D3: Project design
SOE Dress, Disguise, and Deception: Progress Report (2020-02-04)
1 Background
The initial focal point of our wide-ranging and thorough research into the Special Operations Executive (SOE), codenamed the Inter-Services Research Bureau (ISRB), has been the Camouflage Section (Station XV), located for most of the Second World War under the command of Lt Col J. Elder Wills (D/CAM) at The Thatched Barn, a mock-Tudor roadhouse on the Barnet bypass in Borehamwood, Herts. Here Colonel Wills assembled a highly skilled team of over 300 camouflage experts drawn mainly from the film industry, many from nearby Elstree Studios, where Wills had been a well-known director, producer, and art director before the war.
While some of his team were former materials specialists and setbuilders (carpenters, plasterers, and property masters), who could build whole villages, castles, or battlefields from scratch, Elder Wills also recruited many artisans from the garment industry, including tailors, dressmakers, cutters, milliners, and cobblers, to manufacture the clothing and accessories needed to ensure that SOE’s agents parachuted by the organisation’s Country Sections into Nazi-occupied Europe were appropriately attired or disguised in such a way that would not betray their true identities to the occupiers.
2 Progress
2.1 Archival research. Having successfully researched in detail the history (origin, genesis, evolution, and administration) of Section XV, we set about drilling down into the personal files (HS Series P/Fs) of known employees of the Section at The National Archives (TNA). Using two comprehensive, privately-sourced lists of employees with or without released P/Fs, we have now succeeded in identifying all traceable D/CAM personnel. At the same time, we have also ascertained which Section employees have deposited personal papers or audio recordings at the Imperial War Museum (IWM). Another aspect of identifying Section operations has been to track the activity of external clothing and accessories suppliers, many of whom have been revealed in an address book we have discovered at the IWM. We have had less success in this regard when consulting the extant TNA records of the Ministry of Supply. The second phase of our project will require research into the files of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) held at the US National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland, USA.
2.2 Country Sections. In examining the activities of the SOE Country Sections reponsible for aerial insertions, we decided to limit our enquiries initially to the French section (F Section), with the intention of subsequently expanding our investigations to include the other occupied countries of Europe and other war theatres, notably the Far East, which Elder Wills officially visited late in the war.
2.3 Graphic materials. During the first phase of our project, we have been fortunate to have discovered and harvested from the TNA a wealth of relevant illustrative material, most of which is protected by Crown Copyright and is therefore free to incorporate in our future publications. We have also located additional graphic material and photographable artefacts at the IWM which we intend to comprehend in the second phase of our project.
2.4 Social-media networking. During our time in London, we have been active on social media, namely Twitter, sharing interesting facts and observations related to our project. This has generated a huge amount of interest from a variety of different organisations, groups, and individuals, such as veterans and their families, fiction writers, and interested members of the public. For example, we had the opportunity to meet with the London-based curator of Spyscape, an international spy museum in New York, and discuss our project and particular dress-related items such as the ‘striptease suit’ (camouflaged or white) worn for aerial insertion, with a view to future collaboration and possible temporary exhibition on dress and deception. Via Twitter contacts, we have also identified other private archives and museums that hold a range of SOE garnments and accessories, including the National Motor Museum based at Beaulieu (SOE agent finishing school), which holds an array of SOE artefacts in a ‘Secret Army’ exhibition.
2.5 Appearance and wartime fashion. Beyond the Country Sections, we have also begun to investigate the relationship between Camouflage Section and other SOE sections such as Training Section, particularly in connection with agent behaviour linked to appearance. We have discovered this to be a poorly documented area which we shall seek in the second phase of our project to explore and expand with our own original research and writing. Similarly, we also intend to investigate fully the influence of wartime fashion, and regional and class differences on SOE garment and accessories design and manufacture. This is an extremely complex and challenging area to analyse and describe.
3 Plans
The pilot project has successfully confirmed the viability of a much larger research endeavour looking at dress, disguise, and deception among the Allied secret services, with the aim of producing the definitive monograph on the subject (working title: ‘A Secret Agent’s Wardrobe’).
Follow-on funding will ensure that an important and untapped area relating to clothing as a vital ingredient for agent disguise and cover within operations is thoroughly examined. Future research will include (A) investigations into other wartime theatres beyond occupied France (such as Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, and Slovakia), (B) into the agents of the OSS (notably the Jedbergh formations that were parachuted into Europe), and (C) into the supply of dress and accessories to Force 136, the asymetrical formations operated by SOE against the Japanese in the jungles of Burma and elsewhere in the Far East.
Underpinning these three areas will be a detailed review of the design and manufacture of all known items of dress developed or adapted for deceptive purposes (including enemy uniforms). Additionally, we would like to attempt to replicate some samples of agent clothing (such as the ‘striptease suit’), enemy insignia, and clothing designed to accommodate concealed objects, such as silk maps, cyanide capsules, razors, and currency.
We would like to explore the possibility of organising a one-day symposium in collaboration with the SAL on the subject of ‘clothing as cover’ throughout history.
4 Conclusion
We now look forward to extending the success we have so far experienced, and to establishing an authoritative position on the subject of dress and disguise during the Second World War. We sincerely hope that our pioneering efforts will serve as a catalyst for further research in this area.
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