A Brief History of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.)

The Early Days

The Secret Intelligence Service.(MI6)1938

The head of the Secret Intelligence Service in 1938 was Admiral Sinclair, known by the pseudonym C.

In March of that year he had a Major L.D. Grand seconded from the Army to MI6. Major L.D. Grand was then ordered to form a new section within MI6, its mission was to devise and formulate plans by which an enemy country could by any means be adversely affected. Thus section D of the Secret Intelligence Service came into being.

Foreign Office Department E.H. 1939

At approximately the same time another secret department was in the process of being set up by the Foreign Office. This was known as EH an anacronym for the building in which it was based, Electra House. EH was headed by Sir Collin Cambell-Stuart, an acknowledged media expert and former Managing Director of The London Times. Its brief was to devise and plan all forms of propaganda.

War Office Department G5 (R) Military Intelligence. 1939

A small research department based in the War Office and headed By Major J.C.Holland, an expert on all forms of irregular warfare, formulated its own plans for clandestine and covert warfare. This section later became known as M.I.R.

These three departments were more or less integrated at a meeting held in the Foreign Office between (C) the head if MI6, Major L.D.Grand, Section D, Mayor J.C.Holland, Section G5(R), Lord Halifax and his Permanent Under Secretary.

A full and highly detailed account of the formation, organisation, history, and political intrigue involved in this organisation will be found in Professor M.R.D. Foot's book, "Special Operations Executive 1940-46". Published by The BBC 1984 and by Pimlico in 1999.

Colonel Sir Collin Gubbins
Executive Head S.O.E.

S.O.E. 1940 - 1946

Headquarters at Baker Street, London, W1.

64 Baker Street S.O.E.s first Office. By 1946 the organisation occupied virtually all of Baker Street and the surrounding streets.

Personnel employed at its height approximately 14,000

Of this figure, approx 3,100 were active agents.

S.O.E. (the Special Operations Executive) was a British secret service formed in July 1940 – soon after the fall of France – to foster resistance among the civil population in Nazi-occupied Europe and to promote sabotage and subversion. Winston Churchill inspired the formation of S.O.E. and continued to support it until it was dissolved in 1946, its wartime task completed.

S.O.E.s headquarters were in Baker Street in London. Other premises, generally within easy reach of Baker Street, were used mainly for interviews and for briefing agents. Country houses known as "stations" were used for other activities. Most of these stations were schools for training agents. Others were for research into, and the manufacture of, equipment and material for sabotage – oil cans filled with sand and greaseguns filled with abrasive, much used on railways, and so on. One station manufactured false documents, such as identity cards, military passes and ration cards, while others packed and stored containers, packages and parachutes. Not least in importance were the stations that exchanged wireless messages with agents in the field.

As the war in Europe and the Middle East continued, regional operational headquarters with considerable autonomy were set up, one in Cairo and one in Algiers to organize support for the landings in Italy and the invasion of southern France. Once southern Italy was in Allied hands, part of the Cairo headquarters was moved to Ban. Operations against the Japanese in the East were initially directed from Meerut, near Delhi, and later from Kandy in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). There were few other parts of the world into which S.O.E. did not reach, though its total strength never exceeded 14,000 men and women.