Recruits and Volunteers for Special Duties

The BSC handled recruitment for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in North America. The largest and most successful of these campaigns, the recruitment of Yugoslav Irregulars, Chinese Canadian radio operators, and second-generation Japanese Canadian (Nisei) translators, are dealt with in separate briefing books.

The BSC requested Canadian officers and NCOs for duty in British Guiana. A number of French-Canadian officers were recruited for the SOE, but most were judged unsuitable for special service upon their arrival in England. BSC personnel’s vague notions to recruit Italian POWs and Austrian interns for special operations were even less productive. These documents also indicate that persons resident in Canada volunteered for special duties in theatres like Scandinavia and Southeast Asia.