James Millar headed the SIS Yugoslav operations section in the Middle East, and later in Italy, between 1941 and 1945. Millar was a Cambridge language graduate who joined SIS in the 1930s. He worked as an 'examiner' in the British 'Passport Control Office' in Berlin in the late 30s, and apparently helped many Jews to leave Germany. In the process he may have forged links with the Zionist organisation, the Jewish Agency for Palestine. He would certainly later recruit agents for operations inside Yugoslavia through the medium of the Jewish Agency. On the outbreak of war in 1939 Millar moved to Copenhagen, and when the Germans invaded Denmark he returned to Britain. In the meantime, by mid-September 1939, the British Foreign Office had become concerned that its recently created consulate in Zagreb, Croatia (run by one TC Rapp), was seriously understaffed, and they addressed the following minute to the Treasury.
'The political agreement between the Serbs and the Croats has much increased the political importance of Zagreb and given a more autonomous position to both Croatia and Slovenia, and the outbreak of war with Germany has made the Yugoslav-German frontier in Slovenia an important point for gleaning information about conditions in Germany and for keeping a watch on the trade and other relations between Yugoslavia and the enemy. Lord Halifax [the Foreign Secretary] therefore considers it eminently desirable to strengthen the staff of His Majesty's Consulate in Zagreb by the addition of a reliable non-career vice-consul, capable of taking charge in Mr Consul Rapp's absence.'
In due course Millar was appointed to this post. Among his staff were William Stuart and John Lloyd-Evans, the former SIS ‘Z’ officer at Prague. He found Zagreb a veritable hotbed of espionage and intrigue, and the consulate proved very vulnerable to hostile countermeasures. Its primary function – espionage – would have been fairly transparent and, given his previous employment in Berlin, Millar’s identity must have been well known to the Germans. The position was further complicated by the presence of strong fascist and extreme nationalist movements in Croatia, which were deeply antagonistic towards Britain. German representatives in Zagreb unsuccessfully attempted to organise the assassination of one British agent; and early in February 1941 a member of a Croatian fascist group managed to detonate a bomb on the first floor of the consulate building, without causing any injuries. Nevertheless, Millar succeeded in forging some important contacts – particularly in Slovenia, the territory actually bordering the Reich. By 1941 SIS had a source in Carinthia, on the Austria-Slovenia frontier, which supplied intelligence on the assembly of German forces for the invasion in April.
In April Millar fled the advancing German armies with William Stuart and joined the other British diplomatic personnel who surrendered to the Italians. After his release he was despatched to Cairo, where a new SIS organisation had been created under the deliberately bland cover name of the Inter-Services Liaison Department (ISLD). Millar became head of their Yugoslavia section. At first he sought to work through members of the Yugoslav government-in-exile, and through Yugoslav military personnel who had escaped to Cairo, to forge links with Mihailovic’s Chetnik resistance movement, largely based in Serbia. He also established a few contacts in Croatia and Slovenia. But by mid-1942 he had become convinced of the need to send agents to the communist Partisans in Yugoslavia, and at first sought to recruit émigré Yugoslav left-wingers for these operations. Before any of these personnel had been infiltrated, however, Millar decided that British officers should be despatched to the Partisans instead, possibly with Yugoslav interpreters. From mid-1943 onwards he established a network of (predominantly British) agents at Partisan headquarters in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. Millar left SIS at the end of the Second World War. The Times published his obituary on 20 August 1986.
SV McNeff
There are only fleeting references to this officer’s work for SIS. He was identified as SIS representative at Gibraltar by Nigel West, but in the early summer of 1944 he apparently reached the Stajerska area of Slovenia. I have found no record of his subsequent activities.