Survey of Global Activities, War Diary 44, September–December 1942,
HS 7/267, TNA.
Ibid.
London Gazette, 9 December 1921, 10026.
Henry D. Astarjian, The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and
the Death of Tolerance in Iraq (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007), 21.
History of SOE in the Arab World, SOE History 53, HS 7/86, TNA.
Lloyd, The Interval, 88. Life at South Gate under Bishop and later Philip
has been fully described by Seton Lloyd most entertainingly in The Interval,
83–91. The house served not only as SOE’s operational HQ, officer’s
mess, billet, and VIP guest house, but also as a drop-in centre for politically
minded young Iraqis, who came to discuss all manner of problems, not just
political issues, in a safe environment. When the SOE lease expired in
1945, Lloyd and his wife renewed it in their name and lived happily at
South Gate for three more years.
Walker to BGS, 28 July 1943, WO 201/2714, TNA.
See ECOP, 115. Regarding cooperation between SOE and SIS, who were
supposedly the guardians of FO intelligence interests in the Middle East,
the official history of MI6 states that working relations on the ground were
better than more institutionalized relations at higher levels, especially in
London. Jeffery, Secret History, 191.
Taylor to Hambro, Report on visit to Cairo mission, 11 March 1943, HS
3/154, TNA.
Memorandum on the functions and responsibilities of SOE and its rela-
tionship with the Army, SOE Mid/East 16, Middle East Directives
(Operational), HS 3/162, TNA.
Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations
of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008), 283–4.
See Security Intelligence Summary No. 48, Defence Security Office, CICI
Iraq, 21 December 1942, AIR 29/2511, TNA; Letter from HE the British
Ambassador Baghdad [Cornwallis] to the Commander-in-Chief
PAIFORCE [Wilson], 28 December 1943, AIR 29/2511, TNA.
Note by the Minister of State, 12 February 1943, WO 201/2714, TNA.
Julie Peakman, Hitler’s Island War: The Men Who Fought for Leros (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2017), 40.
Note by Head of SOE, 26 July 1943, WO 201/2714, TNA.
JP/P/3/302, 11 September 1943, Survey of Global Activities, War Diary
46, July–September 1943, HS 7/270, TNA.
Ibid.
Report by Hilton Nixon (D/HX), DHX/ME/997, 8 October 1943,
Survey of Global Activities, War Diary 46, July–September 1943, HS
7/270, TNA.
