ABSTRACT
In April 1943, as a result of negotiations between SIS and the Admiralty and a suggestion that NID (C) should be merged into the Admiralty’s Operations Division, Captain Slocum again visited North Africa. Admiral Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, agreed to this proposal. He made it clear to Slocum that irregular operations did not interest him in the least but that he would suffer them, provided that a clear-cut policy was laid down and they came under one central control. Slocum became Deputy Director Operations Division (Irregular)—DDOD(I)—in June and his African Coastal Flotilla (ACF) was accepted by Allied Force Headquarters as the controlling authority for clandestine sea transport in the western Mediterranean theatre of operations. In due course, this arrangement was extended as far east as the Adriatic, but it was effectively rejected by Middle East Command, with the result that SIS, SOE and the Special Boat Squadron continued to operate separate flotillas of caiques and schooners in the Aegean, while sea transport to Yugoslavia, Albania and western Greece involved a complex interface of command responsibilities.1
