On Writing an Official History of SOE in Italy

Readers of this journal might ask why there is a need to dedicate an entire issue to the study of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the organization famously tasked by Churchill to ‘set Europ...

The secret scalpel: plastic surgery for wartime disguise

An examination of the origins of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) has, understandably, been a feature of most published sources on the organization. Official historians have charted the course of Whitehall meetings and exchanges of memoranda while the memoirs of participants have helped provide a lively picture of events and personalities.1 But in most of these accounts, the events of the last year of peace and the first year of war have only one conclusion: SOE. This chapter will not seek to describe the various clandestine operations that preceded the formation of SOE but will endeavour to chronicle the friendships and rivalries of this period and suggest that the path to Baker Street was far from immutable. Furthermore, it is hoped that a detailed examination of the origins of SOE will offer a helpful insight into the beginning of that organization’s subsequent, troubled relations with Whitehall, the armed forces and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

ABSTRACTThis article examines the phenomenon of fakery and the rise of impostors claiming to have been former secret agents of the special operations executive (SOE). Since the early 1950s, a growing interest in tales of SOE’s exploits, combined with an inconsistent Whitehall position regarding disclosure about the organisation’s activities, has enabled hoaxers to establish their bogus stories and inadvertently bolster popular romantic notions about SOE’s work. Just as genuine agents had to learn to pass as civilians in Nazi-occupied countries, fake agents have produced convincing and often sophisticated narratives that have fooled the public, infiltrating books, television and more recently social media. Several cases of imposture are highlighted, along with examples of memoirs and testimonies of verifiable SOE agents whose accounts nevertheless raise questions about their accuracy and the blurred lines between truth and fabrication. Despite the publication of SOE official histories and the release of thousands of SOE’s files to the National Archives, fakers continue to flourish. This article calls for a greater recognition both of fakery and of the SOE agents and staff whose bona fide careers continue to remain overshadowed by their counterfeit counterparts.

There is a historical consensus that the Secret Intelligent Services (SIS) and Special Operations Executive (SOE) were from the summer of 1940 locked into a conflict at the highest level, based on rivalry and jealousy, and which at times threatened the very existence of the SOE. It has also been claimed that the operational priority given to the SIS along Norway’s west coast significantly restricted SOE operations into the country. However, examination of the SOE archives now available at the Public Record Office in London and at the Norwegian Resistance Museum in Oslo appear to show that at a sectional and operational level within Norway the relationship between the SOE and SIS was not fraught with the same difficulties. These files also appear to indicate that the SIS operational priority had very little impact on SOE operations. The archives provide numerous examples of co-operation between the two organizations that operated extensively in Norway from the summer of 1940. They exchanged intelligence, shared clandestine radio stations, and used the same fishing boats to transport agents to Norway; several SIS agents moved on to work for the SOE. Both organizations from an early stage, in order to recruit Norwegian agents, were also required to work with the Norwegian authorities based in London. It was a relationship more often built on co-operation than conflict.

The special operations executive (SOE) has been the subject of controversy among historians, who disagree over its contribution to the British war effort. Recent releases of SOE documents to the PRO make possible the re-examination of SOE's effectiveness in stimulating resistance in particular countries, for example Poland, the focus of this case study. Colin Gubbins, the key figure in the history of SOE, was brought into the organization in autumn 1940 specifically so he could co-ordinate the aid to the Polish resistance. But the level of supplies dropped by the RAF for the Polish resistance was disappointing. The chiefs of staff relegated the Polish resistance to a secondary role of sabotage and subversion and stressed that they could not prevent a Polish uprising from being overwhelmed by the Nazis. SOE, which had responsibility for British liaison with the Polish resistance, failed to convey this decision to the Poles with sufficient emphasis, and the Polish home army launched the Warsaw uprising unaware of the enormous difficulties in the way of supplying their capital from the air. Churchill, the earl of Selborne, and some SOE officers sought vigorously to provide the Poles with the maximum possible level of supplies. After the first ten days Gubbins himself played a surprisingly small part in supporting the Poles. Disheartened, Gubbins bitterly predicted that Britain would abandon Poland after the war. Overall, SOE's contribution to Polish resistance did more harm than good.

The issue of Turkish entry into the war on the side of the Allies was a subject of great interest to Churchill. Turkish policy in the Second World War, however, was to play for time and pray that she would not be involved in the war, at least, she hoped, not until her rearmament had reached a stage where she would have a greater chance of resisting a German attack. Having underlined this, Turkish officials were not very willing to co-operate with Special Operations Executive (SOE)' so as to avoid provoking the Germans. Taking Turkish attitudes into account, a divergence of view appeared between the British Foreign Office and the SOE regarding the nature of such activities in Turkey. While the Foreign Office did not want to jeopardize its relations with Turkey, SOE was concerned with military and strategic aspects. Moreover, its work in Turkey was very strictly controlled by Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, British Ambassador to Ankara, who placed a stringent set of conditions on the mission's work to prevent anything which might have a disastrous effect on Anglo-Turkish relations. Therefore, SOE's work in Turkey was restricted in scope but there were plans and initial preparations to be made against the time when the situation would change in its favour; it was advisable to be on the spot and prepare to take advantage of any opportunities that might arise. Since the Turkish authorities rejected the approach made by the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C), Middle East, SOE was anxious to lay plans without the knowledge of Ankara. However, from the political point of view, the Foreign Office strongly suggested that any plans for military sabotage in Turkey should be drawn up with the knowledge and approval of the Turkish authorities on the grounds that the establishment of a comprehensive SOE organization in Turkey, which would inevitably bring in equipment and material, would certainly be discovered before long by the Turkish authorities. This would defeat Britain's objective and could not fail to have a bad effect on her relations with Turkey. Therefore, the Foreign Office suggested that the role of SOE should be advisory and consultative and it

This article examines the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Spain during the latter part of the Second World War. Unlike SOE's broad mandate to sow dissent and disarray in occupied countries, in Spain agents were forbidden from any involvement in direct action and sabotage. Diplomatic concerns, namely the maintenance of Spanish neutrality in the war, overrode all other strategic issues in Iberia. SOE agents and leaders in Madrid, therefore, attempted to create a different role for themselves. Drawing on files released in the Public Record Office in 1998, the article highlights SOE's limited success in the effort to establish for itself a part in the Allied strategic and diplomatic campaign against German wolfram smuggling. Success proved fleeting, however, and SOE's ultimate failure, in the face of hostility from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), to prove its usefulness beyond the wolfram campaign, would lead to its withdrawal from Spain. The story of the SOE in Spain represents, on a small scale, the failure of the organization to find a niche in the British intelligence community after the Second World War.

This empirical historical study uses prosopography to identify the backgrounds of a group of 15 chartered accountants who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. Social capital ideas are used as the lens to explore these backgrounds. We discover that all 15 chartered accountants (CAs) were men, from middle-class professional families, who mostly attended public schools. They were chosen to join SOE because of their education, professional accounting training and relevant post-qualification experience. Most of the CAs served as accountants within SOE, where they facilitated SOE's clandestine financial warfare. Two of the CAs were SOE agents who saw action in Europe during 1944, with one being killed. The article demonstrates a prevalence of social capital, and old boys’ networks, but notes that this may have expedited the work of the SOE in challenging times.

This article will survey the activities of Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Sweden during the course of the Second World War. Under the constraints of a foreign policy that sought to gradually encourage the government of Sweden to become more pro-allied rather than pro-axis and ‘non-belligerent’, SOE nonetheless entered Sweden with hopes of developing a series of contacts with groups and individuals that could be turned into active resistance if Sweden joined the axis, or if Nazi Germany either invaded or occupied Sweden and the whole of Scandinavia. Once the possibility of an axis invasion of Sweden was decisively dismissed, SOE had to find a different role. In Sweden, the successful development of SOE's intelligence gathering capabilities in the economic sphere, especially in the allied campaign against German iron-ore traffic and ball-bearings, provided the organization with a purpose that definitely took another course when compared to intelligence activities in other regions and countries. With these constraints in view, this article focuses on three major aspects of SOE involvement in Sweden. First, the article will examine SOE's role, and war aims in Sweden, linking these to the very different requirements of the Foreign Office. Second, the article will explore British and Swedish intelligence relations. Third, it will consider the Swedish security police response to British intelligence.

This article discusses the activities of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Greece during World War II, re-evaluating the stormy relationship between SOE and the Foreign Office (FO) in the light of previously unused SOE records. Although standard accounts of SOE in Greece blame the Foreign Office for its inability to understand the situation and, indirectly, for the outbreak of the Civil War in December 1944, this article argues that both SOE and the Foreign Office were out of touch with what was happening in occupied Greece. It also argues that between September 1942 and the Spring of 1943, SOE intentionally acted behind the back of the Foreign Office, deeply entangling itself in the Greek resistance movement without any real awareness of the political situation in the country. For intelligence studies, this story provides a unique insight into the British approach to the political complexities of occupied Europe during World War II.

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was created in July 1940, bringing together three existing bodies that had been developed to deal with covert operations: Section D of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6); MI (R), a research unit at the War Office; and Electra House, a propaganda unit within the Foreign Office. Under the Minister of Economic Warfare (initially Dr. Hugh Dalton, later Lord Selborne), SOE's role was to encourage and develop resistance movements throughout Axis‐occupied Europe, both to prepare to support eventual Allied landings and, in the meantime, to carry out specific, targeted acts of sabotage that would hinder the Axis war effort. SOE's reach also extended beyond Europe, with a mission in Algiers and regional headquarters in Cairo and New Delhi (where SOE was known as Force 136). SOE was divided into geographical “country” sections that took responsibility for operations in a given area. These were supported by a number of ancillary sections that dealt with such matters as false documents and special devices.

In 1942, with a black-market chicken tucked under his arm by his mother, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went off to fight war. He was twenty-two. Soon recognized as a cryptographer of genius, he became head of communications at Special Operations Executive (SOE), where he revolutionized codemaking techniques of Allies and trained some of most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe. As a top codemaker, Marks had a unique perspective on one of most fascinating and, until now, little-known aspects of Second World War. This stunning memoir, often funny, always gripping and acutely sensitive to human cost of each operation, provides a unique inside picture of extraordinary SOE organization at work and reveals for first time many unknown truths about conduct of war. SOE was created in July 1940 with a mandate from Winston Churchill to set Europe ablaze. Its main function was to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied territory to perform acts of sabotage and form secret armies in preparation for D-Day. Marks's ingenious codemaking innovation was to devise and implement a system of random numeric codes printed on silk. Camouflaged as handkerchiefs, underwear, or coat linings, these codes could be destroyed message by message, and therefore could not possibly be remembered by agents, even under torture. Between Silk and Cyanide chronicles Marks's obsessive quest to improve security of agents' codes and how this crusade led to his involvement in some of war's most dramatic and secret operations. Among astonishing revelations is his account of code war between SOE and theGermans in Holland. He also reveals for first time how SOE fooled Germans into thinking that a secret army was operating in Fatherland itself, and how and why he broke code that General de Gaulle insisted be available only to Free French. By end of this incredible tale, truly one of last great World War II memoirs, it is clear why General Eisenhower credited SOE, particularly its communications department, with shortening war by three months. From difficulties of safeguarding messages that led to destruction of atomic weapons plant at Rjukan in Norway to surveillance of Hitler's long-range missile base at Peenemunde to true extent of Nazi infiltration of Allied agents, Between Silk and Cyanide sheds light on one of least-known but most dramatic aspects of war. Writing with narrative flair and vivid characterization of his famous screenplays, Marks gives free rein to his keen sense of absurd and wry wit without ever losing touch with very human side of story. His close relationship with the White Rabbit and Violette Szabo -- two of greatest British agents of war -- and his accounts of many others he dealt with result in a thrilling and poignant memoir that celebrates individual courage and endeavor, without losing sight of human cost and horror of war.

Few wartime organizations in Britain can have subsequently been the target of such abuse as the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which has been criticized not only on the grounds of general ineffectiveness, incompetence and waste1 but also for its supposed political bias. In this last respect, the SOE has been vigorously attacked from both right and left. In a review of Julian Amery’s Approach March (London, 1973), Hugh Fraser has written that ‘at the best times in my opinion SOE was a bad organisation frequently lacking a strong or political or even honourable direction. SOE was particularly inane in the Balkans, positively assisting the adventurer Enver Hoxha to seize impregnable Albania for communism and, had it not been for Churchill and Macmillan’s personal intervention, permitting a communist takeover in Greece’.2 A diametrically opposed view had been advanced by The Times Literary Supplement’s anonymous reviewer (Basil Davidson) of F.W.D. Deakin’s account of his wartime experiences in Yugoslavia, The Embattled Mountain (London, 1971). Davidson has suggested that the ‘nabobs of SOE London’, most of whom were bankers or businessmen, suppressed intelligence of the Partisans’ activities in Yugoslavia ‘in the interests of restoring the status quo ante bellum’.3 Now it is conceivable that either one or the other of these conflicting views may be correct, but scarcely both.

This article explores the official motivation behind the authorization in 1960 of research into the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War by M. R. D. Foot, leading to the publication of SOE in France in 1966. The work has traditionally been viewed as the official response to critical investigative works on SOE published during the 1950s, combined with the vocal campaign of Dame Irene Ward, who made several calls in the House of Commons for an official account of SOE to be published. Material now available at the Public Record Office reveals that these were not the sole considerations in official minds, nor the most significant, concerning the possibility of publishing such a work. The foreign office was particularly concerned that Britain's contribution to wartime resistance in Europe, exemplified by SOE, was being overshadowed by both soviet propoganda, emphasizing the communist contribution to resistance, and the publicity being given to SOE's American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The ‘campaign’ of Dame Irene Ward, supported by the negative slant given to SOE in the books of Jean Overton Fuller and Elizabeth Nicholas, unknowingly gave support to a frame of mind that was already in existence in favour of an unofficial account of SOE activity, albeit for different reasons.