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Group    From 22/7/1940  To 15/1/1946

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Categories: Armed Forces, Espionage

Countries: France, Germany

Special Operations Executive (SOE)

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. 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 ) 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. S. Greig

J. S. Greig

Resident of Hendon who served and died in WW2.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW2
1 memorial
H. J. Evans

H. J. Evans

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
St Paul's Covent Garden parishioners killed in WW1

St Paul's Covent Garden parishioners killed in WW1

Male worshippers of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden who were killed serving in WW1.

Group, Armed Forces

1 memorial
Private Thomas Alfred Drabble

Private Thomas Alfred Drabble

Thomas Alfred Drabble was the eldest of the four children of Alfred Samuel Charles Drabble (1863-1937) and Jane Drabble née Curley (1863-1915), whose birth was registered in the 3rd quarter of 1890...

Person, Armed Forces, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
RAF Benevolent Fund

RAF Benevolent Fund

Created by Lord Trenchard to provide direct welfare assistance to those of the extended Royal Air Force family in need or distress.

Group, Armed Forces, Philanthropy

1 memorial