The Spies of Winter

by Sinclair McKay

  Picking up radar signals by flying directly over enemy territory, these planes could relay huge amounts of information back to analysts on the ground concerning enemy positions and plans. What had been rather clunky and primitive technology had, by the end of the war, become sleek and lethally effective. Such spy planes were flown over the vast jungles of Burma, sucking up intelligence on otherwise utterly hidden units.

  Added to this, it seems that British advances in this field – so vaulting, so fast – were a source of enormous envy to senior figures in the American air force, who were astounded by their ingenuity. They were not slow to appropriate the principles but even so, in those immediate post-war years, British creativity was held up as the leading example. The spy-planes used for electronic intelligence reconnaissance flights were referred to colloquially as ‘ferrets’. One of the chief areas of ferret activity in the late 1940s was over East Germany. In 1948, the Joint Intelligence Committee had let Commander Travis and all at Eastcote know that their number-one priority in gathering information had to focus very strongly on Central and Eastern Europe. So began a series of quite daring cat-and-mouse missions, eluding the attentions of Soviet fighter planes; the ferrets were fitted with the very latest technology that Dr RV Jones and his fellow scientists could devise.

  The Joint Intelligence Committee had very specific targets for intelligence, as a memo from the time reveals. ‘Development in the Soviet Union of atomic, biological and chemical methods of warfare’ was, naturally enough, at the top of the list. Added to this was the development of ‘scientific principles and interventions leading to new weapons, equipment or methods of warfare’. But war is not just about weapons or the mobilisation of troops. The committee was also desperate to know about ‘Soviet economic successes or reverses (such as the drought of 1946) likely to have an effect on foreign policy’ plus, pressingly, ‘significant internal political developments in the Soviet Union (especially question of succession to Stalin)’.1

  This memo, from 1948, also demonstrated that the codebreakers of Eastcote and their Whitehall masters were even more alert to Stalin’s influence across the world than their American friends. The committee specifically wanted the cryptanalysts to find out all they could about ‘Soviet intentions in Germany and Austria’ and ‘Soviet relations with Jews in Palestine (particularly the extent of Soviet and satellite assistance of emigration)’. They sought information about any Russian manoeuvres in the Arctic; and (although they were later accused of looking in the wrong direction) also investigated any ‘Soviet intentions in China and Korea’.2

  It was not all about the Soviet Union. The codebreakers also had a remit to investigate the Chinese, and the possible outcomes of the struggle between nationalist Chiang Kai-shek and the insurgent Mao Zedong. Despite the crucial listening station in Hong Kong, China and many other countries in the Far East were in danger of becoming a blind spot. In the case of Korea, it was because there was simply not that much traffic to intercept and analyse.

  Nor was it all about a fear of Communism. The codebreakers were asked to carefully monitor ‘clandestine right-wing French and Italian movements’. By the late 1940s, Communism in Western Europe was waning as a political and parliamentary force; but a rising young generation was venting its anger in more than one form of extremism. GCHQ was also asked to penetrate ‘Zionist movements’ and their ‘intelligence services’.3 The chiefs of security in Whitehall must have yearned for Bletchley Park’s almost panopticon view of so many theatres of war; but these were years of instability and unpredictability.

  Despite the vast scale of what was being asked of them, the codebreakers very quickly understood that these kind of operations should really stay within their departmental orbit, rather than that of the War Office (as the Ministry of Defence was called until many years after the war ended) or indeed any of the other services. Not that the aerial ‘ferret’ trawls over hostile territory in the east of Europe resulted in codes that needed breaking; but rather like radio traffic analysis, this was another means of almost providing a real-time commentary on enemy activities and troop dispositions.

  The ‘ferrets’ concerned were Lancaster and Lincoln aeroplanes, specially refitted. The codebreakers began making serious use of them in the late 1940s; taking off from the British-occupied zone in West Germany, the pilots and the crew undertook many risky missions, ever conscious of the serious jeopardy posed by Russian fighters. They flew missions along the borders of regions such as Latvia and Lithuania, over the Baltic, and then further afield to the Black Sea, not straying into Soviet airspace but getting as close as imaginably possible. Some planes, taking off from the Middle East, were circling as far afield as Iran. Richard Aldrich noted that as the technology improved, these planes became flying intelligence fortresses. They were jammed with electronic surveillance equipment that was sometimes amusingly at odds with the now-antiquated planes carrying them.

  For these aviation adventures, the codebreakers had teamed up with the Royal Air Force, which had of course been greatly slimmed down in the aftermath of the war. Pilots were taught about the importance of the work the listeners were doing, and about the vital importance of secrecy. And once a sweep had been made along the borders of East Germany, or Poland, or any of the other target regions, what would then happen to the raw data?

  A specially dedicated RAF base was found for the gathering of all electronic intelligence: Watton in Norfolk. Here was gathered an extraordinary motley collection of outmoded Second World War planes which were all now used by the boffins not merely for grabbing information, but also for purposes of jamming Soviet radio-waves. It was a game that both sides were playing; the Russians were catching up quickly and with some proficiency. While old Halifax planes lurked in the skies of the Eastern European borderlands, Russian planes spiky with antennae were executing similar manoeuvres over Western Europe (and also over American bases scattered in other continents). Naturally, the Americans were swift to join the listeners in the skies: various US aircraft patrolled regions such as the Arctic, remaining alert for any pulses of radar that would signal clandestine enemy activity on the ground below.

  There was some photography too; even though the need to stay out of Soviet airspace meant that the chance to capture images of military installations was limited, there were nonetheless shots that were of great help to the analysts back at base. This combination of intelligence gathering – the monitoring of radar pulses, the photography of bases, the recording of conversations on the ground below – was assembled as a sort of jigsaw of data. None of this was done for its own sake. That widespread sense in the late 1940s that conflict was once more going to flare meant that the patrols – already tense – carried the responsibility of reporting whether the Soviet enemy was just about to launch an attack. For their part, the Soviets, afflicted by the grinding paranoia of Stalin, would have been looking at the West with similar jumpy mistrust. The need for total accuracy on both sides was paramount. Any misinterpretation of movements along the Soviet border could have led to a continent, already on its knees, being forced into another bout of unthinkable carnage.

  The hazards for the crews of these ‘ferret’ flights were occasionally unexpected. Signaller Frank Slee was commended for his bravery and quick thinking when ‘radio counter-measures’ equipment that he was working with in mid-flight overheated and burst into flames. Then there were the attendant technical difficulties of the work. Signaller William Lowther was warmly praised by his superiors for his notable powers of concentration as an on-board wireless operator, reading signals and direction-finding with pinpoint precision under circumstances of great stress and tension.

  The man in charge of ensuring that the RAF’s brave and brilliant collection of intelligence was directed towards Eastcote, rather than the sister security agencies, was Lieutenant Colonel Marr-Johnson, who had a series of meetings with senior RAF commanders. There was another eager customer: Lieutenant Colonel Marr-Johnson’s friends in America. All the data ga
thered by the ferrets was to be shared with the United States; another sign of the closeness of the relationship.

  This was of course just a few years before satellites. Now we all take for granted the idea that on our phones and computers, we can zoom in on pretty much anywhere on earth. After the end of the war, codebreakers and intelligence gatherers looked at maps of the Soviet Union and understood that they knew next to nothing; beyond the Iron Curtain was simply a haze. Michael L Peterson of the American National Security Agency later wrote of this information vacuum, and how intensely nerve-wracking it was.

  ‘Maybe you had to be there in the late 1940s and early 1950s to appreciate the degree of the nation’s concern over the threat posed by the Soviet Union…’ he wrote. ‘Maybe you had to be around also to appreciate the enormous gap in our knowledge of Soviet military and industrial capabilities hidden behind the Iron Curtain… Today if you look at an intelligence map of the former Soviet Union, you probably couldn’t see the geographical features for all the annotations. Covering the depictions of winding rivers, modest mountain ranges, great deserts, and miles and miles of tundra would be circles and squares and diamonds and arrows pointing to boxes of information everywhere.

  ‘…That annotated information map didn’t just happen. The information took years to acquire and validate… In 1945, the Soviet Union might as well have been on Mars.’ Peterson quoted from a 1947 USAF document outlining the peril that the crews of these reconnaissance flights faced. ‘This mission is considered a most hazardous one both from the natural peril and capture standpoints,’ it stated. ‘All flight personnel are volunteers and are fully apprised of possible consequences should the plane be forced to land in foreign territory. The crew is warned that in the event of detention repatriation will be attempted but will probably be unsuccessful. For purposes of cover, the project is described as a weather mission. Equipment for complete demolition of the plane and its equipment has been provided.’4

  As Peterson went on to say, in fact many missions ended rather more violently, with the crews shot down and killed. The principle of ferrets also caused outbreaks of diplomatic fury. The Soviet ambassador in Washington vented his rage in 1947 after two US ferret missions had been detected over Soviet interests in Big Diomede island, near the Arctic Circle. It was also from the frozen far north that American crews made ferret forays into the vast Russian wastes of Siberia.

  The US Navy – which had contributed so heavily towards the codebreaking efforts throughout the war against Japan – was also flying its own ferret missions from aircraft carriers. Amusingly, it was not only the British who had occasion to extemporise. Having decided to take part in ferret flights, the US Navy then realised that it did not have quite enough equipment for the planes to carry. A lot of machinery had been sold as surplus just after the war. The answer? Two US naval technicians were sent out on a shopping expedition. ‘Wearing civilian clothes and carrying large quantities of cash,’ went one naval report, ‘the two chiefs rooted through war surplus stores in New York City. They purchased all the intercept receivers, direction finders, pulse analysers, and other electronic reconnaissance equipment they could locate.’5

  (Incidentally, Michael L Peterson was himself another example of the special spying relationship; before he later became a writer, he was transferred over to England to be a ‘cryptologic staff officer’ at the Forest Moor station in the 1970s.)

  Another ingenious British–American collaboration involved the fathomless oceans: first, the Americans carried out experiments with submarines in the Bering Straits. The idea was that from deep beneath the waves, they could monitor the transmissions of Soviet naval bases. Two submarines were then chosen to undertake more detailed, full-time patrols. They were, according to Professor Richard Aldrich, sailed to Britain in order to be fitted out in Portsmouth. There were new instruments that could be used to detect any missile activity. At the rear of the submarines were specially fitted aerials. The Cochino was one of these submarines, and it set off on a maiden mission to patrol the Barents Sea and to listen out for any traces of Soviet missile use.

  But tragedy and horror struck. Not through enemy action, but because of a vast storm that caused a hull breach. This in turn started a terrible chemical fire. And in the desperate efforts to extinguish it, one man died and others were hideously burned. The peculiarly nightmarish quality of serving on a submarine – in moments of serious jeopardy like that – can only have been heightened by the doubly horrible need for the craft to remain completely undetected by the Soviets, for fear that its technological secrets could be harvested. A companion submarine, the Tusk, came to the aid of the stricken vessel. Now surfaced, and smashed by roaring mountainous waves, the horror intensified as six prospective rescuers from Tusk who were trying to reach Cochino were swept overboard and lost; and yet somehow the wounded crew of Cochino were transferred, via unsteady plank, to the functioning ship, and then taken back to base for treatment.

  No matter how bad the auguries from this initial mission were, these sorts of spy submarine missions were to proliferate greatly; as with all else, the Soviets were very swift to catch up with the Americans’ efforts. Such vessels were extremely effective, capturing evidence of missile testing and details of naval manoeuvres. Some years later on, they would also become involved in terrifying duels, Soviet craft attempting to ram British and American submarines.

  In 1949, the terms of the Cold War were, in a sense, made official by the foundation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), the formal alliance between Western Europe and the United States. Britain’s foreign secretary Ernest Bevin – who had been so anxious for the United Kingdom to acquire its own nuclear capability – was sharply realistic about those who put their faith in more pacific organisations. ‘It seems vital to me’, he declared on one occasion, ‘not to deceive the peoples of the world by leading them to believe that we are creating a United Nations Organisation which is going to protect them from future wars, in which we share our secrets, while we know, in fact, that nothing of the kind is happening.’ Article 5 of the NATO treaty was the opposite of compromise: an armed attack against any one of the member states would be considered an attack against them all, and the response would be gauged accordingly.

  This was one branch of America’s efforts to rebuild a continent with which it could trade; the other was the money that started filtering through via the Marshall Plan. It remains to some of a certain age a rather sore point that while the British were forced into miserable winters of scrimping in order to repay their wartime debts to America, the people of West Germany were boosted by the easier terms on which they were granted a vast injection of cash that led to an economic golden age for the mighty German manufacturing base. But whatever its own interests – the soaring post-war American economy needed Western Europe to regain its feet – the fact remained that this kind of reconstruction was absolutely vital to ensure that the embers of Nazism were fully extinguished. (Indeed, there are still dark suggestions that those embers were more stubborn than most realised; the TV producer who brought the Adolf Eichmann trial to television in 1961, for instance, recalled going to nightclubs in West Germany in the 1950s where old Nazi phrases were still being used by the clientele.)

  And as NATO coalesced, so too did the plans of the US military: another reason Bevin was so determined that Britain should have its own nuclear capability, rather than be shackled to the US. Curtis LeMay, head of US Strategic Air Command, set out a plan for war against the Soviet Union; the firepower that would be required to bring Stalin to his knees. His calculations ran thus: it would take 133 nuclear bombs dropped on 70 Russian cities. Three million civilians were expected to be killed instantly; another four million would be grievously injured. There was a nauseating sense of momentum about such thinking, a gathering idea that the United States might be wise to make a pre-emptive strike before Stalin’s forces got the chance to inflict the same radiated horror upon America’s cities. This, after all, was the natio
n where Senator Joseph McCarthy’s enthusiasm for permanent, rolling witch-hunts against Communists was catching on throughout all sorts of institutions and communities; a nation where a travelling exhibition of American constitutional documents – on board ‘The Freedom Train’ – required entire towns to come out and worship these sacred texts of American exceptionalism when they arrived at the railroad station.

  The curious irony is that the idea of pre-emptive attack was actually forestalled by the growth of the US military-industrial complex, and by the vast financial investments pumped into the quest to perfect bigger, better nuclear bombs: rather than irradiate the whole of Russia (and by extension, inevitably, vast swathes of Europe) could not America’s scientists simply outpace the Soviets and develop super-bombs so nightmarishly terrible in their potential that the Kremlin would be utterly cowed? And so the weapons race – particularly towards the goal of the hydrogen bomb – began.

  And NATO (formed of France, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, the United States, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Denmark) was not just about the Soviet menace either. It was also a means of helping to ensure that Germany, or at least the western half of it, would remain stable. For while the Americans were fretting about Stalin, the French were still rather more acutely anxious about the possibility of their neighbours becoming aggressive once more. While France and Britain were among the first signatories of the NATO treaty, the West Germans were kept out of it: for the time being, they still could not be trusted militarily. For the others, the signing of the treaty saw more waves of American money – this time being spent on military establishments and hardware – shoring up the line between the West and the Soviet bloc. Even as Britain continued with strict rationing, American bases of all varieties sprouted around the British landscape. From the point of view of the codebreakers, this was to include the striking listening establishment at the far tip of Cornwall.