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

Private Eric Francis Stofer

Private Eric Francis Stofer

Eric Francis Stofer was born in 1899 in Tottenham, Middlesex (now Greater London), the 5th son of Robert Stofer (1860-1939) and Mary Elizabeth Stofer née Dibben (1863-1950). His birth was registere...

Person, Armed Forces, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
J. Richbell

J. Richbell

M.M., Sergt. Trench Mortar Batty.. Fought but did not die in WW1

Person, Armed Forces

War served, WW1
1 memorial
J. J. Ramsay

J. J. Ramsay

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

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
G. Lewis

G. Lewis

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