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care (and public funds) on the project. The result was impressive: visitors,
who came from far and wide, delighted in its splendour and the coolness
of its inner rooms. The house became over time the hub of the Baghdad
Set: a sort of political salon which attracted—besides Freya Stark—such
distinguished visitors as the young Shah of Persia and General Władysław
Sikorski. Prying eyes, however, had to be kept from the outer serdab, full
of codebooks and ‘curious electronic equipment.’^24
By the end of October 1941, Bishop had been promoted to lieutenant
colonel and appointed field commander in charge of all SOE operations.^25
As has already been described, demolition remained in the hands of the
military, but political officers under Bishop’s direction were responsible
for forming a postoccupational (staybehind) organization throughout
Iraq. As German forces fanned out across the southern Soviet steppes,
resistance targets were selected, and munitions dumps were established at
Baghdad and Kirkuk. In due course, Bishop, Lloyd, and Jones were joined
at South Gate by Aidan L.B. Philip (1903–1964) (D/N.8), who became
Bishop’s second-in-command; Teddy Hodgkin (D/H.128); and
M.R. Lonsdale (D/H.328). John Patrick ‘Pat’ Domvile (1900–1967)
(D/H.224), one of the original Section D members in the region, joined
them briefly but was promoted in November 1941 and transferred to
Cairo as an SOE director of special operations, looking after political sub-
version throughout the Arab world, after Balkan and Arab subversion
operations had been split into separate departments. Said to have been a
charming man who was not only an accomplished orientalist but could
even sing in Arabic, Domvile appears to have been the intelligence officer
who at the end of March 1941 had first warned RAF ‘I’ Branch and the
embassy of the impending Rashid Ali coup.^26 He may also have been the
unidentified ‘middle-aged major’ who recruited Nigel Clive to SIS in
Cairo in the autumn of that year.^27 Administrative affairs were managed by
‘Jonesy’ Jones and Daphne Keeble, who remained as HQ secretary until
the bitter end in 1945.
After the return of King Faisal and the Regent to Baghdad on 1 June
1941, Bishop’s immediate priority was to offset the dangerous discontinu-
ity in Iraqi social and political life caused by Rashid Ali’s pro-Nazi inter-
regnum. He sought to guarantee that the Regent’s resumption of power
was permanent and secure by ensuring that he received adequate funds for
certain restorative projects that would enhance the prestige of the monar-
chy and the new pro-British government. These measures included
contributing to social welfare, reorienting school curricula, penetrating