Then, after being diagnosed with chronic bronchitis, he landed a job in Cairo as ADC to the Minister of State, Richard Casey. By mid-1943 Hastings was pronounced fit again, and joined SOE. His first assignment was to accompany the Franco-American landing in the south of France. He arrived in the newly liberated Paris in August 1944, then was dropped with a wireless operator and interpreter behind enemy lines in the Apennines as chief liaison officer to the Italian partisans.