Setting Europe ablaze — the BBC airwaves

Georges Begue, a French engineer who took refuge in London after the fall of France, is one of the first radio operators recruited in the summer of 1940 by a brand-new organisation: the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Hugh Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare, was given charge of it on 16 July 1940, with the instruction Churchill would sum up as 'go and set Europe ablaze'.

Dalton models the SOE on IRA guerrilla methods: a multitude of compartmentalised cells, never directed from a central point, receiving objectives coordinated through clandestine channels. Yet these orders still have to be transmitted without being detected — and the radio transmitter is the most dangerous link, the set that can be located, the operator who is caught.

Begue has an idea. The BBC already broadcasts to occupied Europe programmes such as Radio Londres and its call sign 'Ici Londres! Les Francais parlent aux Francais...'. Why not use them? Before each broadcast, the announcer would read 'personal messages' — harmless and incomprehensible phrases to the enemy, but agreed in advance with a given cell. He has yet to convince the staff to use the public airwaves in this way.