NEW on the blog: as MI6 chief Richard Moore retires, Guy Woodward on the troubled relations between MI6 and SOE: soeandbritishculture.webspace.durham.ac.uk/2025/09/30/a...

Anything missing?

Move over, Miss Marple.

Hooray, my copy finally arrived! It’s the first attempt to compare states’ approaches to what our US friends call covert action My own personal conclusion is “covert action” is dumb and when talking about wider practice beyond US legal codes we should use “unacknowledged interference”

NEW on the SOE and British Culture blog: Russell Shanks's Top 5 SOE Videogames: soeandbritishculture.webspace.durham.ac.uk/2025/09/08/t...

Join Dr David Morgan-Owen, British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, for Britain, Conflict & the Sea – a two-day conference at the National Maritime Museum (12–13 Sept), exploring how the practice, imagery, and idea of maritime conflict have shaped British history. Find out more below ⬇️

🚨JOB Alert🚨 We are looking for another postdoctoral researcher to cover the history of veterans in the British colonies of Southern and/or East Africa in the interwar period. 24 month contract, deadline October 03. Please share widely. universityvacancies.com/maynooth-uni...

NEW on the SOE and British Culture blog - James Smith on ghostly legacies of the SOE in John le Carré's fiction: soeandbritishculture.webspace.durham.ac.uk/2025/08/28/j...

Our PhD candidate Russell Shanks is giving a lightning talk at 'Games Studies: Now, Next, Northeast', showcasing new scholarship on SOE and gaming culture. 26 September - register here: www.durham.ac.uk/research/ins...

NEW blog post from Guy Woodward on Stanley Kubrick's attempts to collaborate with John le Carré on a film about treachery and deception in the Special Operations Executive: soeandbritishculture.webspace.durham.ac.uk/2025/08/22/s...

congratulations to our project PhD candidate @ashpercival-borley.bsky.social - BBC New Generation Thinker 2025. Here's Ash on BBC Radio 4 discussing the changing contours of war and peace in the 80 years since the end of the Second World War: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Interested in #WWII? How about #SOE & Intelligence history? Tickets are now available for historian Kate Reid-Smith’s free talk on Op Cleeves, an SOE operation in Southern Thailand in 1941. www.awm.gov.au/author-talk-... #WeHaveWays

From Army to academia - PhD student and army veteran @ashpercival-borley.bsky.social is one of this year's BBC New Generation Thinkers. Find out more how research has opened a whole new career path after the military 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/research/cur...

‘Ms. Vance has just made her way through “Sword of Honor,” the trilogy of novels by Evelyn Waugh based on his experiences as an army officer in World War II, according to her account on the Goodreads website.’ 👏 Best WW2 novel IMHO. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/u...

I just learned that the UK's Special Operations Executive used dental and plastic surgery to disguise some agents during World War II. Really cool article.

#histbookchat "The Special Operations Executive in Malaya" by Rebecca Kenneison just arrived from @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social‬. The myth busting and tie-in with my #SOE Operation Oblivion work & SOE Burma book by @drrichardduckett.bsky.social ‬ should appeal to @ww2tv.bsky.social for a #WW2TV show.

🚨🚨NEW VIDEO!🚨🚨 I got my hands on some radios, weapons and high explosives to learn what it took to become a secret agent during WWII - the Special Operations Executive Training Camp. youtu.be/6C-KDTYkZlg

SOE project work in progress seminar - tomorrow 26 February at 1pm for anyone in Durham