Major-General Sir Colin McVean Gubbins, KCMG, DSO, MC (2 July 1896 – 11 February 1976) was the prime mover of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Second World War.

In July 1916 he participated in the Battle of the Somme and received the Military Cross, the citation for which, appearing in The London Gazette in September 1916, reads as follows: For conspicuous gallantry.

In August 1922, Gubbins reluctantly provided a gun carriage and six black horses for the military funeral of his former enemy: ex-IRA Director of Intelligence and Irish Army commander-in-chief Michael Collins, who had been ambushed and shot in the head by the anti-Treaty IRA.

One of the lessons drawn from the latter war was the importance of captured enemy documents which had provided the security forces with a wealth of invaluable intelligence on the IRA.

[14] After a period with signals intelligence at GHQ India, Gubbins graduated from the Staff College at Quetta in 1928, and in 1931 was appointed GSO3 in the Russian section of the War Office.

Promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel, he joined GS(R) — later to become MI(R) — in April 1939 he co-wrote training manuals on irregular warfare tactics for resistance movements, later translated and dropped into occupied Europe.

[15] When British forces were mobilized in August 1939, Gubbins was appointed Chief of Staff to the military mission to Poland led by Adrian Carton de Wiart.

He was summoned from France in March 1940 to raise the Independent Companies, forerunners of the British Commandos, which he later commanded in several actions in Nordland during the Norwegian campaign (9 April – 10 June 1940).

Although he was recommended for command of a division by Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck, the commander of all troops in the Norwegian campaign,[17] on his return to Britain he nevertheless rejoined MI(R) and was directed by General Headquarters Home Forces to form the secret Auxiliary Units, a commando force based around the Home Guard together with regular army sabotage teams, to operate on the flanks and to the rear of German lines if Britain were ever invaded.

[18] In November 1940 Gubbins became acting Brigadier and, at the request of Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, was seconded to the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which had recently been established to "coordinate all action by way of sabotage and subversion against the enemy overseas".

Besides maintaining his existing connections with the Poles and Czechs, Gubbins was given three tasks: to set up training facilities; to devise operating procedures acceptable to the Admiralty and Air Ministry; and to establish close working relations with the Joint Planning Staff.

The first liaison flight to Poland took place in February 1941, and during 1942 and 1943 European resistance movements aided by SOE scored notable successes, including a raid on a heavy water production plant in Norway.

Despite having the firm support of Dalton's successor, Lord Selborne, the resulting modus vivendi placed SOE's field operations under the direction of theatre commanders.

When SOE was shut down in 1946 the War Office could offer Gubbins no suitable position, and when he retired from the army he became the managing director of a carpet and textile manufacturer.

It was a shock to realize they were focused on me.In the book Virtual History (1997), Andrew Roberts and Niall Ferguson call Gubbins "one of the war's unsung heroes".