The Mutiny That Never Was: The Special Operations Executive and the Failure of Operation ‘Kitchenmaid’

Abstract

This article analyses the development and failure of a plan by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to use a small-scale mutiny by German troops in Greece in 1944 to engender a widespread uprising within the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the ranks of non-German troops serving in the Wehrmacht. Through an analysis of this operation, codenamed ‘Kitchenmaid’, an assessment will be made of the capabilities and motivations of SOE's Greek section (Force 133); the problem of its cooperation with Greek communist guerrillas in relation to British foreign policy towards Greece; and the strategic and political value of ‘Kitchenmaid’.

Notes

¹ Peter Wilkinson and Joan Bright Astley, Gubbins and SOE (London: Pen and Sword 1993) p.181.

² For impressions of SOE Cairo and Keble see Peter Wilkinson, Foreign Fields: The Story of an SOE Operative (London: I.B. Tauris 1997) pp.132–133; Bickham Sweet-Escott, Baker Street Irregular (London: Methuen 1965) p.170; For a more positive assessment of Keble see Basil Davidson, Special Operations Europe: Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War (London: Monthly Review Press 1980) pp.116–117. For discussion of SOE Cairo's poor relations with other Allied agencies in the capital see W.J.M. MacKenzie, The Secret History of SOE (London: Little Brown Book Group 2000) ch.8 generally and pp.507–512; Saul Kelly, ‘A Succession of Crises: SOE in the Middle East, 1940–45’, Intelligence and National Security 20/1 (2005) pp.121–146. For discussion on the alleged pro-Communist bias of SOE Cairo see Roderick Bailey, ‘SOE in Albania: The Conspiracy Theory Re-assessed’ in M. Seaman (ed.) Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War (New York: Routledge 2006) pp.181–183.

³ Sweet-Escott, Baker Street, pp.159–160, 188; E.C.W Myers, ‘The Andarte Delegation to Cairo: August 1943’ in Phyllis Auty and Richard Clogg (eds.) British Policy Towards Wartime Reistance in Yugoslavia and Greece (London: Barnes and Noble 1975) pp.152–155.

⁴ Procopis Papastratis, British Policy Towards Greece During the Second World War, 1941–1944 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1984) pp.130–143.

⁵ Lars Baerentzen, ‘British Strategy towards Greece in 1944’ in William Deakin, Elizabeth Barker and Jonathan Chadwick (eds.) British Political and Military Strategy in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe in 1944 (London: Palgrave 1988) pp.130–131 . For discussion of the problem of ELAS–SOE collaboration see Sweet-Escott, Baker Street, pp.160–161; Andre Gerolymatos, ‘The Development of Guerrilla Warfare and British Policy Toward Greece, 1943–1944’, Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 17/2 (1991) pp.97–114, 99–100.

⁶ Leeper's stance was equally naive. He had initially supported the visit, believing that the guerillas were in Cairo for a ‘friendly chat and a pat on the back’ – Sweet-Escott, Baker Street, p.174; Gerolymatos, ‘Guerilla Warfare’, pp.105–106.

⁷ C.M. Woodhouse, Apple of Discord (London: Hutchinson Press 1985) pp.177–180.

⁸ Mackenzie, Secret History, p.473; National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter TNA) PRO.HS 5/522 – Admin Circular to all Director and Section Heads, 21 November; Commander Operations to Country Sections, 11 December 1943.

⁹ Sweet-Escott, Baker Street, pp.198–199.

¹⁰ Ibid., p.218; M.D. Foot, SOE: The Special Operations Executive, 1940–1946 (London: Pimlico 1999) pp.56–57.

¹¹ Richard Clogg, ‘Pearls From Swine: The Foreign Office Papers, S.O.E and the Greek Resistance’ in Phyllis Auty and Richard Clogg (eds.) British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance (London: Barnes and Noble 1975) pp.173–174 . For an analysis of the confused situation in Greece during and in the aftermath of the civil war see Woodhouse, Apple of Discord, pp.173–180.

¹² Clogg, ‘Pearls From Swine’, pp.198–200.

¹³ Papastratis, British Policy Towards Greece, pp.198–199.

¹⁴ L.S. Stavrianos, ‘The Mutiny in the Greek Armed Forces, 1944’, American Slavic and East European Review 4/9 (1950) pp.302–311. On the Greek mutiny see generally TNA.PRO.WO 201/1769.

¹⁵ SOE was also under pressure from the American Office of Strategic Services at this time to continue cooperating with ELAS – Goulter-Zervoudakis, ‘The Politicization of Intelligence’, pp.182–183; Roy Jenkins, Churchill (London: Pan Books 2001) pp.734–735.

¹⁶ Mackenzie, Secret History, p.473.

¹⁷ TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – SO brief: subversion of German troops, 4 April 1944.

¹⁸ TNA.PRO.HS 5/418 – memo on ‘Zante Plan’, 20 April 1944.

¹⁹ SOE's propaganda and subversion section, SO1, was dismantled and rebuilt as the PWE in August 1941 – Neville Wylie, ‘Ungentlemanly Warriors or Unreliable Diplomats? Special Operations Executive and “Irregular Political Activities” in Europe’, Intelligence and National Security 1/20 (2005) pp.98–120, 99–102; Foot, SOE, pp.27–29.

²⁰ Philip M. Taylor and N.C.F Weekes, ‘Breaking the German Will to Resist, 1944–1945: Allied Efforts to End World War II by Non-military Means’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 8/1 (1998) pp.5–48; TNA/PRO/HS 5/474 – SO brief: subversion of enemy troops, 10 May 1944; Frederic Boyce, SOE's Ultimate Deception: Operation Periwig (Stroud: The History Press 2005) pp.129–138.

²¹ Morris Janowitz and Edward A. Shills, ‘Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II’, Journal of Public Opinion 2/12 (1948), pp.280–315; Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (New York: Oxford University Press 1992) pp.32–35.

²² TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – Origin of 999ers Report, 26 March 1944.

²³ Ibid. – SO brief: subversion of German troops, 4 April 1944; Charles Burdeck, ‘Prisoners as Soldiers: The German 999th Penal Division’, Army Quarterly and Defence Journal 102/1 (1971) pp.65–69; Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–1944 (New Haven: Yale 1995) p.208.

²⁴ Charles D. Melson, ‘German Counter-insurgency in the Balkans: The Prinz Eugen Division Example, 1942–1944’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 20/4 (2007) pp.705–737, 707–808; Christopher Ailsby, Hitler's Renegades: Foreign Nationals in the Service of the Third Reich (Staplehurst: Pimlico 2004), ch.12.

²⁵ Mazower, Hitler's Greece, pp.200–208; Ailsby, Hitler's Renegades, pp.123–124, 164–165.

²⁶ TNA.PRO.WO 204/10235 – Force 133 Situation Reports (Balkans), 22 and 23 April 1944; TNA.PRO.WO 204/10236 – Force 133 Situation Reports (Balkans), 20, 26, 27 May 1944.

²⁷ Roderick Bailey, The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle, (London: Vintage 2008) pp.289–291; Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies, ed. Oliver Hoare (London: The National Archives 2000) pp.337–38.

²⁸ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – SO brief: subversion of German troops, 4 April 1944.

²⁹ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – SO brief: subversion of enemy troops, 10 May 1944; TNA/PRO/CAB 122/752 – Chiefs of Staff (COS) minute, 26 April 1944.

³⁰ Operation ‘Animals’.

³¹ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – SO to SOE Cairo, 6 April 1944.

³² Wilkinson and Bright-Ashley, Gubbins and SOE, pp.170–171; MacKenzie, Secret History, pp.474 477

³³ TNA/PRO/HS 4/575 – SO brief: subversion of German troops, 4 April 1944; SO circular brief, 15 April 1944;TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – Davies Brief, 25 May 1944.

³⁴ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – Davies brief, 25 May 1944; SO brief: subversion of enemy troops, 10 May 1944.

³⁵ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – Operational Instruction for Kitchenmaid, 28 July 1944; Balkan Air Force report on subversion of enemy troops, 25 July 1944; TNA/PRO/HS 4/209 – subversion of troops in the Mediterranean theatre of war outline, 14 July 1944.

³⁶ TNA/PRO/HS 5/475 – memo on ‘Zante Plan’, 12 May 1944.

³⁷ TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – draft plan for mutiny of two battalions of 999 Fortress regiment in the Peloponnese, 26 April 1944.

³⁸ TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – SO circular brief, 15 April 1944.

³⁹ TNA.PRO.HS 5/418 – SOE note on disaffection in 999 Fortress Regiment, 20 April 1944; TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – ‘Zante Plan’ memo, 12 May 1944.

⁴⁰ TNA.PRO.HS 4/209 – Force 133 HQ to Marcik, 6 July 1944, MPP to MP.51, 8 August 1944; TNA.PRO.WO 204/10192 – report on subversion of enemy troops in the Mediterranean theatre, 4 June 1944.

⁴¹ TNA.PRO.WO 204/10192 – Major Wallace to SO, 12 June 1944.

⁴² TNA.PRO.WO 106/6093 – War Office Report on outcome of Kitchenmaid, 5 September 1944.

⁴³ TNA.PRO.WO 204/10192 – PWB memo, 29 June 1944.

⁴⁴ TNA.PRO.WO 204/10192 – AFHQ to COS, 26 July 1944; TNA.PRO.WO 106/6093 – War Office report on outcome of Kitchenmaid, 5 September 1944; TNA.PRO.HS 4/209 – SO to AFHQ, 26 July 1944, TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – Force 133 to SO, 21 July 1944.

⁴⁵ TNA.PRO.WO 106/6093 – War Office report on outcome of Kitchenmaid, 5 September 1944.

⁴⁶ Sweet-Escott, Baker Street Irregular, pp.199, 215; TNA.PRO.HS 5/418 – Gubbins to SO, 23 July 1944.

⁴⁷ TNA.PRO.WO 106/6093 – Boxhall to Macglagan, 12 September 1944.

⁴⁸ TNA.PRO.HS 5/475 – Origin of 999ers report, 26 March 1944.

⁴⁹ TNA.PRO.HS 5/496 – Force 133 situation report, 1 July 1944.

⁵⁰ Mazower, Hitler's Greece, pp.355–356.

⁵¹ TNA.PRO.HS 4/209 – Briefing for Lt. Long, 27 August 1944.

⁵² TNA.PRO.HS 5/585 – JIC Cairo note, 6 November 1944; note on subversion on Kos and Leros, 15 December 1944; TNA.PRO.HS 5/736 – programme for liquidation of Force 133, 2 January 1945.

⁵³ Papastratis, British Policy Towards Greece, pp.198–202.

⁵⁴ Papastratis, British Policy Towards Greece, pp.201–202; Mazower, Hitler's Greece, pp.355–360; MacKenzie, Secret History, pp.477–479. For an assessment of the failure of British propaganda in Greece see Spyridon Ploumidis, ‘British Propaganda Towards Greece, 1940–1944’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 6/4 (2006) pp.407–426, 420–421.

⁵⁵ F.W.D. Deakin, ‘The Myth of an Allied Landing in the Balkans during the Second World War’ (with particular reference to Yugoslavia) in Phyllis Auty and Richard Clogg (eds.) British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance (London: Barnes and Noble 1975) pp.93–116, 102–107.

⁵⁶ See generally TNA.PRO.WO 219/790 for reports on the ineffectiveness of subversive propaganda and maintenance of morale in the Wehrmacht in late 1944.

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James Crossland

James Crossland is a lecturer in modern European history at Murdoch University and secretary of Murdoch's World Wars Research Group.