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Owen Reed was an army officer who was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6) in Cairo in July 1943, and who subsequently served as an intelligence operative in occupied Yugoslavia.

An actor and a ´óÏó´«Ã½ broadcaster, who joined the Army in 1940 with the intention of serving in the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), Reed was quickly recommended for a commission and then received such standard training as the RAC offered to its subalterns. But thereafter his war obstinately refused to follow a conventional course. Immediately after sailing for the Middle East his appointment as ship’s broadcaster unexpectedly returned him to his peacetime profession and in the process brought him to the attention of his Brigade’s commanding officer, who then attached Reed to his staff. In Egypt Reed remained with the Brigadier’s staff as a liaison officer - a combination of scout and messenger - until the destruction of his brigade at the battle of Alamein.

Having emerged from the battle unscathed, Reed fell ill with jaundice, and more than six months passed before he was declared fully fit again. Promoted Captain, he worked for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in Cairo for much of the intervening period, juggling news broadcasts with Arabic programmes and office administration, and becoming ever more frustrated about his growing separation from the war. In June he resolved to find his way back into active service. ‘The time has come for me to go’, he wrote in a letter home. ‘To what I don't know. But I've had all I want of Cairo ... So I'm looking for another job.’

One of the few European countries where the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) expanded their activities following the outbreak of the Second World War was Yugoslavia. Until the German occupation in April 1941 SIS operated from the British Passport Control Office in Belgrade and through consulates in Zagreb, Split and elsewhere, recruiting agents from among the British business and academic communities. After the Axis invasion in April 1941 they collaborated with the Yugoslav government-in-exile and worked through Yugoslav officers who had escaped at the time of the occupation. They also enlarged their intelligence picture by exploiting their privileged access to signals intelligence. But changing Allied strategic priorities (and competition with the Special Operations Executive - SOE) persuaded SIS in 1943 that they should send British officers into the field to liaise with the Yugoslav resistance forces.

By the time Owen Reed recovered his health, hostilities in North Africa had ceased, and there seemed little prospect of returning to regular military service. But repeated visits to GHQ finally opened the door to SIS (masquerading under the deliberately bland cover name ‘Inter-Services Liaison Department’ - ISLD), who were recruiting field officers for infiltration into Yugoslavia. In July 1943 Reed had little knowledge of Yugoslavia and spoke no Serbo-Croat, but he could offer SIS his broadcaster's experience in the collection of information, a proven ability to work alone in remote territory, a basic knowledge of military staff work, and at least some evidence of linguistic aptitude. Following his recruitment he received a rudimentary training and was then despatched to Croatia with a radio operator and an interpreter to work with Tito's Partisans.

Reed's first mission to Croatia was the most successful of his three SIS assignments. Promoted Major, he headed the British mission in Croatia until the end of June 1944, representing both SIS under the code-name 'Judge' and SOE as 'Fungus', often working in close proximity to the enemy and regularly enduring bombing and strafing attacks by the Luftwaffe. Through his Partisan hosts he obtained a steady supply of intelligence, including information about the location of enemy installations, which were then targeted by Allied air strikes. At the same time he arranged for the delivery of increasing quantities of supplies to the Partisans and eventually succeeded in organizing landing grounds where transport aircraft could both deposit stores and evacuate vulnerable personnel — wounded, orphans, escaped POWs and downed airmen — to the safety of Allied-occupied territory.

Reed was flown back to London in July 1944 to report on the Partisans’ territorial ambitions in the disputed Yugoslav-Italian border area of Venezia Giulia, and was duly debriefed by SIS. It was decided that he should next be despatched to Istria, near Venezia Giulia, but when he arrived there at the beginning of September he found operational conditions very different from those he had known in Croatia. Numerous Allied covert organizations were working without proper co-ordination on or near the peninsula, and relations with the Partisans had deteriorated sharply. With the end of the war very obviously approaching, political differences between Tito and the Western Allies were assuming a more prominent role in their association than any common interest in Germany’s defeat. Within weeks Reed's mission had effectively been closed down. His two Slovene radio operators disappeared in deeply suspicious circumstances.

Transferred to Slovenia in October 1944, Reed was at least able to resume his task of intelligence gathering, but continuing difficulties with the Partisans severely inhibited his activities. His sources of information were tightly controlled, his movements were closely monitored, and he was denied direct contact with ordinary Slovenes. In dealings with the vehemently anti-Western Partisan leadership he found himself engaged in an almost constant struggle against suspicion, prevarication and outright obstruction. Early in 1945 he became embroiled in an attempt to secure the evacuation of two German prisoners, both of whom possessed information of considerable value to the Western Allies. When the Partisans refused to co-operate, he was withdrawn to Italy.

In March 1945 Reed’s last assignment brought him back to Croatia under the codename 'Outlaw'; he was now appointed to represent SIS and the British Military Mission to Yugoslavia. During the closing weeks of the war he followed the Partisans’ triumphant final march on Zagreb, entering the city only shortly after it was liberated and establishing himself on the Foreign Office’s behalf as the British Consul. In this capacity he combined his consular activities with intelligence gathering, providing SIS with a remarkably vivid insight into the communist take-over in Croatia. But his freedom of action was progressively reduced, as the Trieste confrontation came to dominate the already troubled relationship between the Western Allies and the Partisans, and he was finally ordered out, persona non-grata, in June.

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