Visitors to the national Car Museum at Beaulieu, in the New Forest, may have spotted a building close to Palace House which is a museum about the training that took place in WW2 for the S.O.E. Inside is an exhibition about the Secret Army.
The Special Operations Executive was the subject of the latest talk at the Probus Club of Basingstoke by speaker Nick Saunders who is a part time archivist at the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum in Winchester.
The S.O.E. was set up in 1940 on instructions of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, to “Set Europe ablaze” by conducting espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German occupied Europe and to aid local resistance movements.
It was not an easy formation as sections of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) refused to share facilities in signals training and other sections of the Military top brass also denied the use of their training places. While the S.O.E. had its headquarters in Baker Street, London, opposite the fictional address of Sherlock Holmes, all training took place around the country.
The organisation generated different unofficial names, The Baker Street Irregulars, Churchill’s Secret Army, Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare with the most apt, Stately ‘omes of England, as many country houses and private estates were requisitioned. Several such large properties existed around the Beaulieu estate and served as training bases specialising in the dark arts of guerrilla activities.
For security reasons nationalities were kept apart during their time in the S.O.E. to ensure that if captured they would not be able to disclose any knowledge of comparative secret operations in other countries. So effective was this compartmentalising of nationalities that in 1942 five governments in exile, who suggested setting up some form of training for agents to be dropped into occupied countries, were surprised to learn that the S.O.E. had been in operation for two years.
Silent killing, parachute skills, radios, Morse code and weapons training were the main courses. Burglary skills were taught as agents would need to access occupied buildings with tests being given of breaking into Palace House and stealing a bank cheque but without leaving any signs of entry.
Suitcase Radio and Secret Weapons for use by agents
It was imperative that their agents had a good knowledge of a particular country and that their language skills were sufficient to pass as a native. Although 13,000 agents underwent training, which included 3,000 at the Beaulieu Finishing School, there were many women who undertook the same training and had volunteered to assume roles in German occupied countries.
The Germans knew about what was happening at Beaulieu and named it The Gangster School. Among the 175 staff at Beaulieu were Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, who later, unearthed as Soviet spies, absconded to Russia. They taught mind games on how to undermine German morale.
The agents dropped into occupied countries should not be compared to the fictional BBC TV series ‘Allo ‘Allo! which was a wartime sitcom about the French Resistance with the farcical events set around a café, as many agents were captured, tortured and executed.
Probus Club of Basingstoke 
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