ignored questions about partisans' strength and locations and refused to take sabotage action on the Belgrade-Niš railway while trying to conceal his collaboration with the Italians while the latter was preparing the 'tell all' report. In early Sep 1942, Hudson reported: Even after the direct appeal by General Harold Alexander (Commander-in-chief of the Middle East Command) to sabotage Axis communications, Mihailović refused to act. Finally, after living in the country for over a year, on 15 Nov 1942, Hudson sent a considered summary on the situation: Mihailović is dependent on local commander Pavle Djurišić, whom he has secretly promoted and supported financially and endorses his policy of collaboration with the Italians. Sabotage against Italians would lead to reprisals and termination of their support and food supplies. Mihailović insists that the Italians will collapse shortly. Chetniks in Serbia could organize derailments at points where the Germans would not be able to take reprisals on Serb villages, but no serious attempts have been made to investigate the possibilities of this. The poor sabotage results are due to lack of willingness on Mihailović's part and the lack of energy. It should be made clear to Mihailović that continued support to him from the BBC is dependent on his readiness to undertake sabotage. Once satisfied that the final victory is certain, Mihailović will join the 'grand finale' against the Axis, until then he is capable of coming to secret understandings with either Italians on Germans. I do not know whether Mihailović has an agreement with the Axis involving his inactivity in Serbia or their anti-communist drive in North West Bosnia. Mission expansion In addition to enhanced communication channels, towards the end of 1942, the SOE sent a high ranking official (Head of SOE Balkan section) Col S.W. (Bill) Bailey to co-ordinate all SOE activities in the region (including Albania, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) and report on the military value of chetnik movement as a whole. He was also to persuade Mihailović to undertake active sabotage, study his political intentions and propose how British policy of creating a united resistance front could be implemented. Similar to Hudson, Bailey was a mining engineer with pre-war experience in Yugoslavia. In early 1942, he was on a mission to the USA and Canada, together with Capt William Stuart from the SIS (who later became co-chief of Operation Typical and was killed during German bombardment of Tito's HQ in