (according to Ian Dear, see below) later revised
- Written at the end of WW2 for the British Government's own use without any intention of publication—in effect a confidential "official history".
- Authentic training manuals used to prepare agents covering the clandestine skills of disguise, surveillance, burglary, interrogation, close combat, and assassination. Also published as "How to be a Spy".
- Professor David Stafford has written several books on resistance and the secret war, and contributed the foreword for MFD Foot's book.
- First results of a research on the newly released Austrian SOE files of the Public Record Office Kew
First-hand accounts by those who served with SOE
- Leo Marks
Leopold Samuel Marks was an English cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:Born the son of an antiquarian bookseller in London, he was first introduced to cryptography when his father showed him a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold-Bug"...
. Between Silk and CyanideBetween Silk and Cyanide is a book by former SOE cryptographer Leo Marks, describing his work during the Second World War. The title is derived from an incident related in the book, when he is asked why spies in occupied Europe should have their cryptographic material written on silk...
(Harper Collins 1998 ISBN 0-00-255944-7)
- Marks was the Head of Codes at SOE. He gives easily comprehensible introduction to codes, their practical use in the field, and his struggle to improve encryption methods. Engaging accounts of agents including Noor Khan
Noor Inayat Khan / Nora Baker, GC, MBE , usually known as Noor Inayat Khan, was a British Special Operations Executive agent in World War II of Indian origin and the first female radio operator to be sent into occupied France to aid the French Résistance.-Early years:Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan was the...
, Violette SzaboViolette Reine Elizabeth Bushell Szabo, GC, MBE, was a World War II Allied secret agent.-Early life and marriage:...
, and a great deal of information on his friend Yeo-ThomasWing Commander Forest Frederick Edward Yeo-Thomas, GC, MC & Bar, Croix de Guerre , Commandeur of the Légion d'Honneur, was the British Special Operations Executive agent codenamed "The White Rabbit" during World War II...
.
- Andre Hue. The Next Moon (Viking 2004 ISBN 0-670-91478-9, Penguin 2005 ISBN 0-14-101580-2) Foreword MRD Foot.
- First hand story of agent dropped into Brittany to organise resistance activities before and after D-Day.
- Freddie Spencer Chapman
Frederick Spencer Chapman, DSO was a British Army officer and World War II veteran, most famous for his exploits behind enemy lines in Japanese occupied Malaya.-Family and education:...
. The Jungle is Neutral (Chatto and Windus 1949)
- Chapman set up first jungle warfare school and operated in Malaya behind Japanese lines. Key figure in SOE in Far East.
- Arthur Christie. Mission Scapula SOE in the Far East ISBN 0-9547010-0-3.
- A true story about an ordinary soldier seconded into MI5 and sent on a mission to Singapore just before it fell. With Freddy Spencer-Chapman
- Fitzroy Maclean. Eastern Approaches (Jonathan Cape 1949, Penguin 1991 ISBN 0-14-013271-6)
- Author witnessed SOE’s campaign with Yugoslav partisans as Churchill’s representative to Tito.
- William Stanley Moss
Ivan William Stanley Moss MC , known as Bill or Billy, served with the Coldstream Guards and SOE and was a best-selling author in the 1950s. He also travelled around the world....
. Ill Met by MoonlightIll Met by Moonlight , also known as Night Ambush, is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the last film they made together through their Archers production company...
(Harrap 1950)
- Firsthand account of Moss and Patrick Leigh Fermor’s kidnapping of Major General Heinrich Kreipe
Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British and Cretan resistance fighters from occupied Crete in April 1944....
, the German army commander on CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
. Later turned into a film of the same title.
- Patrick Howarth. Undercover (Routledge, Kegan Paul 1980 ISBN 0-7100-0573-3, Phoenix Press 2000 ISBN 1-84212-240-1)
- Covers the stories of a number of operatives, many known personally by Howarth, who was one of SOE’s founding members responsible for sevearl years for organising agent training in UK. Invaluable seven page bibliography of histories and memoirs.
- David Smiley
Colonel David de Crespigny Smiley, LVO, OBE, MC & Bar was a British special forces and intelligence officer...
. Albanian Assignment (Sphere Books Ltd. 1984 ISBN 0-7221-7933-2)
- Account of SOE's missions to Albania.
- David Howarth. The Shetland Bus. (Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd 1950)
- Account of the Norwegian vessels which kept Britain in touch with the Norwegian resistance
- Sweet-Escott, Bickham
Sir Ernest "Bickham" Sweet-Escott, KCMG was a British colonial administrator and governor.Sweet-Escott was born at Bath. He was educated at the Royal Somersetshire College, Bath, Bromsgrove School and Balliol College, Oxford...
. Baker Street Irregular. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1965.
- Basil Davidson
Basil Davidson is an acclaimed British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution ....
. Special Operations Europe: Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War. Irwin Pub, 1980 ISBN 0-575-02820-3
- Basil Davidson
Basil Davidson is an acclaimed British historian, writer and Africanist, particularly knowledgeable on the subject of Portuguese Africa prior to the 1974 Carnation Revolution ....
. Partisan Picture. Bedford, 1946.
- Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
. The 11th Day (Archangel Films 2006)
- Firsthand documentary account of the kidnapping of Major General Heinrich Kreipe
Karl Heinrich Georg Ferdinand Kreipe was a German general, who served in World War II. He is most famous for his spectacular abduction by British and Cretan resistance fighters from occupied Crete in April 1944....
, the German army commander on CreteCrete is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km²...
.
- Jasper Rootham
Jasper St John Rootham , was a civil servant, soldier, central banker, merchant banker, writer and poet.-Biography:Jasper Rootham was born on 21 November, 1910 in Cambridge, UK.-Childhood and adolescence:...
. Miss-Fire (Chatto & Windus 1946)
- Account of the SOE's mission to Yugoslavia in support of Mihailović
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general, now primarily remembered as a World War II collaborator and leader of the Chetnik movement...
and the ChetniksThe Chetnik movement or the Chetniks were a Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organization operating in the Balkans before and during World Wars...
.
- Dorothy Baden-Powell. They Also Serve: An SOE Agent in the WRNS (Robert Hale Ltd 2004 ISBN 978-0709077152)
- A first hand account of one woman's experiences during World War Two within the Special Operations Executive and the WRNS
The Women's Royal Naval Service was the women's branch of the Royal Navy.Members included cooks, clerks, wireless telegraphists, and electricians, and a small number of air mechanics during the Second World War...
.
- Nancy Wake
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake AC, GM served as a British agent during the later part of World War II. She became a leading figure in the maquis groups of the French Resistance and became one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of the war.-Early life:Born in Roseneath, Wellington, New Zealand,...
. The White Mouse: The Autobiography of the Woman the Gestapo called The White Mouse (Macmillan 1986 ISBN 978-0333400999)
- Account of a female SOE field agents' experiences in the F Section.
Biographies / popular books by authors without personal SOE experience
- Nigel Perrin Spirit of Resistance: The Life of SOE Agent Harry Peulevé DSO MC (Pen and Sword 2008) ISBN 978-1844158553
- Biography of the remarkable F Section agent Harry Peulevé
Henri Leonard Thomas Peulevé DSO, MC was an agent of the Special Operations Executive , who undertook two missions in occupied France and escaped from Buchenwald concentration camp.-Early Life:...
, who undertook two missions in France and was one of the few to escape Buchenwald concentration campBuchenwald concentration camp was a Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Thuringia, Germany , in July 1937, and one of the largest and first camps on German soil.Camp prisoners worked primarily as forced labour in local armament factories...
.
- William Stevenson (Canadian writer)
William Stevenson is a British-born Canadian author and journalist.His 1976 book A Man Called Intrepid was about William Stephenson and was a best-seller...
Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II Arcade Publishing (2006) ISBN 978-1559707633 biography of Vera AtkinsVera Atkins, CBE was a British Intelligence Officer during World War II.-Early life:...
, of whom James BondJames Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The character has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr...
creator Ian FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling Bond's adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories...
said, "In the real world of spies, Vera AtkinsVera Atkins, CBE was a British Intelligence Officer during World War II.-Early life:...
was the boss."
- Marcus Binney
Marcus Binney, CBE is a British architectural historian and author. He is best known for his conservation work regarding Britain's heritage.-Early and family life:...
The Women Who Lived For Danger HarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray...
(2003) ISBN 0-06-054087-7
- Beryl Escott A Quiet Courage: The story of SOE's women agents in France (Patrick Stevens Ltd 1991) ISBN 978-1852602895
- Norman Franks
Norman Leslie Robert Franks is an English writer who specialises in aviation books on the pilots and squadrons of World Wars I and II. He published his first book in 1976. He was an Organisation and Methods Officer with the Nationwide Building Society in London before he retired. He now lives in...
Double Mission: Fighter Pilot and SOE Agent, Manfred Czernin (William Kimber, London, 1976) ISBN 0 7183 02540
- Liane Jones Mission Improbable: Salute to the Royal Air Force Women of Special Operations Executive in Wartime France (Bantam Press 1990) ISBN 978-0593016633
- R.J. Minney.Carve Her Name with Pride
Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British drama film based on the book of the same name by R.J. Minney. Set during World War II, the film is based on the true story of the heroism of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo....
(1956), tells the story of Violette SzaboViolette Reine Elizabeth Bushell Szabo, GC, MBE, was a World War II Allied secret agent.-Early life and marriage:...
.
- Jerrard Tickell
Edward Jerrard Tickell was an Irish novelist.Tickell was born in Dublin and educated in Tipperary and London. He joined the Royal Army Service Corps in 1940 and was commissioned in 1941, when he was appointed to the War Office. Between 1943 and 1945 his official duties took him to Africa, the...
. Odette: The story of a British agent (1949), tells the story of Odette Sansom-HallowesOdette Sansom Hallowes GC, MBE, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur was an Allied heroine of World War II.-Early years:...
.
- Jean Overton Fuller
Jean Overton Fuller was a British author best known for her book Madeleine, the story of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, GC, MBE, CdG, an Indian heroine of World War II....
. The Starr Affair, tells the story of John Renshaw StarrJohn Renshaw Starr , was one of two sons of Alfred Demarest Starr and Ethel Renshaw . He was a grandson of William Robert Renshaw. He was an artist and a soldier during the Second World War. His story is told in a book, The Starr Affair, by Jean Overton Fuller.-Life:When war broke out in 1939, he...
.
- Ian Dear. Sabotage and Subversion (Arms and Armour 1996, Cassell Military Paperbacks 1999, ISBN 0-304-35202-0)
- General chapters on origins, recruitment and training, and then describes in detail thirteen operations in Europe and around the world, some involving the OSS.
- Bruce Marshall. The White Rabbit (Evans Bros 1952, Cassell Military Paperbacks 2000, ISBN 0-304-35697-2)
- Famous biography of Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas who made secret trips to France to meet senior Resistance figures. Epic story of capture, torture and escape, written as told by 'Tommy' to Marshall (who was himself on the HQ staff of RF section).
- Mark Seaman. Bravest of the Brave: True Story of Wing Commander Tommy Yeo-Thomas - SOE Secret Agent Codename, the White Rabbit (Michael O'Mara Books 1997) ISBN 978-1854796509
- Ray Mears, The Real Heroes of Telemark: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Stop Hitler's Atomic Bomb, ISBN 0-340-83015-8, Hodder & Stoughton 2003
- Associated with a three part BBC TV series, Ray Mears followed the route taken in 1943 along with some present day members of Royal Marines and Norwegian Army.
- Inside Camp X by Lynn Philip Hodgson, with a foreword by Secret Agent Andy Durovecz (2003). ISBN 0-9687062-0-7
- Joe Saward
Joe Saward is a British Formula One journalist. He was educated at Haileybury College and attained a degree in history at Bedford College, University of London. In 1984 he joined Autosport magazine in London. He began reporting on Formula One in 1988, working alongside Nigel Roebuck and remained...
. The Grand Prix Saboteurs (Morienval Press 2006, ISBN 978-0-9554868-0-7) Gives tangential account of SOE's operations in the Mediterranean and its quarrels with other intelligence agencies
Commentaries
External links
- Imperial War Museum (London) Museum has Secret War display which includes SOE weapons, radio, codes etc. Once on-line find Permanent Galleries and then Secret War for details.
- Imperial War Museum Collections Online Click on War on Land then Irregular Warfare for many written materials, photos, audio files on SOE.
- "Mission Scapula" Special Operations Executive in the Far East.
- Target near Glasnacardoch Lodge STS22a
- The Violette Szabo Museum
- 64 Baker Street, the women of SOE
- Canadian Secret Agents in the Second World War
- Operation BRADDOCK - A joint SOE/PWE plan to air-drop concealable explosive devices across Europe
- Roll of honour, awards and images.
- SOE sites around of Milton Keynes
- The 11th Day Documentary film about the Resistance, on the island of Crete, during the Second World War including SOE efforts and Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick 'Paddy' Michael Leigh Fermor DSO OBE is a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Battle of Crete during World War II...
- Gladiators of World War II - Episode 2, Special Operations Executive YouTube article
- Interview with secret agent Francis Cammaerts in the Leicester Mercury An account of SOE training around the Arisaig area.