The records of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which functioned during the Second World War to promote sabotage and subversion and assist resistance groups in enemy occupied territory.
Files relating to operations in the Far East are in HS 1, Scandinavia in HS 2, Africa and the Middle East in HS 3, Eastern Europe in HS 4, the Balkans in HS 5, and Western Europe, including Ireland and the Channel Islands in HS 6.
Histories and war diaries are in HS 7 and headquarters records in HS 8.
Personnel Files are in HS 9.
Special Operations Executive: Station 15b Exhibition: Photographs are in HS 10
A number of nominal indexes of SOE records were made during its lifetime by registry and other staff, and these were kept and added to by the SOE Adviser after 1946. The indexes include references to SOE records which have not survived:
- The general nominal and subject file index is in HS 11;
- The index of honours and awards is in HS 12;
- The index for France is in HS 13;
- The index for Belgium is in HS 14;
- The index for Italian, Greek and Middle Eastern agent particulars is in HS 15;
- The index for Playfair code and wireless operators is in HS 16;
- The index for Scandinavia is in HS 17;
- The index for Iberia is in HS 18;
- The index for staff income tax details is in HS 19;
- The miscellaneous index, which includes details of First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) records of service is in HS 20.