Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements during World War II.

SOE personnel operated in all territories occupied or attacked by the Axis powers, except where demarcation lines were agreed upon with Britain's principal Allies, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Immediately after Germany annexed Austria (the Anschluss) in March 1938, the Foreign Office created a propaganda organisation known as Department EH (after Electra House, its headquarters), run by Canadian newspaper magnate Sir Campbell Stuart.

[11] On 13 June 1940, at the instigation of newly appointed Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Lord Hankey (who held the Cabinet post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) persuaded Section D and MI(R) that their operations should be coordinated.

[18] Directed by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Millis Jefferis,[19] it was located at The Firs in Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire and nicknamed "Churchill's Toyshop" from the Prime Minister's close interest in it and his enthusiastic support.

Nelson, the first director to be appointed, was a former head of a trading firm in India, a back bench Conservative Member of Parliament and Consul in Basel, Switzerland, where he had also been engaged in undercover intelligence work.

[39] Dalton's initial statement about outline of methods to be used by SOE's was "industrial and military sabotage, labor agitation and strikes, continuous propaganda, terrorist attacks against traitors and German leaders, boycotts and riots.

Thereafter, there were two main aims, often mutually incompatible; sabotage of the Axis war effort, and the creation of secret armies which would rise up to assist the liberation of their countries when Allied troops arrived or were about to do so.

[60] Section D originally had a research station at Bletchley Park, which also held the Government Code and Cipher School, until in November 1940 it was decided that it was unwise to conduct codebreaking and explosives experiments on the same site.

Agents destined to serve in the field underwent commando training at Arisaig in Scotland, where they were taught armed and unarmed combat skills by William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes, former Inspectors in the Shanghai Municipal Police.

The backgrounds of agents in F Section, for example, ranged from aristocrats such as Polish-born Countess Krystyna Skarbek, and Noor Inayat Khan, the daughter of an Indian Sufi leader, to working-class people such as Violette Szabo and Michael Trotobas, with some even reputedly from the criminal underworld.

SOE acquired a few, much more suitable, sets from the Poles in exile, but eventually designed and manufactured their own, such as the Paraset, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel F. W. Nicholls of the Royal Corps of Signals, who had served with Gubbins between the wars.

In training, agents were taught to use a variety of easily available substances to make invisible ink, though most of these could be detected by a cursory examination, or to hide coded messages in apparently innocent letters.

[100] SOE also revived some medieval devices, such as the caltrop, which could be used to burst the tyres of vehicles or injure foot soldiers[101] and crossbows powered by multiple rubber bands to shoot incendiary bolts.

Some of these were weapons such as the Sleeve gun or fuses or adhesion devices to be used in sabotage, others were utility objects such as waterproof containers for stores to be dropped by parachute, or night glasses (lightweight binoculars with plastic lenses).

Some of the more imaginative devices invented by SOE included exploding pens with enough explosive power to blast a hole in the bearer's body, or guns concealed in tobacco pipes, though there is no record of any of these being used in action.

It flew a variety of bomber-type aircraft, often modified with extra fuel tanks and flame-suppressing exhaust shrouds: the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley until November 1942, the Handley Page Halifax and later the Short Stirling.

[123] While SIS and SOE (and MI9) landed and embarked several dozen agents, refugees and Allied aircrew, it was impossible to transport large quantities of arms and equipment inland from beaches in heavily patrolled coastal areas, until France was almost liberated.

It took many weeks for a full assessment of the contributions of SOE and the Jedburgh teams to the Allied landings in Normandy, but when it came it vindicated Gubbins' belief that carefully planned sabotage could cripple a modern army.

The most "outstanding example was the delay to the 2nd SS Panzer Division", Eisenhower's staff said, and added a very personal endorsement, agreeing that the work carried out under Gubbins' leadership played a "very considerable part in our complete and final victory".

[135] Secret Intelligence Service member Krystyna Skarbek (nom de guerre Christine Granville) ran several operations in Poland, and Hungary (with Andrzej Kowerski), from 1939-1941, in Egypt 1941-1944, and France with SOE F (for French) Section in 1944.

[146][page needed] Two years earlier, in April 1941, in a mission codenamed "Yak", Peter Fleming had attempted to recruit agents from among the many thousands of Italian prisoners of war captured in the Western Desert Campaign.

[157] Greece was eventually overrun by the Axis after a decisive win over the Italians and a significant defence lasting several months which also caused a major diversion of German forces, subsequently delaying the invasion of Russia.

A party under Colonel (later Brigadier) Eddie Myers, assisted by Christopher Woodhouse, was parachuted into Greece and discovered two guerrilla groups operating in the mountains: the pro-Communist ELAS and the republican EDES.

[citation needed] Eventually, the British Army occupied Athens and Piraeus in the aftermath of the German withdrawal, and fought a street-by-street battle to drive ELAS from these cities and impose an interim government under Archbishop Damaskinos.

The delegation, including Colonel Gardyne de Chastelain, Captain Silviu Mețianu and Ivor Porter, was captured by the Romanian Gendarmerie and held until the night of King Michael's Coup on 23 August 1944.

Its agents proved remarkably successful, raising £77m through their activities, which were used to provide assistance for Allied prisoners of war and, more controversially, to buy influence locally to facilitate a smooth return to pre-war conditions.

[175] The debate continued for several months until on 22 May 1945, Selborne wrote: In view of the Russian menace, the situation in Italy, Central Europe and the Balkans and the smouldering volcanoes in the Middle East, I think it would be madness to allow SOE to be stifled at this juncture.

It made possible the resurrection of self-respect in occupied societies which would otherwise have been forced to look back on the successive chapters of their experience of the conflict through a dark prism; military humiliation, followed by enforced collaboration with the enemy, followed by belated deliverance at the hands of foreign armies.

Portraying a heavily fictionalized version of Operation Postmaster, a Guy Ritchie-directed film called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare starring Henry Cavill as Gus March-Phillipps and Alan Ritchson as Anders Lassen, was released on 19 April 2024.