It was also known as "Churchill's Secret Army" or "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and was charged by Churchill to "set Europe ablaze." It was publicly concealed as a Joint Technical Board and sometimes as an Inter-Service Research Bureau.
The SOE directly employed or controlled just over 13,000 people, about 3,200 of whom were women.[1] It is estimated that SOE supported or supplied about 1,000,000 operatives worldwide
Origins
The organization was formed from the merger of three existing secret departments, which had been formed shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Immediately after Germany annexed Austria (the Anschluss) in March 1938, the Foreign Office created a propaganda organisation known as Department EH (after Electra House, its headquarters), run by Canadian newspaper magnate Sir Campbell Stuart. Later that month, the Secret Intelligence Service (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 Office set up a department, nominally for the purpose of research into guerrilla warfare 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 Engineers and knew each other.[2] 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.[2]
During the early months of the war, Section D was based at the Metropole Hotel in London.[3] The Section attempted unsuccessfully to sabotage deliveries of vital strategic materials to Germany from neutral countries by mining the Iron Gate on the River Danube.[4] MI R meanwhile produced pamphlets and technical handbooks for guerrilla leaders. MI R was also involved in the formation of the Independent Companies, autonomous units formed from within second-line Territorial Army divisions which were intended for sabotage and guerrilla operations behind enemy lines and which later developed into the British Commandos, and the Auxiliary Units, stay-behind resistance groups which would act in the event of an Axis invasion of Britain, as seemed possible in the early years of the war.[5]
[edit] Formation
On 13 June 1940, at the instigation of newly-appointed Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Lord Hankey persuaded Section D and MI R that their operations should be coordinated. On 1 July, a Cabinet level meeting arranged the formation of a single sabotage organisation. On 16 July, Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, was appointed to take political responsibility for the new organisation, which was formally created on 22 July. Dalton used the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish war of Independence as a model for the organisation.[6][7][8] One department of MI R, MI R(C), which was involved in the development of weapons for irregular warfare, was not integrated into the SOE but became an independent body codenamed MD1. (It was nicknamed "Churchill's Toyshop" from the Prime Minister's close interest in it and his enthusiastic support.) Majors Grand and Holland both returned to service in the regular army and Campbell Stuart left the organisation.[edit] Leadership
The Director of SOE 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 India, a back bench Conservative Member of Parliament and Consul in Bern.Dalton was replaced as Minister of Economic Warfare by Lord Selborne in February 1942. Selborne in turn retired Nelson, who had suffered ill health as a result of his hard work, and appointed Sir Charles Hambro, head of the English banking firm Hambro's to replace him. Hambro had been a close friend of Churchill's before the war and had won the Military Cross in the First World War. Selborne also transferred Gladwyn Jebb who, as one of Dalton's senior civil servants had run the Ministry's day-to-day dealings with SOE, back to the Foreign Office.[9]
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 Army 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 materials purchasing commission in Washington, D.C., which was involved in the exchange of nuclear information.[10]
[edit] Relationships
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 Admiral Louis Mountbatten 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 Admiralty objected to SOE developing its own underwater vessels, and the duplication of effort this involved.[11]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.[12]
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 reprisals against civilian populations. SOE nevertheless generally adhered to the rule, "No bangs without Foreign Office approval."[13]
[edit] Organisation
The organisation of SOE continually evolved and changed during the war. Initially, it consisted of three broad departments: SO1, which dealt with propaganda; SO2 (Operations); and SO3 (Research). SO3 was quickly overloaded with paperwork[14] and was merged into SO2. In August 1941, following quarrels between the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the Ministry of Information over their relative responsibilities, SO1 was removed from SOE and became an independent organization, the Political Warfare Executive.[15]Thereafter there was a single, broad "Operations" department which controlled the Sections operating into enemy and sometimes neutral territory, and the selection and training of agents. 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. (France had no less than six).
Four departments and some smaller groups were controlled by the Director of Scientific Research, and were concerned with the development or acquisition and production of special equipment.[16] A few other sections were involved with economic research and administration, although SOE had no central registry or filing system.
The Director of SOE had either a Deputy from the Army, or (once Gubbins became Director) an Army officer as Chief of Staff. The main controlling body of SOE was its Council, consisting of around fifteen heads of departments or sections. About half were from the armed forces (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.
Several subsidiary SOE headquarters and stations were set up to manage operations which were too distant for London to control directly. SOE's operations in the Middle East and Balkans were controlled from a headquarters in Cairo, 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 Italy under the Cairo headquarters to control operations in the Balkans.[17] There was also a station near Algiers, established in late 1942 and codenamed "Massingham", which operated into Southern France.
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 Ceylon and became known as Force 136. A Singapore Mission was set up at the same time as the India Mission but was unable to overcome official opposition to its attempts to form resistance movements in Malaya before the Japanese overran Singapore. Force 136 took over its surviving staff and operations.
There was also a branch office in New York, formally titled British Security Coordination, and headed by the Canadian businessman Sir William Stephenson. This branch office, located at Room 3603, 630, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, coordinated the work of SIS and MI5 with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and Office of Strategic Services.
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