Baker Street Irregular
Baker Street Irregular, by Bickham Sweet-Escott.Published 1965. Written by a former SOE (Special Operations Executive) operative.
The department was newly formed and quite controversial. People in military circles were very dubious of its benefits to begin with but they became highly suspicious after a year when it had produced little for the money it was being given. It had had some limited success in the Balkans but had botched up an attempt to provide counter-invasion equipment to potential resistance fighters and partisans in the event of a Nazi landing…
posted by Benjamin Nakizo at 6:55 AM
1 Comments:
>>> Ha. Brilliant. After the US had entered the war he went to Washington to liase with their secret service to see what could be done in cooperation. In a side street not far from the White House he walked past a sign that read: “NO PARKING: U.S. SECRET SERVICE ONLY”. He says he wanted to take a photograph and turn it into a Christmas card. Giggle.
It seemed that most of the personal they were recruiting, at least in London to run operations, were lawyers and bankers from the city. It was difficult because while the department could not do anything without having agents in the occupied countries it first needed to have a command structure in London to co-ordinate and support any actions in occupied countries so early on the department was recruiting numerous specialists and bureaucrats who had little to do.
Professionals were employed one level because they could easily move around the world on the pretence that they were still practicing their old jobs. Lawyers, bankers etc.
As an example of the sort of jobs the author found himself doing he firstly swotted up on the details of both the wine trade and wolfram intended for a mission to Portugal where he would be looking to gather intelligence on the wolfram trade but doing so under the guise of working for a wine traders. Despite his enthusiastic studying the mission was cancelled at the last minute. Other, and perhaps less exciting things, included liasing with the Polish government in exile and arranging transport for their own agents to places like Athens and Istanbul from which they could make their way back into Poland.
They made arrangements for new agents to be trained in parachute drops and to have a period of army PT as well as classes in traditional spy skills like invisible ink and radio work etc. Not only this but each section within the department, each in charge of a single country, had to have separate training facilities for fear their agents would mix with others during training and become potential leaks should they be captured.
Our man would also work in the office deciphering incoming messages from agents in the field. He was the secretary to the big chief man so was in an excellent position to oversee all the operations and hence, write this account of SOE’s actions.
He recounts one successful mission in which their agents in Spain overpowered the guards to a large Italian merchant vessel, that had sailed their on the outbreak of war for its own safety, and then towed her out beyond the three mile neutrality line where the Royal Navy was waiting to sink her. Which they did.
A second adventure they were involved in was the organising of a small convoy of merchant ships carrying valuable ball bearings from Sweden (from which Britain was cut off) to run the North Sea, avoiding German surveillance, which it was able to.
They also spent a great deal of time recruiting people in Bulgaria and Greece for actions to be undertaken in the event of an invasion (the blowing up of bridges etc), or occupation (organising resistance networks now) and also in securing and removing valuable people who could be put back in to the country at a later date to assist in any future plans. Although these of course had to be done sensitively as not to alarm their Bulgarian of Greek friends as to the hopelessness of their situation.
They also had a lot to do with the pro-Allied coup d’état in Serbia (which was then quickly crushed by the advancing Germans). So right after celebrating their successful role in the coup they were hurriedly organising the withdrawal of SOE personal from Belgrade.
They had difficulties in securing aircraft with which to deploy agents or drop supplies behind enemy lines because Bomber Command had priority on all aircraft.
SOE was initially organised into three departments but the third folded soon in to its operations. S.O.1 had the responsibility to conduct operations behind enemy lines while S.O.2 was to do everything else. (I think).
On arrival in Egypt to meet with the SO’s operations in Cairo they were greeted by disorganisation and infighting. After meetings in Turkey and Iraq he moved down (all by train) into Iran for the upcoming conference. They shared a hotel with high spirited Russian officers. “We were to earn several remarkable hangovers in the interests of British prestige”. The Tehran conference seems to have been one great party and the longer the discussions went on for the better for everyone in the delegations apparently. There seems to have been a lot of sight seeing – and drinking.
Later he met General Wavell who had just been given command of central Asia. Wavell instructed him that he wanted SOE to prepare demolitions in northwestern Iraq and to organise for groups of resistance fighters to scatter into the mountains of Kurdistan in the wake of any German advance.
Meanwhile the staff in Cairo had got itself sorted and enlarged to deal with all the work it was getting from the now occupied Balkans. The office was split into three. Political subversion, black propaganda and paramilitary operations.
On arriving back in London he notes that significant progress had been made and the office was in frequent radio contact with resistance movements in France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Not only this but Bomber Command had eased up and the office was allowed more access to aircraft now also. Also now in use was the BBC. Resistance fighters and agents in the field were clued up about what certain phrases meant and when they heard them on the BBC they knew that a drop was imminent etc.
He says how the French gave everyone headaches because while other occupied nations had ‘recognised’ governments in exile the French only had De Gaulle and the Free French, which many French resistance fighters refused to obey. So the situation was a lot more complex and one had to always bare in mind which groups had which loyalties and hence how best to approach them.
There was tension at times between the demands of SOE who wanted to see quick results if only because their funding depended upon it and the exile governments and resistance groups who preferred to lie low and unleash their actions only when a full Allied landing had been confirmed.
After the Soviet Unions entry into the war SOE sent a delegation to Moscow to exchange information with the NKVD about partisan movements in occupied countries. But relations between the two organisations was never very strong.
The Russians provided a team to Britain to be airdropped into Europe but the weather was unusually bad throughout January and February so the flight never took off, the Russians were furious and demanded that it be done. So not wanting to risk any of his pilots the chief officer decided to fly himself. The plane went down and none returned. In response the Russians accused Britain of having ‘made away’ with their team deliberately.
The Foreign Office was always having to be pleased and reassured and numerous demonstrations were laid on for various ministers in a bid to impress them and keep the funding going.
With American entry into the war while obviously a boost it also posed a problem because SOE had previously been employing many Americans as agents, given their neutrality status they could get access to a lot more with a lot less suspicion.
Ha, brilliant again. In the Second World War our man flies to the US base in Iceland (previously British remember) and is given food. Into each butter portion is stamped “Remember Pearl Harbour”. HA. I thought their gross tactlessness was a 21st century phenomena. Obviously not.
Relations between the American OSS and the British SOE were more or less ok, with some minor set backs and irritations, mainly as the Americans tried to ride roughshod over work that had been in motion for many years by the British.
“It used to be said at the time that liaison with Americans was like having an affair with an elephant: it is extremely difficult, you are apt to get badly trampled on, and you get no results for eight years. Not all of us went as far as that. The idea that the infant OSS might profit from the mistakes of SOE sounded attractive. But SOE only two years older, and we were just as much learners as they were”.
BRILLIANT:
“I found Paul hovering behind my chair at breakfast. I asked him what the trouble was. ‘It’s the toast, Colonel’, he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s rather rough. You see, I had to cut it myself.’ I began to feel that at least the war had reached Washington.”
After Washington he was sent back to London and then from their on to Algiers which had just been taken in Operation Torch. Then later on to Cairo again where their operations had been renamed Force 133.
After the Italian campaign his job took him to India to help organise operations in the Asian and pacific theatres.
The British SOE in Burma (or Force 136) has to co-operate with both the Communist based Anti Fascist Organisation and the nationalist Burma Defence Army. Both were politically sensitive but to risk losing their support at such a sensitive time was to big a price to pay, and as our author says, it seemed that India would almost certainly get independence, and that meant Burma more than likely would do so also.
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