SOE SPY SCHOOL AT BEAULIEU ESTATE
WWII Agent Training Exhibit in Hampshire
The war spy film “The Imitation Game” has been winning awards for its story of Alan Turning and the long secret program to break the German “Enigma Code” machine (see Engima in Hamburg), but breaking the code was not the only wartime secret spy effort to come to light. Another spy effort was crucial to frustrating the Nazi occupation on the continent and essential to the eventual invasion of Normandy was the spy group of the Special Operations Executive, better known as the SOE.
In July of 1940, on the same day Hitler launched his Operation Sea Lion plan to invade Britain, Winston Churchill (see Churchill War Rooms) ordered his Minister of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton to gather various agencies together to form a top secret spy group to operate behind enemy lines to, in Churchill’s words “Set Europe ablaze”, a mandate to disrupt the axis powers by espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and to aid local resistance fighters. The SOE’s principal headquarters in London was located in Baker Street, with its operative taking their nickname from Sherlock Holmes stories as the “Baker Street Irregulars” (see Sherlock Holmes Museum).
However, the training of spies and agents was spread out over a number of private estates throughout the country, giving the whole operation a later nickname for the SOE as “Stately ‘omes of England”. One of those stately manors was the Beaulieu Estate in south England on the Hampshire coast near South hampton and Portsmouth.
Beaulieu, the ancestral home Lord Montagu in the heart of the New Forest where once great wooden ships of Admiral Nelson’s Fleet were built and set to sea. The Beaulieu estate was the location of the SOE’s principal spy school, where the agents trained in trade craft before being sent off to their missions. Eventually eleven of the country homes spread across the estate were used for the secret World War II training. Today the estate of is the home of the National Motor Museum (see National Motor Museum Beaulieu), but also now a small museum exhibit dedicated to the heroic story of the Secret Operations Executive.
The spy school at Beaulieu was essentially the “finishing school” for agents, after receiving training in demolition, arms training and other skills elsewhere. Ultimately about 3,000 secret agents went through training at Beaulieu. taught by specialist instructors including a professional burglar, a research librarian, accountant, a barrister, and members of the Intelligence Corps before being flown in secret night flights for drops in occupied territory across the channel from the RAF Tangmere airfield (see Tangmere RAF Museum).
Visiting SOE Exhibit Beaulieu Estate
The SOE exhibit is located in a remaining original building on the estate, also known for its Abbey, the great manor house of the Montagu’s open to the public and the National Motor Museum collection. Admission to the SOE exhibit is included with the estate entrance admission to the Motor Museum. © Bargain Travel Europe
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Beaulieu Estate
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