Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  The details of this incident became known quite widely, mainly because a transcript of Rothschild’s commentary, dictated remotely over a field telephone to his secretary Tess Mayer (whom he later married) mysteriously circulated and resulted in the recommendation by the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire for a decoration. This caused controversy and adverse comment within the Security Service, where by convention individual acts go without public recognition, but Churchill had intervened and approved the award of the George Medal, which was gazetted on 4 April 1944 ‘for dangerous work in hazardous circumstances’.6

  According to Kenneth Rose’s discredited 2003 biography Elusive Rothschild,7 the decoration was personally recommended by Churchill, who had been so impressed by the account of his bravery given in Petrie’s report that he had asked his military aide, General Ismay, to make further enquiries, which had elicited the name of the gallant officer, but this version is quite at odds with the recollection of MI5’s staff at the time.

  What makes this particular report so unusual is that it is studiously vague, and only refers to cases of espionage that had been covered by earlier reports, such as Hellmuth, who is described as though for the first time. Similarly, the Italian SD spy was Manfredo de Blasis, although his case would not be described until the following year (Chapter 23).

  11

  NINTH REPORT,

  7 MARCH 1944*

  In his report, dated 7 March 1944, Petrie concentrated on Belgian spies, but described a strange twist to TRICYCLE’s adventures, as previously mentioned in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, which had referred to him as a Yugoslav who had spent a long period in the United States.

  A. SPIES.

  1. Eleven German agents have been taken into custody during the past month. Of these six were Belgians. The two most interesting specimens were a Belgian, Pierre Neukermans, an agent of the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) and a Dutchman Aben, an agent of the SD (Himmler’s organisation). Both were spies of long standing. The former had first served the Germans during the winter of 1939 as a casual informant in the matter of Belgian troop movements. More recently he had formed part of the network of agents along the Belgian coast designed by the Germans to operate in the event of an Allied landing. The latter, Aben, had been an agent of the SD and the German Security Police since April 1942.

  2. Neukermans arrived in this country as an escaper on 17 July 1943. He had travelled from Belgium through France and the Peninsula with two compatriots, Omer Sevenans and Roger Louant. There was nothing abnormal in their story and after the customary interrogation the three were released. Some while afterwards a captured spy under interrogation mentioned these three men as among those whose escape from Belgium had been forwarded by one Louis de Bray, an organiser of spurious escape routes on the Germans’ behalf, with whom we had long been familiar. An examination of the files show that Neukermans, Sevenans and Louant had in fact been assisted on the first stage of their journey by a certain LUIS whom we were now able to identify with Louis de Bray. The three were, therefore, detained and under further interrogation Neukermans confessed to being a German agent.

  3. Neukermans further admitted that since his arrival in England he had written nine letters in secret ink to cover addresses in the Peninsula. These had contained accurate information about the disposition of Belgian forces in this country and other less accurate information about convoy movements and public morale which Neukermans had either invented or derived from the press. So far as we can ascertain the sum of all this information cannot have been of great value to the enemy.

  4. This episode shows that it is possible for a spy who has evaded capture on his arrival to follow his trade at least for some months without detection. This immunity depends to a great extent on the spy’s willingness to avoid risks and not to seek information beyond what comes naturally under his daily notice. If by routine security measures he can be denied access to those parts of the country where vital information about forthcoming operations is to be had, his activities will be an irritant rather than a menace.

  5. The Dutchman Franciscus Aben was the Master of a vessel plying between Sweden and Delfzijl in Holland. He was employed as a courier by certain Dutch resistance organisations in which both SIS and SOE were interested. He was also engaged in smuggling Allied agents and other persons in and out of Holland. After he had been occupied in this manner for some while Aben was denounced by members of an Allied organisation in Sweden. At the same time he had the misfortune to entangle himself in a love affair of which murder appeared the most probable outcome. For these reasons he was invited to withdraw to England.

  6. Aben arrived here on board his own vessel. When this boat was rummaged at the port two things were discovered: a paper showing Aben to be employed by the German Security Police and a code characteristic of the SD. When Aben was confronted with these documents he confessed to being a German agent and to having been employed to penetrate and inform against the Dutch resistance organisation whose courier he had been. We anticipate that his further interrogation will provide valuable information about the combating of resistance groups in Holland and the extent to which they are known to, or have been penetrated by, the Germans.

  Job, the German spy of British nationality mentioned in our last report, has been sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. He appealed, but the appeal was dismissed.

  B. SABOTAGE.

  1. We are informed from most secret sources that the sabotage department of the Abwehr has recently been collecting British and American uniforms on the Italian front. A number of these have been sent to Abwehr Stations in France. It is reasonable to assume that they are intended for use in the event of an Allied landing.

  The possibility also exists that the Abwehr may anticipate this event by attempting to introduce into the UK agents disguised as British or American soldiers. Any such agents will, of necessity, be landed by parachute or by boat and will be subject to many of the same disabilities as previous clandestine arrivals of this kind.

  2. The representations recently made to the Spanish Government and the Press campaign which followed the discovery of bombs in crates of oranges and onions reaching this country from Spain have had their effect. The officer in charge of the Abwehr sabotage department has now issued an order forbidding any further sabotage in Spain particularly if it is directed against Allied shipping. The Abwehr station in Madrid is, therefore, withdrawing the sabotage equipment of the various out-stations in Spain and returning it to Germany. Two sabotage organisations will, however, remain. First a German controlled network of Spanish agents who are to operate in the event of an Allied invasion or a withdrawal of the German organisation proper. Secondly an independent organisation composed entirely of certain Falangists who are fiercely anti-British and anxious to impede or overturn General Franco’s present policy of reconciliation. This organisation will devote its attention to Gibraltar.

  It has already been penetrated by agents in our employ and will continue to receive our careful attention.

  C. SPECIAL AGENTS.

  1. TRICYCLE, a special agent already described in earlier reports, has returned to Lisbon to report to his German employers. He was provided with a quantity of tendentious information of apparent importance and we are informed that his first interview with his spymasters passed off in a most satisfactory manner. A slight complication has, however, been introduced into his affairs by the fact that his principal spy master is himself now acting as a British agent. This individual’s zeal and ability in a new role has verged upon the embarrassing. He has begun to provide us with information about the networks of agents maintained by the Germans in this country. Of these it appears that the principal one is the GARBO organisation of which it is clearly undesirable that he should make us too fully aware. We are engaged at the moment in the delicate operation of diverting this valuable agent’s attention elsewhere. There is good promise of success.

  2. We hope that two further special agents will presently be provided with wi
reless transmitters. The agent TREASURE has recently left for Lisbon where we anticipate that she will be given a transmitter to bring back to this country. The agent BRUTUS is at the moment discussing by wireless with the Abwehr station in Paris the dropping of a fresh set and a new code by parachute.

  D. SECURITY MEASURES.

  1. A member of a firm of Cartographers engaged in drawing maps for use in impending operations saw fit to draw upon his knowledge of these matters during a discussion of the Second Front in a London hotel. He has since been taken sternly to task and measures are in hand to ensure that he will not know whether or not his deductions were correct.

  2. A letter bearing the impress BIGOT from COHQ to an address in Cambridge came into the hands of the ‘Return letter section’ of the GPO as it had been wrongly addressed. Investigation has shown that the matters with which the letter dealt have not been compromised by this event and steps have been taken to ensure that it will not be repeated.

  3. An engineer, who divulging to an Army officer in a hotel information about PLUTO that he had acquired in the course of his duties, has been prosecuted and been fined £60 with 16 guineas costs.

  4. A Trades Union despatched to various addresses in the UK/Eire copies of the minutes of a committee meeting at which measures had been discussed for consolidating the production of Phoenix and particulars given of this device. The single copy of this document which was addressed to Eire was intercepted in censorship. Arrangements have now been taken, devised by the Home Secretary and executed by an officer of MI5 to recover all the copies discreetly, and have now been carried into effect.

  7th March 1944

  * * *

  A Belgian pilot, Pierre Neukermans, was sent to England as a refugee to spy for the Abwehr. He had served as an Belgian army officer and claimed to have engineered his own escape to London, arriving in July 1943. Cleared and allowed to re-enlist with the Belgian forces, he had peddled a plausible story of his escape from Belgium to Spain, but in December 1943 SIS learned from a source in Lisbon that the group in which Neukermans had moved across France had contained a spy. SIS traced the other two members of Neukermans’ party and concluded that he was the spy. MI5 interviewed him, having traced ISOS references to a source who had written eleven messages in secret writing, and he confessed that he had worked for the Abwehr since 1939. On 4 February 1944 Guy Liddell recorded in his diary that Neukermans:

  … had a good cover story and was extremely skilful under cross-examination. He was later denounced by Wyckaert and brought back. He has since confessed not only that he got his secret ink through the London Reception Centre and communicated with the Germans but that he had other means of communication if all others broken down, i.e. transmitting from an aircraft in flight. Neukermans is a Belgian and a trained pilot.

  Under interrogation Neukermans revealed how he had succeeded in taking secret ink undetected through MI5’s screening, and had reported his safe arrival to the Germans in two letters that had been passed by censorship, even though the cover addresses had been on the suspect index. At his trial Neukermans pleaded insanity, but was convicted and executed at Pentonville in June 1944.

  * * *

  For two years before his arrival in England Franciscus Aben worked as an SD penetration agent for the organisation’s chief in The Hague, Hauptsturmführer Walter W. Müller, infiltrating SIS, SOE and Dutch networks that in July 1943 he betrayed, sending their membership into German captivity and, in many cases, death. One of his victims was Gevers Deynoot, a former police chief in The Hague who was also a leader of the ‘WIM’ resistance movement, and another was Dr Oosterhuis of Haaren. Both men had been accidentally compromised by the Dutch Consul in Stockholm, de Jong, who had taken up Aben’s offer to act as a courier in March 1943 when he had produced what appeared to be good references to confirm his loyalty. On that occasion Aben claimed to be in contact with a Baron van Asch, an American living in The Hague, and supposedly a significant figure in the resistance. Aben also declared his willingness to exfiltrate individual escapees at a rate of 5,000 kroner each. A further detainee was a contact in Delfzijl named Zwaantje, who disappeared into a German prison.

  Aben, a former Dutch Nazi Party member and Holland–America Line officer, had been identified as a Gestapo agent in September 1943 when the SIS station in Stockholm was informed that he was intending to sail to Westervik with a stowaway, Anton van der Waals, who was also a notorious German spy known to have used the aliases de Wilde and Baron van Lynden. Allegedly their ‘escape’ across the Baltic had been sponsored by the Germans. After their arrival van der Waals asserted that he was the organiser of a large resistance movement, and demanded to be put in touch with British Intelligence in London.

  As the owner of a 194-ton Groningen coaster, the SS Excelsior, plying between Delfzijl and Sweden, he was given the task of collecting political intelligence, especially relating to the Dutch resistance, and arranged through the deliberate sabotage of his ship to spend some months developing local contacts. He then acted as a courier, passing messages to and from the Netherlands, which he shared with the SD, leading to the arrest of the leadership and the infiltration of other SD agent provocateurs. The result was the wholesale destruction of two circuits, although Aben himself talked his way out of complicity. However, one of those who denounced him to SIS demanded that he be removed to England without allowing him to make a return voyage to Holland, making a very credible threat to murder him if he remained in Sweden.

  Suspicion had been aroused when Aben tried to expand his activities by investing in Nettogvist, a ship’s chandlery business, and introduced as a new personality, he was invited to England in the pretext of receiving the thanks of the government in exile. In his absence his ship was searched and a highly incriminating letter was discovered, signed by a German officer named Mueller, who confirmed that Aben was ‘a member of the Dienstelle’. The document, intended as a pass to ensure the cooperation of any German naval authorities, had been found among the possessions of Aben’s second mate, Gerhardus van der Moolen.

  Upon his arrival at RAF Leuchars on 30 January 1944 he was arrested and interrogated at Camp 020, where he was confronted with evidence that his employee, van der Moolen, had been recruited by the SD on his recommendation. As soon as he saw Mueller’s laisser-passez he confessed and admitted that he had been recruited by Müller in April 1942 to work for the Sipo, and in March 1943 had been taken to Berlin to meet an SD Amt VI officer, Seidler, and his assistant, Werner Hoose. As well as acting as an informer, compromising all those he smuggled to Sweden and more besides, he attended a radio course at Scheveningen and had been instructed to send a warning about any impending invasion over a high-powered transmitter installed for the purpose on his ship. As Aben revealed the scale of his treachery, MI5 circulated SIS and SOE with the grim news on 27 April 1944:

  WIM and ZWANTJE Organisations appear badly blown.

  A certain Cohen of the WIM Organisation was arrested in Brussels. He was broken under interrogation and blew ZWANTJE I. Rossien and Dykstra have been arrested and have been broken in interrogation in turn. Consul Lindberg of Stockholm appointed Dr Osterhuis as ZWANTJE II. This second organisation has now been blown by the wife of Osterhuis to Schreider of the Gestapo in The Hague.

  The SD officer credited with handling Aben was Joseph Schreider, a Bavarian policeman and former border guard who seized the opportunity to have his subordinate, Hauptsturmführer Müller, create a German-sponsored replacement resistance group named Paulani.

  Although Aben confessed to collaboration with the Germans, he could not be charged under the Treachery Act. Accordingly, he remained in MI5’s custody until the end of the war, when he was deported to the Netherlands to face trial.

  * * *

  More would be learned about Louis de Bray when Werner Unversagt, a leading member of the Brussels Abwehr, was arrested in Bad Ems in May 1945 and interrogated at Camp 020. He recalled that de Bray had peddled a plan, intended to make him some money, w
hich he claimed could deliver German agents to England through an escape route managed by the local resistance for evading Allied airmen. Unversagt had tested the route by deploying Pierre Neukermans, but a few days later Neukermans had reported that the whole scheme was bogus, thus earning de Bray a certain reputation with both the British and their German adversaries.1

  _____________

  * There are two ninth reports!

  12

  CHURCHILL INTERVENES

  In his report dated 7 March 1944 Petrie referred to a breach of security concerning the PHOENIX component of the artificial harbours code-named MULBERRY that were under construction in anticipation of D-Day. The invasion plan, in the absence of a convenient port available for capture in Normandy, involved towing two entire prefabricated unloading and disembarkation docks across the Channel from their construction site in Weymouth.