Englandspiel SOEs worst wartime disaster (HB) - Description
The England Game - 'Englandspiel'- was SOE's most humiliating spy disaster of the Second World War and Germany's most successful counterespionage operation.
German counterintelligence penetrated the Dutch SOE network and fooled London into believing their agents were free and sending genuine radio messages in 1942-43, resulting in the deaths of 47 SOE agents and hundreds of civilian helpers, and the loss of 12 RAF aircraft on SOE missions.
MI6 could easily have helped SOE prevent the disaster that unfolded in Holland by passing on and acting on the intelligence they received - but it wasn't in their interests to do so.
