Group    From 22/7/1940  To 15/1/1946

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Categories: Armed Forces, Espionage

Countries: France, Germany

Spies, basically (but see below), working for the UK in WW2. Formed by Churchill and variously known as "Churchill's Secret Army", "The Baker Street Irregulars", the Pythonesque "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" or the deliberately dull-sounding "Joint Technical Board" or "Inter-Service Research Bureau". 117 SOE agents did not survive their missions to France. There is a plaque outside St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge which gives the names of the women SOE agents who died in WW2. Culture 24 gives some detail of the SOE activities around Baker Street.

Parachuted into France the women operatives had a life expectancy of only 6 weeks, due, according to current thinking, to the incompetence of the SOE.

The organisation was officially dissolved on 15 January 1946.

2019: Francis Suttill (who interestingly shares a name with a member of the SOE, 1910 – 1945) contacted us via Facebook to question our use of the word 'spy' to describe members of the SOE rather than 'special agent'. From what he writes he knows much more about this subject than we do so we accept his correction.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Commemorated ati

Free French plaque

Alamy have a photo of the unveiling.

Read More

Leopold Marks

Jewish cryptographer, Leopold (Leo) Samuel Marks, MBE, lived in flat 410 Park...

Read More

Noor Inayat Khan bust

The Guardian reports: "the first stand-alone memorial to an Asian woman in th...

Read More

Noor Inayat Khan - Taviton Street

Noor Inayat Khan, GC, 1914 - 1944, SOE agent, codename 'Madeleine', stayed he...

Read More

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

See Musee de la Resistance for more information on this plaque (in French).

Read More

Show all 8

Other Subjects

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

Established in 1903 it continued until 1958 when all British naval reserve forces were amalgamated and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was absorbed into the much larger Royal Naval Reserve...

Group, Armed Forces

1 memorial
Herbert Gifford Harvey

Herbert Gifford Harvey

Junior Assistant 2nd Engineer on the RMS Titanic. A full résumé of his life can be found on the Encyclopedia Titanica website.  He is also commemorated on the Engineers Memorial, Andrews East Park...

Person, Armed Forces, Engineering, Tragedy, Ireland

1 memorial
Hampstead fire station

Hampstead fire station

Tetramesh has a 1906 photo of this building showing that there used to be more to the tower.

Building, Armed Forces

2 memorials
Field Marshal Allenby

Field Marshal Allenby

Army officer. Born Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby at Brackenhurst Hall, near Southwell, Nottinghamshire. He fought in the second Boer war and in World War I his command captured Vimy Ridge. Later he l...

Person, Armed Forces, Africa, Egypt, France

2 memorials
John Arthur Andrews

John Arthur Andrews

John Arthur Andrews was born on 29 June 1886 in Deptford, Kent (now Greater London), the son of George Ambrose Charles Andrews (1861-1907) and Eliza Frances Andrews née Atkins (b.1862). His birth w...

Person, Armed Forces

War dead non-military, WW2
1 memorial