Gimmicks galore but they failed to hit the spot

Bright sparks in the SOE dreamed up a cunning plan to impede the U-boat war: treating crew uniforms with itching powder.

SOE claimed in its quarterly report to Churchill in October 1943 that it had tormented 25,000 German sailors "in the more tender parts of the human anatomy".

No evidence on the effects on the conduct of the war is given.

This was not the only whimsy on which SOE spent time and money.

Premier Winston Churchill had many and various pet ideas, few of which made military sense.

In 1942 he read The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck and from it took an idea for "providing the conquered nations with simple weapons such as sticks of dynamite".

This evolved into a plan for "mass dropping of specially constructed explosives".

For the next three years, under the codenames Moon and then Braddock, SOE experimented with what eventually became a 4lb box containing a pistol, incendiary material, a timer, tape and a grenade. The idea was that it would be dropped on Germany and Italy to be picked up by anti-Nazi workers.

Churchill was also keen on SOE plans for a midget sub called the Welman, 20ft long, to be "driven by anybody, no submarine or diving experience being essential". It was trialled but not developed.

A similar fate befell the SOE's Welbum. This innovative device was intended to be strapped to a parachutist's back, thus allowing him to propel himself through the water to safety. The Welrod, an adapted silenced pistol, was to be used, the SOE papers say, in a campaign of simultaneous executions of Nazis in occupied Europe.

It did not happen, partly because of military opposition to SOE gimmicks.