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From a number of smaller organistions, on Churchill’s orders the Special Operations Executive was formed in July,1940,` it’s mission to set Europe ablaze’. This new organisation would report to the Ministry of Economic Warfare, headed by Hugh Dalton and of his new responsibility he was very clear; `we must organise movements in every occupied territory’. He remained true to his word and from a position where the Britishhad very few agents in enemy territory, by the time that he left, in a political reshuffle, there were dozons in place. |
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S.O.E was devided into three elements; SO1. dealt with propaganda, SO2. with active operations and SO3.with administration. SO1. inherited the initial elements set up by the previous Department Electra House, which mainly dealt with printed material, in the form of leafletsand pamphlets, the beginnings of radio broadcasts had also been laid, the first of these ‘freedom stations’ having been run by ‘Mr Turner.’ His ‘das wahre Deutschland’ ( The True Germany), went on air on the 26th. May, 1940 and later in the year another station, G2 |
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‘Sender der Europaischen Revolution’ (Radio of the European Revolution’), began operation.
The contents were decidely left wing and under the control of the socialist Richard Crossman, the production eam were accomodated at Down Edge, in Aspley Guise, where Crossman’s wife attended the domestic duties. This Marxist station urged the German worers to abandon Fachism and encourage European goodwill but in time feeback form German prisoners proved it had little effect and many Germans had never heard of it. In order to restore a political balance Leonard Ingrams, an under secretary at the Ministry of Economic Warfare, who had links with the secret service, asked the Daily Express journalist, Sefton Delmer, to set up a new right ‘Research Unit ‘,as the code name given to such stations, and his GS1, Gustav Siegfried Eins, would not only become the most effective of the radio stations but would set the tone for several others that followed.
A month after G2 went on the air, two French stations were begun, F1, Radio Inconnue and F2, Radio travail. Both were of a subversive nature and small prodction teams were houssed at The Old Rectory, Toddington. |
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