A Succession of Crises: SOE in the Middle East, 1940-45

A detailed account of SOE in the Middle East is a prominent omission from the collection of studies on SOE during the Second World War. This is surprising given the importance of the region to Britain and the fact that some records were released, with a helpful guide, in 1994. Using these records, and the SOE War Diary (released in 1999), this article intends to show that SOE operations in the Middle East were characterized by a succession of crises. These fall into three periods: the early activities in 1940-41; the post-occupational planning phase of 1941-43, and the post-October 1943 period which saw reorganization, the recession of the German threat, the disbandment of the post-occupational schemes and the desire to re-tool SOE in the Middle East for peacetime/post-war problems.