ALBANIA• 11officers attached to a rather larger number of guerrillas who, it must
be recognized, spent almost as much of their time fighting each other
as engaging the common enemy. SOE failed to persuade the dispa-
rate factions involved from participating in what amounted to a civil
war in Albania and Yugoslavia. In both countries, SOE’s logistical
support contributed to eventual Communist supremacy.
Predictably, SOE’s experience in Albania included friction with
both the SIS and theOffice of Strategic Services(OSS). Smiley and
McLean fell out with a representative of the former, a Greek who
called himself Tony Corsair, when one of their supply drops was hi-
jacked. Perhaps unwisely, they had confided their signal system to
Corsair, who intercepted the containers ‘‘and used the weapons for
his own purposes.’’ Relations with the Americans were strained be-
cause SOE ‘‘refused to cooperate with OSS agents unless they ac-
cepted British command and used British communications’’; the OSS
was unwilling to accept these conditions, so no special operations
teams were ever dispatched to Albania. Instead, some five SIS mis-
sions were sent, the first of which,tank, arrived in November 1943
by an SIS-sponsored motorboat from Italy and based itself in a cave
by the sea. This team was obliged to withdraw three months later
following enemy activity in the area and the ill health of the group’s
three members. They were replaced in March 1944 bybird, which
provided a reception committee for three further OSS secret intelli-
gence (SI) teams, all of which remained with the Communist guerril-
las until Tirana was liberated. The OSS’s official historian had some
harsh words for the lack of British enthusiasm for the SI Division’s
efforts: ‘‘The principal difficulty encountered by SI/Albania was its
lack of control over transportation.... Support of U.S. teams by the
Balkan Air Force (British) was unreliable throughout. After months
of waiting had beset several missions, the head of the Albanian desk
unsuccessfully proposed, as had sections chiefs in other areas, the
establishment of an OSS air unit to obviate such delays.’’
Several of those who emerged from Albania subsequently wrote
about their experiences: Amery inSons of the Eagle, Kemp inNo
Colours or Crest, Smiley inAlbanian Assignment, Davies inIllyrian
Adventure, and Anthony Quayle inA Time to Speak.Xan Fielding,
himself a member of SOE’s Greek Section, recounted McLean’s ad-
ventures inOne Man in His Time. Squadron Leader Neel’s memoirs,