The Special Operations Executive (SOE), (sometimes referred to as ?the Baker Street Irregulars' after Sherlock Holmes' fictional group of helpers) was a British World War II organization. It was initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940, to conduct warfare by means other than direct military engagement. SOE directly employed or controlled just over 13,00 people and it is estimated that, worldwide, SOE supported or supplied about a million operatives. It was formed out of three existing secret departments: Section D, a sub-section of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka M16) commanded by Major Lawrence Grand; a department of the War Officer known as Military Intelligence Research (MI R) headed by Major J.C. Holland; and the propaganda organization called Department EH, run by Sir Campbell Stuart. The propaganda section would later be broken off from SOE to form the Political Warfare Executive. The mission of the SOE was to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines and to serve as the core of a resistance movement in Britain itself (the Auxiliary Units) in the possible event of an Axis invasion, as seemed possible in the early years of the war. SOE was also known as Churchill's Secret Army or The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and was charged by him to ?set Europe Ablaze?. An SOE agent needed a flair for diplomacy combined with a taste for rough soldiering, and they included Laurence Olivier, David Niven, the former diplomat Fitzroy Maclean, writer Noel Coward, actor Sir Anthony Quayle and scholar Christopher Woodhouse.
