SOE: created after the fall of France in 1940 by Winston Churchill, an admirer of guerrilla warfare. Its goal: prepare for an Allied landing by undermining the occupiers with resistance and sabotage. The SOE sent individual agents to operate clandestinely in German-occupied territories, where they funded, supplied and coordinated nascent resistance groups. Unlike its competitor, the more established Secret Intelligence Service (later MI6), SOE was run by the British Minister of Economic Warfare, and was disbanded in 1946.

F Section: the SOE French branch, led by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, which sent 390 men and 39 women to France between 1941-44, 104 of whom (39 women, 65 men) never returned.

A memorial at Valençay, France commemorates the fallen.

Maurice’s red poppy 2016
Each year, on May 6th, a joint French-British committee organizes a memorial celebration, with red poppies for those who died in France