Strategic Operations Executive in India

The Strategic Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation conducting espionage, sabotage, guerilla war and other violent acts against the Axis powers during World War II. Real and fictionalised accounts of the SOE have been told countless times in films and literature. Unlike the British Secret Intelligence Service, an intelligence gathering agency, the SOE was tasked with subversive and violent activities. It was distasteful work, but the British were frantic following early Axis victories and decided to play rough. The SOE had a huge presence in the Empire’s most prized possession, India.

From 1940-1942, the fascist Japan and Germany seemed unstoppable and were inching towards India from either side. In this dire phase, SOE-India was established in Meerut in May 1941, under the innocuous name GS I(k).

This organisation was disguised as a record-keeping unit of the army. The SOE soon grew into a huge enterprise where over 30,000 fighters were trained and sent to far-flung theatres. An old mountain fort near Poona, an aerodrome in Midnapore, a dock or two in Sri Lanka, etc. were some of SOE’s numerous bases in the subcontinent. SOE-India was headed by a brilliant, one-legged Scottish veteran named Colin MacKenzie. Aiding him were men specialising in insurgency, guerilla war, smuggling, espionage, and psychological warfare. SOE-India was tasked to cover Persia, Afghanistan, British India, China and South East Asia. A veritable United Nations of fighters were recruited and trained for dangerous operations in these lands.

SOE-India’s operations commenced with tracking Axis operations in Indian waters. In 1942, they discovered the cause of the German navy’s surprising successes there. German and Italian vessels, which had sought asylum in neutral Portuguese Goa when the war broke, possessed at least one powerful radio. The radio(s) had been transmitting information to the German Navy. The SOE also confirmed that a German couple residing in Goa, Robert and Grete Koch, were running a spy ring. Robert Koch, a German officer code-named ‘Trumpet’, was long suspected to be a spymaster: The SOE now decided to eliminate this threat. ‘Operation Hotspur’ saw SOE agents shadow and kidnap the couple from Goa in December 1942. The Kochs vanish from records shortly after — there are conflicting reports on what happened to them ultimately. The subsequent ‘Operation Creek’ of March 1943 was most audacious. In this illegal operation conducted in neutral Portuguese territory, the SOE utilised middle-aged British civilian reservists in Calcutta. Without any military or diplomatic cover, this group was to board and command the ships out of Portuguese waters so that the British Navy could capture the vessels. After basic training, the motley band took circuitous routes to Goa. At midnight of March 9, they stealthily boarded the ships. In the ensuing firefight, the British got the upper hand. The crew now set off explosive charges and sank their own ships — they had long expected such an attack and had decided to scuttle the ships if all was lost. However, the British clambered out with no casualties! The mission was successful as Axis successes in Indian waters plummeted.

About this time, the Japanese had conquered the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In ‘Operation Bunkum’, the SOE landed multiple Indian-British teams to reconnoiter Japanese positions in the islands. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensued, but the mission was ultimately successful. The British launched effective and regular air and naval attacks on the islands from December 1943. The garrison was forced to hunker down till Japan surrendered in August 1945. In 1944, the GS I(k) rechristened itself Force 136 and mostly relocated to Sri Lanka, where it expanded operations.

SOE-India achieved far more than the illustrative cases outlined above. It was a crucial element in British successes in the Indian, Burma and Malaya campaigns. In fact, in certain campaigns, small SOE units inflicted more casualties than the Army formations did. Other theatres such as China, Thailand and Indo-China also saw heavy SOE activities. The SOE also organised numerous stay-behind units and insurgencies which crippled the Japanese. SOE-India was also a weapon of the Empire against Indians: Had the Japanese successfully entered Assam and Bengal, the SOE was among the groups tasked with executing the planned Scorched Earth campaign in India. For example, ‘Operation Dogleg’ was the planned destruction of Indian power stations by SOE units. The Political Intelligence and Psychological Warfare divisions were utilised to influence public opinion during and after the Quit India Movement. The SOE also helped blunt the INA’s espionage activities and attempts to engineer mass defections in the British Indian Army.

Following the surrender of Japan, SOE-India was disbanded in November 1945. Most of the records were destroyed, perhaps due to the secrets and horrors they held. Most surviving documents, including the story of Operation Creek, were declassified decades later. More records await declassification even today.

Author is a history buff