Page 86 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Secret Agent Selection
Dr Mike Rennie
In August 2017 I was approached by a researcher from Wall2Wall productions, ask- ing if I was interested in advising them on a
show about the selection and training of Spe- cial Operations Executive (SOE) agents, called Secret Agent Selection: WW2. At the time I had just finished being the academic lead for the first two iterations of Slim’s Company, and I had become interested in military selection as part of that project, and anyway, who wouldn’t want to be involved in a project with secret agents?
My initial involvement was only with the selec- tion process, mainly focused on the tests used by the psychologists that the SOE employed. This was the early days of selection testing and psychologists like William J Morgan, who later deployed several times as an agent himself, were instrumental in developing a selection pro- cess that many would recognise today. Despite limited documentation the production company were able to piece together the selection pro- cess and a training programme. It was impor- tant that unless we had corroborated evidence that something was done at the SOE Train- ing Schools (STS) it would not be used in the programme.
As the preparation for filming the show contin- ued, I was asked whether I would be willing to appear on camera to explain some of the pro- cesses involved in the selection and training. I couldn’t really pass up a chance to be on TV and said that I would. The production team asked if they could do a screen test, and I arranged a
morning when they duly arrived and spent an hour or so chatting on camera. I thought that I would be asked to be a talking head explaining the psychology, but a short time later, I received a phone call asking if I would be prepared to be a Conducting Officer (SOE Directing Staff) on the show. Luckily, I was able to arrange the three weeks away from the Academy to facilitate film- ing in the North of Scotland and the preparation for my trip back to 1941 began.
I met with my fellow Conducting Officers, Nicky Moffat and Adrian Weale, as well as Wayne Forsyth, who would look after the PT side of training. Costume fittings were a bit of a shock, having never commissioned; I had hoped that I would not have to be an Officer, but after thirty- five years escaping a commission, I finally made Captain. I was uncomfortable wearing the rank, but worse was to come... the haircut and the Brylcreem!
During all our preparation, the candidates were kept in isolation from us. We had refused to read their files until we turned up for the first day of shooting. We, as selecting staff, wanted the pro- cess to be as realistic for the candidates as pos- sible. The venue was a house in the Highlands that had been an STS during the war, and the candidates were immersed in 1941 from their arrival at the train station.
The three days of selection followed the testing an agent would have been expected to under- take. The three Conducting Officers were very keen that we were as aware as we could be regarding the thinking of the original Conducting Officers when they did selection for real. We had to constantly remind ourselves that we were not selecting leaders, or officers, but agents, who required a range of skills and traits.
At the end of selection, we had sent four can- didates home. The production team were clear that we, as the staff, had control over who was sent home from the STS and that the show was not going to have a format of a candidate being sent home at the end of each show like ‘The Apprentice’. Like SOE training, a candidate
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