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.

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Leopold Marks

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

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Noor Inayat Khan bust

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

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Noor Inayat Khan - Taviton Street

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

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Special Operations Executive (SOE)

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

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Show all 8

Other Subjects

W. H. Edgcomb

W. H. Edgcomb

Resident of Willesden who volunteered and died in the Anglo Boer War, 1899-1900.

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1 memorial
Lieutenant John Henry Stephen Dimmer, VC

Lieutenant John Henry Stephen Dimmer, VC

John (Jack) John Henry Stephen Dimmer was born at 37 Gloster Street, South Lambeth. Following action at Klein Zillebeke, Belgium, Dimmer learned of his VC reading a British newspaper whilst recover...

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
2 memorials
Machine Gun Corps

Machine Gun Corps

A corps of the British army. It was formed in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in World War I. It had four branches (Infantry, Cavalry, Motor and Hea...

Group, Armed Forces

2 memorials
Air Marshal Sir William Wratten
1 memorial
F. Henry Warner

F. Henry Warner

Co-partner or employee of the South Suburban Gas Company. Served but did not die in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War served, WW1
1 memorial