A Glass Half Full – Some Thoughts on the Evolution of the Study of the Special Operations Executive

Abstract

The Special Operations Executive was the least secret of the British secret services during the Second World War. Initially, its public image was formed by popular accounts of celebrated agents and controversial (real and imagined) causes célèbres. Whitehall's attitude to SOE since the organization's disbandment in 1946 had, until recent times, been cautious and restrictive. Early initiatives such as the appointment of an SOE Adviser and the commissioning of official histories gave the impression of a commitment to promoting SOE's history, but this was largely misleading. The Adviser's brief was, in large part, to inhibit research, and the histories met with mixed fortunes including delays, indifferent quality and, in one case, remaining on the classified list for over 50 years. SOE's papers were only released to the Public Record Office (the National Archives) in 1993 and now most are available to researchers. The question has to be asked whether access to the records has inspired a radical improvement in the study of the subject.

Notes

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent the opinions of the Cabinet Office.

Douglas Dodds-Parker, Setting Europe Ablaze (Windlesham, 1984) pp.163–4.

William Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE (London, 2000) p.715.

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France (London, 1966) p.14.

Ibid.

The National Archive. United Kingdom. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO). HS8/835.

PRO. HS7/123.

Mackenzie, Secret History (note 2). M.R.D. Foot's introduction provides some helpful details of the evolution of Mackenzie's work. The original text can be found at PRO. CAB102/649–652.

Gubbins' commitment is evident in the post-war correspondence now held by the Imperial War Museum and in introductions to works such as Knut Haukelid, Skis Against the Atom (London, 1954) and Richard Heslop, Xavier (London, 1970).

George Millar, Road to Resistance (London, 1981) p.405; idem, Maquis (London, 1945).

Jerrard Tickell, Odette (London, 1949) p.10.

Jean Overton Fuller, Madeleine (London, 1952); Bruce Marshall, The White Rabbit (London, 1952); R.J. Minney, Death be not Proud (London, 1956); and Ian Morrison, Grandfather Longlegs (London, 1947).

See Mark Seaman, ‘Good Thrillers, but Bad History: A Review of Published Works on the Special Operations Executive's Work in France during the Second World War’, in K.G. Robertson (ed.) War Resistance and Intelligence, Essays in Honour of M.R.D. Foot (Barnsley, 1999) pp.119–33.

Hansard. House of Commons Debates, 15 December 1958, cols.757 and 758. A dissenting voice was offered by Lieutenant-Colonel John Cordeaux MP, a former member of SIS, who questioned whether Dame Irene Ward's suggestion ‘has really gone beyond a joke, in view of the harm already done by these amateur spies cashing in on their war experiences by turning amateur authors? Will he [Profumo] ensure that what has not yet been disclosed of Services technique and practice remains secret from now on? Will he deny access to these files to all historians, professional or amateur, or other unauthorized persons?'

Nigel West, Secret War – The Story of SOE Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation (London, 1992), Pierre Péan, Vies et Morts de Jean Moulin (Paris, 1997) and Mark Seaman, Bravest of the Brave (London, 1997) are but a few of the many works on SOE that feature the indebtedness of their authors to the contribution made by the Advisers.

Maurice Buckmaster, Specially Employed (London, 1952) p.7; Maurice Buckmaster, They Fought Alone (London, 1958).

Bickham Sweet-Escott, Baker Street Irregular (London, 1965); J.G. Beevor, SOE Recollections and Reflections 1940–45 (London, 1981); Donald Hamilton-Hill, SOE Assignment (London, 1973).

A detailed exposition of Whitehall's handling of the broader, knotty problem of ‘secret’ history and specifically of SOE in France is provided in Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence since 1945’, English Historical Review CXIX/483 (September 2004) pp.922–53.

Seaman, ‘Good Thrillers but Bad History’ (note 12) p.127.

David Stafford, ‘The Detonator Concept: British Strategy, SOE and European Resistance After the Fall of France’, Journal of Contemporary History, 10/2 (April 1975) pp.185–217.

David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance 1940–1945. A Survey of the Special Operations Executive, with Documents (London, 1980).

Charles Cruickshank, SOE in the Far East (Oxford, 1983). The select bibliography is less a reflection of lack of industry by its author than an indication of the shortage of histories and memoirs on this subject. Cruickshank was a former foreign office official and author of an official history, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands (Oxford, 1975) and The Fourth Arm: Psychological Warfare 1938–1945 (Oxford, 1981).

Cruickshank, SOE in the Far East (note 21) p.v.

Foot, SOE in France (note 3) pp.452–3.

Charles Cruickshank, SOE in Scandinavia (Oxford, 1986).

A host of SOE veterans intimately involved with SOE's activities in Scandinavia were available to him including, to name but a few, Reginald Spink, Ralph Hollingworth, Joachim Ronneberg, Knut Haukelid and Gunnar Sonsterby.

The Times, 10 June 1986.

Knud J.V. Jespersen, No Small Achievement; Special Operations Executive and the Danish Resistance 1940–1945 (Odense, 2002) pp.17–18.

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in the Low Countries (London, 2001) p.xiv.

Brooks Richards, Secret Flotillas. Clandestine Sea Lines to France and French North Africa 1940–1944 (London, 1996).

F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, 5 vols. (London, 1979–1990).

Louise Atherton, SOE Operations in the Far East – An Introductory Guide to the Newly Released Records of the Special Operations Executive in the Public Record Office (London, 1993).

PRO. HS9. One of the criteria for release is proof that the subject has died. It might have proved useful to refer to ‘In Memory’, a Roll of Honour produced by a former SOE Adviser to coincide with the unveiling of a memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey on 13 February 1996. It provides the names of some 800 of SOE's war dead.

One example of such an anomaly exists over the SOE and Security Service files, HS6/422–3 and KV6/17–18 covering the ‘Bishop’ investigation. The name of an investigating officer, Wethered, has been redacted from the SOE files but included in the MI5 record.

PRO. KV4/185–96.

Notably PRO. HS 7/3–5 but also liberally sprinkled throughout the archive.

Statement made by Louise Atherton of the Public Record Office at the Imperial War Museum SOE Conference, 29 October 1998

Mark Seaman, ‘Introduction’, Operation Foxley: The British Plan to Kill Hitler (Kew, 1998).

Mark Seaman, ‘Introduction’, Secret Agent's Handbook of Special Devices (Richmond, 2000), and Denis Rigden, ‘Introduction’, SOE Syllabus – Lessons in Ungentlemanly Warfare, World War II (Richmond, 2001).

A catalogue, The Special Operations Executive Sound Archive Oral History Recordings (London, 1998), gives an insight into the programme. The number of interviews has, of course, substantially increased in the intervening period.

IWM Major C.V. Clarke collection, MGH 4321.

Mark Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive (London, 2005).

Imperial War Museum ID Number: RMY 78. The real life F Section agents, Harry Rée and Jacqueline Nearne, took the leading roles. Rée had run the ‘Stockbroker’ circuit from April to November 1943 when, wounded, he had to flee to Switzerland while Nearne was a courier for the ‘Stationer’ circuit from January 1943 to April 1944. The film does not mention SOE specifically but the cast is littered with the organization's personalities, including Robin Brook, Dick Barry and Brian Stonehouse. Not surprisingly, it also features many of the RAF personnel who were either seconded to SOE or worked closely with the organization in the Air Ministry or at RAF Tempsford.

‘Odette’, director Herbert Wilcox, 1950, ‘Carve her Name with Pride’, director Lewis Gilbert, 1958. Other operations include the kidnapping of General Kriepe on Crete (‘Ill Met by Moonlight’, directors Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, 1956), the sabotaging of the Norsk Hydro ‘Heavy Water’ plant (‘The Heroes of Telemark’, director Anthony Mann, 1965) and the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (‘Operation Daybreak’, director Lewis Gilbert, 1975). Fictional movies that deal with, usually unnamed, SOE are ‘The Guns of Navarone’ (J. Lee-Thompson, 1961) and ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (director Brian G. Hutton, 1969).

Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray (London, 1999). The author cannot disassociate himself from all culpability having been ‘technical adviser’ on the film.

Peter Wilkinson and Joan Bright Astley, Gubbins and SOE (London, 1993).

Peter Wilkinson, Foreign Fields (London, 1997).

Those who made a perilous descent into enemy territory include Brigadier ‘Trotsky’ Davies, Illyrian Adventure (London, 1952); Basil Davidson, Special Operations Europe. Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War (London, 1987); E.C.W. Myers, Greek Entanglement (Gloucester, 1985); David Smiley, Albanian Assignment (London, 1985); Charles Mackintosh, From Cloak to Dagger. An SOE Agent in Italy 1943–1945 (London, 1982).

Peter Tennant, Touchlines of War (Hull, 1992); Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide. The Story of SOE's Code War (London, 1998).

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France (London, 2004).

M.R.D. Foot, Six Faces of Courage (London, 1978; rev. edn. Barnsley, 2003).

Brooks Richards, Secret Flotillas Vol.I: Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany: 1940–1944, Vol. II: Clandestine Sea Operations to the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Adriatic, 1940–1944 (London, 2004).

Jespersen, No Small Achievement (note 27).

Reproduced along with other related documents in Michal Burian, Aleš Knížek, Jiří Rajlich, Eduard Stehlík, Assassination – Operation Anthropoid 1941–1942 (Prague, 2002).

Alan Powell, War by Stealth. Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942–1945 (Carlton South, 1996) and Richard J Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan. Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (Cambridge, 2000).