SOE

by Fredric Boyce

  Sometimes attempts were made to conduct serious scientific business in the alcoholic haze of a party, even a small one. It was on such an occasion when somewhat dubious judgements were being passed on the effectiveness of an experimental pair of plastic-lensed binoculars for use at night when one of the less inebriated suddenly realised that this was no way of arriving at a considered scientific conclusion. The episode gave rise to a properly constituted and formal Trials Section.

  Security was concentrated most strictly at the point of work. Information was passed on a ‘need to know’ basis. Leaving papers unattended on one’s desk was strictly forbidden and regular security patrols checked at lunchtime and at night that laboratories, offices and particularly filing cabinets were securely locked. There was a military guard at the main gate and generally a pass was required, but there does not seem to have been a perimeter security fence – the grounds and gardens had nothing more than conventional hedges and fences. As far as the local population was concerned the name Inter-Services Research Bureau was sufficient to explain the comings and goings of the various uniforms and vehicles, and the flashes and bangs which emanated from the nearby woods and fields. To those working in the laboratories however, it was possible to glean something of what was going on in other sections from snippets of overheard conversation in the mess. Even so, the term SOE was unknown to many until after the war had ended.

  At the end of hostilities Newitt was called upon to produce from an analysis of operations the basic requirements of a saboteur. In his paper ‘The Organisation of Research and Development to Meet the Requirements of Subversive Warfare’ he maintains these basic requirements would be satisfied by:

  a) A silenced small arm for personal protection or dealing with guards and sentries at night.

  b) Two standard demolition sets consisting of a high explosive charge with means of attachment to the target, time delay initiator, means of linking two or more charges and suitable for use in air and under water respectively.

  c) Ancillary devices such as anti-removal, pull, pressure and release switches.

  d) A standard fire-raising set consisting of a pocket incendiary with a time delay initiator and the means of linking two or more units.5

  Thus the fundamental equipment of a saboteur was fairly straightforward: but the means of making it more reliable, simpler and easier to use under adverse conditions and more unobtrusive had exercised the minds of the researchers throughout the war years.

  There were some long-term benefits from academic studies undertaken on behalf of SOE by some of the country’s leading seats of learning. Cambridge University carried out an investigation into the properties of spontaneously inflammable metal-alkyl derivatives; the Imperial College of Science in London produced a new type of explosive having a high oxygen content and great stability to shock; and the University of Oxford undertook an examination of the properties of certain chemical and physical systems with a view to developing a time delay with negligible temperature coefficient. All three projects were said by Newitt to have ‘produced most interesting and worthwhile results’.

  The most plentiful devices issued to the field were Station IX’s various incendiaries. But how did Station XV’s booby-trap exotica, highlighted in recent years in the popular press, come to be developed? For one thing, their design must have provided a certain ‘light relief’ to the scientists. During relatively quieter times between the difficult jobs of great urgency, they must have reverted to schoolboy mischievousness which was all in the cause of undermining the morale of Hitler’s military machine. The booby-traps disguised as rats, Chianti bottles, Balinese carvings, bicycle pumps, lumps of coal and a host of other everyday items could have been included in a parachute container of stores almost as a makeweight, their use being opportunistic. There is no doubt that Station IX was not in the least shy about these apparently juvenile devices. After all, they worked and inflicted various degrees of harm and, more particularly, wider alarm on the enemy so it was right that they should appear in the catalogue of devices available and later in their exhibition at the Natural History Museum. In a twist to the theme of disguised devices, it was discovered that the 20 July 1944 plot by German officers which very nearly killed Hitler was carried out using a bomb ‘disguised’ as a brief case. Purely by chance, for SOE played no part in this assassination attempt, the plastic explosive and the timing device came from SOE stores which had fallen into the Abwehr’s hands two years earlier and been put aside by one of the plotters to await a suitable opportunity to use it.

  It would be pointless to attempt to list the most effective devices developed by SOE, for their stores had a great variety of purposes and were used under many different circumstances. The relatively sophisticated inventions and techniques, while being technically interesting, might not have caused as much mayhem to the enemy or encouragement to the Resistance as some more prosaic ones. It is interesting to note in Table 6 that, apart from small arms ammunition and Time Pencil delays, incendiaries formed the greatest quantity of items sent to the field: confirmation perhaps of the soundness of the concept of Operation Braddock.

  Sadly, at the end of the war SOE stations were encouraged to destroy their records and a mysterious fire in the Baker Street headquarters destroyed many of their papers before the organisation was disbanded in January 1946. The secrecy surrounding SOE has been lifted only slowly over the last fifty years and even at the end of the millennium, a few files still remain to be released into the public domain. Many of the details of the ingenious and perhaps exotic inventions thought up at Stations IX, XII and XV are lost forever.

  Wartime Britain was subject to severe rationing and frustrating controls on most aspects of life. Amidst the thousands of pages of wartime and immediately postwar documents sifted through for this record of SOE’s research and development achievements was a light-hearted item which some erstwhile archivist had seen fit to keep for posterity in the Public Record Office. It illustrates the lengths one had to go to in wartime in order to procure something a little different to eat on that special occasion.

  STATION XII’S CHRISTMAS PORKER, 1943

  The Camp Commandant wrote to the OC Station XII that it had at last been possible to obtain a licence to kill a pig for Christmas for the Officers’ Mess. The Camp Commandant had first been referred to the Hertford Rural District Food Office, then to the Agricultural Officer, ECD, then to the Herts and Bucks Area Bacon Officer, then to the Command Catering Officer and lastly to the Agricultural Officer, Eastern Command.

  The pig had been slaughtered at 11.00 hours on 11 December. Before the slaughter took place, however, the Hitchin Bacon Factory had telephoned to say the pig had arrived but they must refuse to kill it as the licence only permitted this to be done in the area of the camp. After ringing the War Office, at Command’s instructions, special permission was obtained, following a call to the Ministry of Food, Colwyn Bay, from the County Pig Allocation Officer who had finally endorsed the licence and declared that everything was in order.6

  EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  With the advantage of hindsight, doubt has been expressed by some about the worth of special forces such as the SOE. Many commentators cite the deep animosity between SOE and SIS, almost open warfare in some Country Sections but tolerably cooperative in others, as a reason for costly failures. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: ‘Though SOE and SIS were nominally on the same side in the war, they were generally speaking more abhorrent to one another than the Abwehr was to either of them.’1 There are great difficulties in a democracy in setting up a properly organised subversive department within government, even in the relative calm of peacetime. In the alarm and confusion that existed in Britain in the early years of the Second World War it is not surprising that there was just not time to look into this in sufficient depth. Decisions had to be made and if some Whitehall departments felt aggrieved with them that was unfortunate but a fact of life at the time. It was doubly unfortunate that they led to an u
nfriendly relationship between SOE and several other departments which lasted throughout the conflict.

  There were also other problems. After the war Newitt wrote a paper entitled ‘The Organisation of Research and Development to Meet the Requirements of Subversive Warfare’ in which he made the point that in a new form of warfare with no past history to draw upon there were bound to be conflicts of opinion as to the kind of equipment required. Such a condition existed in SOE at the outset, much energy being expended in developing types of devices and equipment which proved not to be viable in the operational context.2

  There are some who say the success of Operation Gunnerside to deny the Nazis a supply of heavy water was in itself sufficient justification for the setting up of SOE. But as history unfolds with the release of previously secret records, it has a habit of changing opinions. In his 1998 book The Big Bang George Brown, himself a one-time scientist with SOE, maintains that the Germans had never seriously set out on the long path to make an atomic bomb, even though they were well aware of the possibilities. It is clear, however, from the transcripts of clandestinely recorded conversations of ten incarcerated German scientists after the Nazi capitulation that they were working towards a nuclear reactor. But why go on seeking atomic power, which was an equally long-term project, if not to develop the capability of making an atomic bomb? The German work had been seriously hampered by the stoppage of heavy water from Vemork.3

  At the outbreak of the war the ordinary Englishman would not have taken kindly to some of the more extreme actions to be perpetrated by SOE. But after Dunkirk it was the realisation of the brutal totality of the Second World War which precipitated a ‘by all possible means’ approach and the formation of SOE; and the ‘means’ did not exclude some of the ‘dirty tricks’ developed at Stations IX, XII and XV. At least these ‘dirty tricks’ were aimed at the enemy’s occupying forces, and if not at specific targets then at its military machine. Unfortunately there were collateral casualties among non-combatants but SOE and the Resistance were not deliberately scattering their anti-personnel devices indiscriminately among civilian populations.

  There might have been some duplication of effort between the scientists at The Frythe and those at other secret establishments such as The Firs. There was, in fact, an exchange of information and, no doubt, ideas between these two Stations and later they specialised to a degree. Nevertheless, such apparent duplication was looked into from time to time by powerful men and in any case it is possible that this rivalry inspired greater inventiveness. But above all, SOE was able, because of establishments like The Frythe with their relentless inventive spirit, to put into the hands of its agents the means of doing their job. And by supplying Resistance groups they maintained the morale of those wishing to free their countries of the enemy.

  As Nazi collapse became inevitable SOE work turned towards destroying the German Will to Resist and the prevention of damage to the civilian infrastructure by withdrawing armies. Operation Periwig, a somewhat fantastical idea of SOE’s Chief, was hindered by SIS and SHAEF embargoes until it was too late to contribute to the outcome, unlike the organisation’s anti-scorching preparations. The Germans in Norway, for example, became aware of the extent of the preparations by the SOE-inspired Home Forces (Milorg) to minimize the effect of an enemy scorched-earth policy during any retreat. Nevertheless, they were still astonished at the number, equipment and armament of the Resistance fighters who appeared as though by magic on the day of surrender. The Allied commander-in-chief Norway attributed at least 30 per cent of the peaceful capitulation of the German garrison of 300,000 men to the activity and strength of the Home Forces.

  The careers of the major players in the Research and Development Section resumed in due course after the end of hostilities, seven returning to academia and eventual election as Fellows of the Royal Society, the highest scientific accolade. Dolphin’s development of the Welbike, known as the Corgi, was eclipsed by the Italian Vespa and Lambretta scooters which, ironically, had been produced as something for the unemployed Italian workforce to do while that country’s war-torn national infrastructure was being rebuilt. He later became Chief Engineer at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.

  The wartime innovation of The Frythe seemed not to have deserted it with the demise of SOE in 1946. In the early 1960s ICI was in the process of selling the site to Unilever and during this period of joint occupancy by the two companies the Unilever bulldozers unearthed caches of hastily buried ammunition, switches and detonators. Then the Army was called in to deal with some unexploded hand grenades which rolled out of a hedgerow. One was deemed to be too unstable to take away. These were the days before the Health and Safety at Work Act and the problem was solved quickly and without fuss. A Warrant Officer and the ICI Engineer-in-Charge4 carried the grenade to the nearby Homer’s Wood where, in an echo of the wartime spirit of the place, plastic explosive was placed on top, the fuse was lit and it was blown up.

  M.R.D. Foot has argued that the Resistance had invincible strength in moral terms.5 It was in backing up this moral strength that SOE’s supplies were so important; and it was the scientific and engineering effort behind the design and development of these stores which made them possible at all.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Three weeks before the typescript of this book was completed, Douglas Everett died suddenly. We both believed passionately that a record of SOE’s scientific work should be made while there were still a few players alive to contribute to it. The contribution he made to the project by injecting first-hand knowledge gleaned from long hours of consulting his wartime notebooks has been invaluable.

  Fredric Boyce

  APPENDIX A

  RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHMENTS

  Station VI

  Arms Section

  Bride Hall near Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire.

  Station VIIa

  Wireless Section Production

  The Bontex Knitting Mills in Beresford Avenue, Wembley.

  Station VIIb

  Wireless Section

  The Yeast-Vite factory in

  Packing and despatch

  Whippendell

  Road, Watford.

  Station VIIc

  Wireless Section Research

  Allensor’s joinery factory in King George’s Avenue, Watford.

  Station VIId

  Wireless Section Production

  Kay’s garage, Bristol Street, Birmingham

  Station VIII

  Engineering Section

  Queen Mary Reservoir, Staines.

  Station IX

  Research

  The Frythe, Welwyn, Hertfordshire.

  Station IX a

  Submersibles work at Staines reservoir

  PO Box 1, Ashford, Middlesex.

  Station IXc

  Submersibles work at Fishguard Bay

  The Fishguard Bay Hotel, Goodwick, Pembrokeshire.

  Station XI

  Accommodation

  Gorhambury House near St Albans, Hertfordshire.

  Station XII

  Production, packaging

  Aston House near

  and despatch

  Stevenage, Hertfordshire.

  Station XIV

  Forgery Section

  Briggens, near Royden, Essex.

  Station XV

  Camouflage Section

  The Thatched Barn road house on the Barnet bypass at Borehamwood.

  Station XVa

  Camouflage Section

  56 Queen’s Gate, London SW7

  Station XVb

  Camouflage Section

  The Demonstration Room at the Natural History Museum in London.

  Station XVc

  Camouflage Section Photography and Make-up

  Trevor Square, Knightsbridge.

  Station XVII

  Explosive trials

  Brickendonbury, Hertford.

  Station ?

  Unknown

  The Spartan factory on the North
Circular Road near Wembley.

  APPENDIX B

  INVENTORS OF DEVICES PRODUCED BY SOE RESEARCH SECTION

  Towards the end of the war an attempt was made to give inventors credit for the devices they had created. The following is the list drawn up at that time.1

  Device

  Inventor

  Improvements in or relating to hand tools

  H.W. Moore

  Welbike

  Lt Col J.R.V. Dolphin

  Device for photographic reproduction of documents of microscopic size without a microscope.

  Capt T.B. Waddicor

  Reinforced paper container

  Maj V.E. Holloway

  Welgun

  F.T. Bridgeman

  Welrod

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Sten gun silencer

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Radio active night sights

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Sleeping Beauty

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Sleeve gun

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Motorisation of swimmer (Welbum)

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Roller conveyor

  Maj H.Q.A. Reeves

  Silencer for Welrod and sleeve gun