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.

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

Commemorated ati

Christine Granville

Christine Granville, born Krystyna Skarbek, 1908 - 1952, SOE agent, lived her...

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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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Show all 10

Other Subjects

J. Pope

J. Pope

Employed at the Holloway tram garage. Served and was killed in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
G. Bowers

G. Bowers

Employed at the Streatham bus garage. Served and was killed in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Field-Marshal, 1st Viscount Wolseley, Garnet Joseph

Field-Marshal, 1st Viscount Wolseley, Garnet Joseph

Field Marshal.  Born Dublin.  Served in the Indian Rebellion and the Crimean War. Led the attempt to relieve Khartoum. 1895 - 1900 Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. The very model of the 'Mod...

Person, Armed Forces, Africa, Burma, Canada, China/Hong Kong, Crimea, France, India, Ireland

1 memorial
W. H. Hill

W. H. Hill

J. Lyons & Co. Ltd. staff member who died in WW2.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW2
1 memorial
E. C. Mungeam

E. C. Mungeam

J. Lyons & Co. Ltd. staff member who died in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial

Previously viewed

Giuseppe Lund

Giuseppe Lund

Metal sculptor active in 1993.  2012 Lund is looking for commissions to fund a solo row across the Atlantic to raise money to provide fresh-water wells.  Go on, you know you need a decorative gate!...

Person, Sculpture

1 memorial
A. Thurston
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Samuel Pepys Club

Samuel Pepys Club

Formed as a dining club for eminent Pepys admirers and still limited in number, currently to 140 in the UK and 14 abroad.

Group, Community / Clubs, Literature

1 memorial