22
And then, quite suddenly, 18 months later, Adrian Bishop was gone. As
much as his friends, not least Freya Stark, and his family were shocked by
his accidental death in Tehran in October 1942,^70 SOE (and presumably
SIS) were at a loss as to how he could possibly be replaced as an intelligence
officer, so valuable was he to their Middle East organization. Yet, as a mea-
sure of how effectively Bishop had also played his cover role as assistant
oriental secretary, many Baghdadis were genuinely saddened at his passing.
A leading Arabic newspaper wrote of him: ‘His house [actually SOE head-
quarters at South Gate] was regarded as a club by the many young men
who frequented it daily to talk with him on political, cultural, scientific, and
economic matters, on all of which he discoursed with knowledge and
enlightenment. Many of these young men learnt much from Mr Bishop
and from the inspired opinions which emanated from his brilliant intellect
and penetrating foresight.’^71 Freya Stark never forgot her beloved ‘Bish.’
When writing of her final leaving of Iraq, she said: ‘Friendships had come
in overflowing measure, and some, now dead, went very deep—Cornwallis
and Bishop, Wavell and Clayton. The world is not so good without them.’^72
Notes
- For a brief history of Section D of MI6, see Philip H.J. Davies, MI6 and
the Machinery of Spying: Structure and Process in Britain’s Secret Intelligence
(London: Frank Cass, 2003), 115–23. See also Malcolm Atkin, Section D
for Destruction: Forerunner of SOE (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military,
2017), 1–6. - According to Molly Izzard, Freya Stark: A Biography (London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1993), 182, ‘Adrian’ was Bishop’s nickname at Eton. It is
unclear if Bishop chose to perpetuate its use as a component of his cover.
He also occasionally signed his letters ‘Episcopo.’ - There are some marvellous descriptions of Bowra in Noel Annan, The
Dons: Mentors, Eccentrics and Geniuses (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999), 135–69. - Iraq, Mid East, and Balkans Section, 28 April 1941, Survey of Global
Activities, War Diary 4, April 1941, HS 7/215, The National Archives,
Kew, Surrey [TNA]. The real significance of the embassy siege for British
intelligence in Iraq is that, under the supervision of Sir Kinahan Cornwallis,
it gave some key personalities of the secret world (Bishop, Stark, Domvile,
Edmonds, Hope-Gill, and Lloyd) who found themselves confined at very
close quarters ample opportunity to discuss and develop a master plan for
the organization and operation of clandestine activities in Iraq after the
rebels had been defeated.