SO2 section of the SOE

Discussion in 'SOE & OSS' started by Dermot, Feb 18, 2023.

  1. Dermot

    Dermot New Member

    Hi Everyone,
    I'm trying to research SO2, the demolition section of the SOE, where my mother worked towards the end of the war. She told us next to nothing about that time other than she 'taught code to the resistance'.

    I have her war records which state she started as a secretary in SO2 in1944 and within two months was 'selected to work with agents' since she spoke fluent French, having spent a year at the French institute in London. There are various memoires covering the SOE, but none specifically refer to SO2. I contacted Bletchley Park because, though my mother worked in Baker Street, the departments were considered close enough that she went to their reunions. However they couldn't help me, but put me in touch with an historian who unfortunately couldn't help either. Likewise, The Imperial War Museum seem to have nothing from my searches on their database.

    I'm not a professional researcher so it may not be surprising that I have found nothing about SO2 other than on the Wikepedia page on the SOE that states SO2 was developed from the earlier D (demolition) section.

    If anyone can suggest where I can try looking I'd appreciate it.
     
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  2. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Welcome to the forum.These links to records and finding aids at The National Archives, usually referred to on this forum as just "Kew", may help.

    Records of Special Operations Executive | The National Archives

    This card index is available to view "under supervision" { which means going to a room with a few desks with windows through which Kew staff can observe the reader keeping cards in order in their boxes.}

    Special Operations Executive: Registry: France Nominal Index | The National Archives

    Using "Discovery", the Kew search engine, in advanced search mode, searching for "SOE" and "SO2" returns a fair number of files available to download free of charge but most are prior to 1944. You will have to create an account at Kew, which just means an email address and creating a password. Since covid files which did require payment of a fee have been available free, provided no more than 100 files per month are downloaded. The files may not be free for ever.

    Good hunting.

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  3. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    Good morning Dermot,

    References and extracts below from 2001 publication "SOE SYLLABUS".

    References, unfortunately, may have changed within TNA system since 2001.

    "By employing interpreters, instruction was given in several languages" within text extract; this may have been a role for your mother. Finding a specific name though is needle-in-haystack stuff.

    Good luck with all, a start maybe (EDIT: Second place! Papiermache has given you the best start Dermot, absolutely)

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.

    P.S. Apologies for quality of photos, scanner access unavailable at present.

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    Last edited: Feb 18, 2023
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  4. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    Hopefully of interest Dermot; The "Demolition Syllabus".

    If your mother had any part in interpreting/translating this into french at any stage it would have been some job of work. The requirement, the responsibility, to be accurate, given the subject matter, would have brought it's own pressures.

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim

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  5. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Dermot

    SO2 is covered in the history of the SOE and how the SOE became an wholesome organisation in MRD Foot's SOE in France, a masterpiece of the British record of clandestine activities in wartime France.

    SO2 was the section devoted to the active operational part in Dalton's original clandestine structure and which then became the SOE after government departmental administrative warfare had ceased.

    Unbelievable was the squabbling for over a year until interdepartmental strife and jealousies were settled in August 1941.... recorded in an SOE file dated 22 August 1941.This on going situation nullified the real purpose of the organisation to get agents into the field for the purpose intended.

    Foot covers the situation with the following extract:

    "A year long series of pitched battles between the Foreign Office and Ministries of Information and of Economic Warfare resulted in August 1941 of a treaty. Under this, the old EH department, known as the S(pecial) O(perations) 1 while it formed the political part of Dalton's executive, hived off as another new secret department, the Political Warfare Executive,SO2,the more actively operational part of Dalton's organisation formed from a fusion of section D and MIR, then took over the title of SOE". This is recorded by Jebb in an SOE file dated 5 September 1941.

    As MRD Foot recorded and covered the background to SO,SO1,SO2 and SO3 and from section D's involvement in March 1939 when the concept of an SOE was forgotten....his telling was "the child SOE was a long time in the womb".

    As I see it Dermot's mother would be working at Baker Street, the HQ of SOE in a close support function to those agents in field. She would be "London" as SOE agents in the field would describe Baker Street staff. She would also be subject to the British security legislation.
     
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  6. Dermot

    Dermot New Member

    Wow, thanks everyone for the replies, lots to be getting on with. I have an account at Kew, it's where I got my mother's records from, I just didn't think to look more generally there.

    I spoke to a woman called Noreen Riols who wrote a book on her experiences in F section of the SOE, 'The Secret Ministry of Ag and Fish' and she told me that if my mother 'taught code to the resistance' she would probably have worked with the radio operators who were the ones who actually coded and decoded the messages. Having said that, she said she had no knowledge of the workings of SO2 and it could have been different from her section.

    I read 'Between Silk and Cyanide' by Leo Marx and was most intrigued by the idea that the operators could have written poems in French, which the agents would then use for coding. My mother had a deep love of poetry, but I have to accept that I might be projecting my wishes onto the story of my mother's time at SO2.

    Thanks again, I'll continue searching.
     
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  7. Dermot

    Dermot New Member

    I forgot to say, she was indeed subject to British security legislation, I have a copy of her signature on the official secrets act. I learned from Noreen Riols that SOE was only declassified in 2000 (2002?), which seems strangely late since Bletchley Park was declassified in 1975.
     
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  8. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Dermot

    I think it would be right to say your mother worked under Vera Atkins at Baker Street.

    Postwar SOE records were also subject to culling. Established secret services always referred themselves to as "professionals" while these SOE people were mere "amateurs".

    As regards security, access to information for those working in the various departments or across departments were subject to "a need to know" basis.

    Incidentally MRD Foot was granted full access to SOE records for his publication, "SOE in France" in 1966.
     
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  9. Dermot

    Dermot New Member

    Good to know MRD Foot had full access to the records since I understand many were lost in a fire in 1945. I've ordered his book.
     
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