‘Of Historical Interest Only’: The Origins and Vicissitudes of the SOE Archive

Abstract

This article is an updated version of a paper of the same title which I delivered to a conference on SOE at the Imperial War Museum in October 1998, when I was SOE Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a post which became redundant in early 2002 with the final releases of SOE files to the Public Records Office. Among my sources were documents which have not been released, but which I was permitted to cite, concerning the transfer of responsibility for the SOE Archive to SIS in early 1946 and its subsequent history. The article thus describes the largely unsuccessful attempt by SOE, during the last year of its existence, to collate its most important papers into a central filing system after destroying an unquantifiable mass of so-called ephemeral material; the post-war destruction of an unknown number of files in the fire in Baker Street; further waves of destruction by SIS based on judgements about the possible future utility of material in the Archive; and the eventual reorganization in the early 1970s by a professional archivist from the PRO who established the order in which we have it today and who estimated that at least 87 per cent of the original Archive had by then been destroyed.

Notes

M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France. An account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France, 1940–1944 (HMS London, 1966, with new revised edition, 2004).

W.J. Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE (London, 2000) p.xxvii.

C.B. Townshend's report of 17 December 1974, held by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

Foot, SOE in France, p.449.

The National Archives. United Kingdom. Public Record Office (hereafter PRO). HS8/443 (retained by Department) Archivist's report of 25 April 1946.

Instructions of November 1941. PRO. HS8/866.

Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker, Setting Europe Ablaze (Windlesham, 1983) p.163.

The SOE system of symbols to designate posts in the organisation and/or and the staff who held them was idiosyncratic and inconsistent but pragmatic. It was born of both SIS and military staff practice. A few symbols were directly inherited from Section D of SIS. Thus CD for the Chief of SOE was analagous to ‘C’ for the Chief of SIS plus D for D Section. CD's closest staff usually had symbols which indicated either their status (V/CD for Vice, D/CD for Deputy) and/or their function (D/FIN for Director of Finance, CD/S for Chief Staff Officer). Some symbols were simply acronyms for job titles (C/A for Head of Central Archives, A/DN for assistant Director Naval); some deliberately obscured geographical responsibilities (X for German, H for Iberia, T for Belgium) but others revealed them (SN for Scandinavia/Norway and F for the French Section, some members of which had symbols which incorporated their initials: FB for Nicholas Bodington, FV for Vera Atkins, FM for Gerry Morel). Symbols for staff and agents overseas were always obscurantist (BB 100 for the Head of Force 136) and followed differing patterns of numerical hierarchy. To mkae matters worse, a few of the more long-standing staff, for no obvious reason and atypically, retained their symbols even when they changed jobs. Symbols proliferated and mutated with jobs over the course of the war. Not surprisingly, secretaries became confused by them and often produced typographically varying versions of the same symbol (F Recs, R.Recs, F/Recs). Reasonably complete list of symbols used in SOE can be found at The National Archives: Public Record Office, HS8/965-986.

The instruction itself appears to have survived. It is summarized in ADB/270 of 19 August 1944. PRO. HS8/868.

Ibid.

Minutes of SOE Council Meeting, 29 August 1944. PRO. HS8/201.

Various papers in PRO. HS8/443.

Letter of 25 October 1944. Ibid.

See for example minute by DCD/542 to CD of 17 December 1944. Ibid.

Townsend's report of 17 December 1974, held by SIS.

Ibid.

PF of Miss Gertrude Ornstein. PRO. HS9/1125.

Correspondence dated 5 June 1956. PRO. HS8/443.

Private information from SOE veteran.

PRO. HS8/443.

Ibid.

Ibid.

These figures are totals derived from a series of monthly returns on an SIS file.

Minute of 22 December 1949. PRO. HS8/443.

Minute of 21 February 1950. PRO. HS8/443. Emphasis in original.

Ibid.

Subsequent minuting. PRO. HS8/443.

Ibid.

F.A.N.Y. Invicta (London: Hutchinson, 1953).

Boxshall's appointment with the quoted description of his remit was announced in Parliament by John Profumo on 15 December 1958 and is recorded in Hansard Col. 757/758 for that day.

The Waldegrave Initiative in 1992, and the Open Government White Paper, which followed in 1993, paved the way for the transfer of much of the SOE Archive to The National Archive: Public Record Office. See Wesley Wark, ‘In Never Never Land? The British Archives on Intelligence’, The Historical Journal, 35/1 (1992), pp.196–203, Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Never Never Land and Wonderland? British and American Policy on Intelligence Archives’, Contemporary Record, 8/1 (1994), 133–52, and idem., ‘The Waldegrave Initiative and Secret Service Archives: New Materials and New Policies’, Intelligence & National Security, 10/1 (1995), 192–7.’

Townsend's report of 17 December 1974, held by SIS.

Ibid.