Again there is some confusion over this officer’s proper name. He is referred to in some documents and in at least one book as Edward Parks; but his full name as recorded in the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s Debt of Honour Register was apparently Albert Edward Park. Park had previously served in the Intelligence Corps, but joined SIS in September 1943. He served with distinction in Italy from late 1943 to mid-1944, but in August 1944 SIS sent him to the Stajerska area of Slovenia in an attempt to penetrate the Austrian frontier. His mission included another British officer named Major Mathews, who may have worked for SIS or for the escape and evasion organisation ‘A’ Force. In December 1944 both officers were wounded and captured during a surprise German raid on Partisan headquarters in Stajerska. They were reportedly taken to a Ljubljana hospital but later investigations found no trace of them there, and it was assumed that they either died of their wounds or else were shot by their captors. Park is commemorated on the Cassino Memorial. The CWGC record states that he served in the Intelligence Corps but does not mention SIS.
Owen Reed
Reed was recruited into SIS (ISLD) in Cairo in July 1943 and dropped into Croatia in October with a radio operator, Paddy Ryan, and an interpreter, Paul Stichman. After Stichman left the mission he was replaced by a Sergeant Pavelic. Reed soon took over the SOE mission in Croatia and then worked for both SIS and SOE until July 1944, when he was withdrawn first to Italy and then to London. He was replaced in Croatia by Captain Byrd, who served there until March 1945.
Reed was infiltrated to Istria, on the Yugoslav-Italian frontier, in September 1944 and moved to Partisan headquarters Slovenia in October to replace Captain Leonard (see above). Other SIS personalities he encountered in Slovenia included Sergeant Arthur Marlow, who was based at a British mission in north-western Slovenia, and an officer named Captain Burdon, who was a counter-intelligence expert. In February Reed was withdrawn to Italy; in March he returned to Croatia and again became head of the British mission at Partisan headquarters. He moved to Zagreb when the city was liberated in May, and served as British consul for a month before being expelled on Tito’s orders. He left SIS after the war.
Ivan Rudolf
Ivan Rudolf was a Slovene born in what was (at the time) north-east Italy. He became a member of an organisation called TIGR, which was committed to liberating Slovene areas under Italian rule (TIGR was an acronym for the places that were to be liberated – Trieste, Istria, Gorizia and Rijeka (Fiume)). During 1940 SIS established contacts with TIGR – an organisation which seemed capable of helping them penetrate the Italian frontier – and evidently came to know Rudolf. However, under pressure from the Germans the Yugoslav authorities took steps to suppress TIGR’s activities in Slovenia in July 1940 and with German intelligence apparently on his trail Rudolf fled to Belgrade and went into hiding – presumably with the assistance of SIS or SOE. On 5 March 1941 Rudolf – using the name Ciril Hayek - was issued travel documents by a British consular official which enabled him to escape to Bulgaria; from there he travelled to Istanbul, and then to the Middle East. In Cairo Rudolf continued to work for SIS. He was empowered to visit prisoner of war camps, where he recruited numerous Slovenes who had been conscripted into the Italian armed forces, and had subsequently surrendered or deserted during the fighting in North Africa. Many joined a Royal Yugoslav Battalion that was formed in the Middle East, but Rudolf also selected a small group of Slovenes for clandestine work. They were trained in parachuting, radio operating, encoding, sabotage and intelligence gathering in preparation for covert operations back in Slovenia. Rudolf’s work for SIS ensured that he did not return to Yugoslavia after the war.