Shadow Warriors

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Iain Gray looks at two Scots who played leading roles in wars both hot and cold

The full extent of the vital part which secret intelligence and special operations took in winning the Second World War has only been gradually revealed in recent years with the long delayed release of previously classified material.

They reveal how subterfuge and deception, guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines and the breaking of military communication codes all contributed to final victory for the Allies.

It is ironic, however, that a secret war also raged among the intelligence agencies themselves as rival clandestine groups battled for power and influence.

The root cause of this internecine battle was a bitter clash of wills over whether or not an accommodation should be reached with Nazi Germany, thus allowing the Wehrmacht to devote all its considerable military might against the dreaded Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union.

For what was euphemistically known as the influential ‘peace party’, the real threat to British interests lay not in Teutonic Fascism but in the spread of Soviet Communism.

This did not make the opposing factions necessarily pro-German or pro-Soviet. They were patriots first and foremost whose sole concern was the best interests of Britain and her Empire (on which in those days the sun never set).

Two Scotsmen were the main protagonists in this conflict fought in the shadows - Major General Sir Colin Gubbins, executive head of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Brigadier Sir Stewart Menzies, chief of the Secret Intelligence Sevice (SIS).

Once described rather patronisingly as ‘a Scottish Highlander of small stature’, Colin McVean Gubbins was actually born in Japan where his father, a distinguished diplomat and scholar, served with the consular service.

Most of Gubbins’ early life, however, was spent at his mother’s family home, Killiemore House, Kilfinichen, on the island of Mull.

In 1905, aged 19, Gubbins entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and served with the Royal Artillery throughout the First World War, gaining a clutch of honours that included the Military Cross and the DSO.

In 1919 he was fighting under General Edmund Ironside on the side of the White Russians who were vainly seeking to overthrow the Red Revolution. He was later with the British Army in Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War of the early twenties when republican terrorism reached a new peak.

Later joining Military Intelligence, he used his valuable fighting experiences in Russia and Ireland to compile a series of pamphlets and training manuals which included titles like ‘How To Use Explosives’, ‘The Art Of Guerrilla Warfare’ and ‘The Partisan Leader’s Handbook’.

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