SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE, 1940-1946

Series 1, Special Operations in Western Europe

Part 1: France: The Jedburgh Teams and Operation Overlord, 1944-1945,

Part 2: France: Political and Planning Files, Circuits and Missions, 1940-1947

Part 3: Germany, 1936-1945

Part 4: Holland, 1940-1949

Part 5: Italy, 1941-1948

Publisher's Note - Part 5

The majority of the Italian SOE files concern planning and reports on activities supporting the Allied armies in northern Italy. The early files, prior to the invasion of Sicily and Italy, concern the armistice and surrender of Italian forces, SOE’s role in these negotiations, political issues, discussions with the Foreign Office and planning under its guidance. SOE organisation in Italy, 1941-1945, is covered in a series of files: HS 6/775-780, 901-902 and 907. Folio 91 of HS 6/775 provides a map of Resistance Groups in northern Italy (and this is reproduced on page 120 of this guide). Further files, HS 6/781-784, cover the organisation of resistance groups, 1943-1944.

Files on individual Italian agents and supporters of SOE can be found arranged alphabetically in HS 6/806-811, 814-815. There are also many files on the liaison missions to the partisan forces behind German lines, with reports from British liaison officers on activities in each region, details of events and operations, observations on the political situation, political opinion, communist influence, the strength of resistance forces and general conditions in each area (see HS 6/830-874). Other highlights include material on Malcolm Munthe’s SOE force, Special Force No. 1 in Florence, the Mallaby mission, Operation Collossus (the landing of parachutists for sabotage of bridges), Operations Atlow and Potato (on the sabotage of railways), and Operation Boykin (the kidnapping of double agents Ugo, Porta and Benuzzi). The relations between SOE and 8th Army are well covered. Sceptical and uninterested in SOE, for a long time 8th Army refused to countenance any assistance from SOE. However, the process of selecting, training and infiltrating organisers and W/T operators to contact the known resistance and guerrilla groups well to the rear of the fighting line continued. Other recruits were trained for tactical parties ready to support 8th Army. This foresight was justified when the Allied Armies commenced serious offensives and General Alexander called upon SOE for tactical assistance.

Part 5 of this microfilm project brings together all the detailed documents on SOE operations in Italy. A Memorandum of 1 July 1944 entitled “Assistance to Italian Patriots” identifies three distinct phases in SOE’s work in Italy (see folios 182-186 in HS 6/776). Stage 1: Penetration was difficult whilst Italy was fighting alongside the Germans; results were hard to assess: “a certain amount of sabotage and labour strife was reported but the chief value of this spade work was the maintenance of the spirit of anti-fascism and the creation of contacts which proved exceedingly useful later”. Stage 2: Immediately after the fall of Mussolini and the Armistice was signed, a policy of collaboration between SOE and the Italian Command was agreed upon and a courier was sent to Rome with a skeleton plan of sabotage and resistance. “One SOE party which had already been recruiting in Sicily was sent forward to Salerno and another party to Brindisi, each accompanied by wireless sets and operators. The former party moved on to Naples and established a base there. Broadly speaking the Naples party obtained its recruits from and through the anti-fascist political organisations and the Brindisi party from Italian army, navy and air force personnel through SIM... ” The Naples operation concentrated on providing sabotage parties to attack tactical targets selected by 5th Army; there was also some long term infiltration work. The Brindisi party concentrated on training groups for work well behind enemy lines These went on to provide useful tactical support in northern Italy and for offensives launched by 8th Army. Stage 3: The final phase saw the creation of Maryland, the transfer to Italy from Algiers of the training, despatch, operational and signals centres, and the completion of a very close circuit.

This July 1944 document lists five major successes for SOE in Italy:

- SOE wireless links bore the whole traffic in communications leading up to the signing of the armistice with Italy. See files on Richard Mallaby.

- SOE provided the sole communications link between the Italian Government and Rome officials. Over this link General Benoivenga received his instructions for assuming the position of Governor of Rome on its evacuation by the Germans.

- As the main assault of General Alexander’s forces was launched, eleven coup de main parties (48 men) were dropped to attack specified targets and successfully carried out their missions. (The files on these attacks are to be found in HS 6/825- 829).

- When the German retreat beyond Rome began, instructions were given over SOE W/T links and by BBC broadcast signals to the patriot groups in the Appennines to begin their attacks on 16 specified road and rail targets. Most of these assignments were accomplished successfully.

- The strength and successes of groups in Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria impelled
the Germans to divert substantial forces to these areas.

Material in HS 6/776 reveals that from the outset the form of SOE action in Italy was a matter of debate both within Cabinet and in SOE itself. There were those who argued that the Italians were such half-hearted participants in the war on the side of Germany that SOE operations there could safely follow the pattern of those in occupied countries, that agents could be infiltrated and would find a welcoming band of anti-fascist patriots. Major (later Lt. Colonel) C. L. Roseberry, head of the Italian Section took a different view. He thought they should concentrate on establishing close contacts with the political forces opposed to fascism and endeavour to weld them into a coherent opposition in preparation for the day when military pressure weakened the hold of the fascists upon the country.

An obvious line of approach was through neutral Switzerland. It fell to the SOE representative, appointed to the Legation in Berne in February 1941, to explore the legitimate possibilities. The principal task was to find a nucleus of resistance with Italy itself; for 2 years he worked at this. Supplies were sent to groups via devious routes over the Alps and later dropped by the RAF into the lakes and lagoons of Northern Italy in special containers. Later on, SOE’s organisation in Switzerland was penetrated by SIM (Servizio Informazione Militare).

Efforts were made to organise active resistance in Italy:

“Through go-betweens who travelled between Italy and Berne, SOE kept in touch with members of the Italian Royal family, the Vatican, Army circles and left wing leaders including Bonomi, Soleri and Croce and even the neo-fascists.”

Consideration was given to the possibility of a coup d’ état, co-ordinated with Allied action, by Dr Rusca, head of a publishing house in Milan. For political reasons, SOE was instructed to abandon this scheme; subsequently the British Government gave its approval, but by January 1943 the link had then been broken. Inside Italy, the formation of the Partito d’Azione (aimed at assembling under one party, the anti-fascist elements which were ready to risk action, irrespective of party labels) promised further opportunities. SIM got wind of it, but because such highly placed individuals were involved, SIM was scared of taking action. In June 1943 delegates were smuggled out of Italy to Switzerland where they were standing by to visit UK to discuss plans. Before they could make the journey, on 25 July 1943, Mussolini fell.

There were numerous Para-Military Operations. From the time of the invasion of Sicily in June 1943, a special SOE force under command of Major Malcolm Munthe, had gone forward with and often ahead of, the attacking British troops. Its adventures had been various and enterprising ranging from collection of enemy arms to infiltration behind German lines of Italian saboteurs. "In the assault on Catania, Munthe himself approached the German positions in the guise of an old Italian peasant woman mounted on a donkey and accompanied by a British corporal masquerading as "her" husband. The Germans proved deaf to the old lady's pathetic appeals, to be fortunately, blind to the somewhat angular obesity which concealed a W/T transmitter strapped to "her" stomach." During the four months from September 1943 to January 1944, Munthe's force carried out no fewer than 70 missions behind the enemy's lines in the Naples area.

With the signing of the armistice, the character of SOE’s task had fundamentally changed. The time for political subversion was past; the aim was to give the maximum of tactical and strategic support to the advancing Allied armies. Italy, previously an enemy power, could now be regarded as an occupied country in process of being liberated. She still had her Laval - Mussolini, she had even her collaborating Marshal - Graziani; but she had also her forces of the interior - her Garibaldi and Matteoti brigades, her Femme Verdi, and countless other organised groups of partisans.

Commander Holdsworth settled near Bari, in southern Italy, in charge of a special force in constant touch with partisans and politicians. Just as in France, the Italian resistance was heavily politicised with a strong communist element. Through the communists, fascist power in the great industrial cities of Milan and Turin was undermined; through No. 1 Special Force arms were supplied to innumerable guerrilla bands in the Appennines and in the Ligurian Alps.

Whereas Munthe was engaged in tactical support of 5th Army, the Brindisi Mission set out on a long-term programme aimed at making an effective striking force out of the partisan bands in the rear of the enemy. With this in view SOE had entered into close collaboration with SIM immediately after the signing of the armistice. Couriers were sent to Rome outlining a plan for the sabotage of the German war machine and officers were nominated to take charge of various regions. SIM placed their resources and manpower and their intelligence service at the disposition of SOE.

The next step was to infiltrate W/T operators with their sets. Within 3 weeks of the establishment of the Brindisi base, the first set came on air from Rome and the link thus formed provided for many months the sole reliable channel of contact with the anti-German forces in the capital. Through it, Military Governors were appointed and plans agreed for the taking over of Rome during the period of withdrawal of the Germans and the entry of the Allies. By the end of 1943, 6 W/T sets were working back and over 100 W/T operators, saboteurs and guerrilla organisers were in training. Rapid growth ensued (statistics of men and women involved vary from 30,000 to 80,000).

It was quite difficult for SOE to keep up with this growth and especially the need to supply arms and equipment. Principal resistance organisations included the CLN (Comitato di Liberazione Nationale) and the CLNAI (CLN dell Alta Italia). In August 1944 the latter was recognised by the newly formed Italian Government as the body controlling resistance in Northern Italy. An SOE report comments: “Amid the confusion of aims and methods which inevitably marked this vigorous renaissance of the democratic spirit in Italy, SOE strove and still is striving to retain a substantial measure of operational control over its manifestations.” At the end of September 1944, it had 63 Englishmen and 135 Italians operating behind the enemy’s lines in Italy. Some 33 W/T operators were in regular communication with SOE HQ.

The scale of SOE sabotage operations in Italy was different to and more protracted than operations in France before and after D-Day. There continued to be difficulties in supplying so many scattered bands with adequate arms and ammunition. Another problem was the necessity of calling for action before organisation was complete. The prolongation of the Italian campaign placed an exceptional strain, physical and moral, on the patriot forces behind the enemy’s lines. Sabotage on railway lines near Arezzo aided the thrust of 8th Army in early June 1944. In mid-July 1944 Polish forces of the 8th Army were pressing the attack on Ancona. SOE disrupted German supply traffic on coast road to the north. By night, on the evening of 17 July 1944, fourteen men came ashore from Italian submarine chasers, and attacked German troops in the rear, but bad weather curtailed the attack.

The experiences of an SOE detachment which, moving forward in close support of advancing troops, found itself in August 1944, in Florence, illustrate the hazardous responsibilities these detachments had to be ready to accept. The story of SOE No 1 Special Force operations in Florence is recorded in HS 6/790 and the activities of Macintosh, Lieutenant Henry Fisher and this SOE squad are also featured in Charles Macintosh’s book, From Cloak to Dagger (Kimber 1982). An Italian officer made a perilous crossing of the historic Ponte Vecchio using the ‘secret’ passage which connects the bridge to the Uffizi Gallery at the top of the Palasso Vecchio at its northern end. At the time the Germans were holding the northern part of Florence, the Allies the southern half. The failure of the Germans to block this passage had serious consequences for them. The journey across was made 3 times (once to run a telephone line across the ruin of the Ponte Vecchio, again with his SOE commanding officer, and a further time to smuggle a patrol to the other side). These efforts secured valuable intelligence about enemy intentions and allowed patrols to continually harass the Germans.

Rossano (Hodder and Stoughton 1955), published by Gordon Lett, provides his memoirs about the small private army he led in the hills above Spezia. One can find details on a myriad of other such stories in the files reproduced in this microfilm project. After the armistice of 1943, SOE’s task became less a case of creating resistance in Italy, but more a role of sustaining and guiding a spontaneous movement to resist. Operation Noal, from July to September 1944, proved most effective. It is estimated that acts of sabotage cut the power supply available to the Germans by one half. The work of ‘Anti-scorch’ - the preservation of industrial plant, harbour facilities and public utilities from demolition by an evacuating German Army - was also carefully co-ordinated. In December 1944, SOE brought to Rome, from the various corners of occupied Italy, a delegation on which all the parties of the CLNAI were represented. The delegation reached agreement on a military basis with the Supreme Allied Commander and on a political basis with the Rome Government.

The SOE operations in Italy can be classified under three heads: guerrilla attacks against German and Fascist Italian personnel and supplies; isolated acts of sabotage against factories, electric power stations and communications; and co-ordinated attacks in strategic and tactical support of military operations. Attacks of the type listed in the first of these categories were not encouraged by SOE except in areas immediately behind the enemy lines. They were costly in men and materials and invariably provoked reprisals against the patriots and against innocent hostages.

Certain important codenames frequently appear in the material on Italy:

“MONKEY” - W/T connection run by Olaf (Richard Mallaby) between the Italian Peace Mission and the Allies.
“RUDDER” - codename for telegrams received from Rome through a code specially infiltratedimmediately after the armistice.
“RANKIN” - Codeword for planning of operations in event of German withdrawal.
“MARYLAND” - Massingham’s advanced HQ in Italy.
“DRIZZLE” - Maryland W/T station.
“ENTERPRISE” - Operation to link Petrini and other groups in Italy.

The full story of what SOE achieved in Italy is still waiting to be written. These files offer up many opportunities for new research, from the nature and profile of Italian recruits, the communist tendencies within patriot resistance groups, relations with CLNAAI, to a more thorough assessment of the role and contribution of subversion and sabotage in the Italian campaign in World War II.

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