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Arthur Christie (1921-2003) was seconded into
Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
on 22 April 1940 at
Aston House Aston House was a prominent 17th century residence with large parkland situated opposite the parish church in Aston, Hertfordshire, UK.The house was demolished in 1961 by the Stevenage New Town Development Corporation after occupying it as its ini ...
,
Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevena ...
, where he was to become one of the founding members of SOE. He was originally trained as an
explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...
s expert, laying charges at the coalface as a
miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...
. It was this expertise that became the reason he was seconded from the regular army into
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
(R) based at Aston House; this was the place christened "Churchill’s Toy Box." He was captured by the Japanese at the fall of Singapore. His file is now open at the
Public Record Office The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...
HS 9/313/1. British Special Operations Executive personnel British miners 1921 births 2003 deaths People from Stoke-on-Trent Loyal Regiment soldiers British World War II prisoners of war World War II prisoners of war held by Japan {{UK-army-bio-stub