Sharing the Secret

by Nick van der Bijl

  Literally within days of Dunkirk, the British began raiding Occupied Europe. The first time that the Intelligence Corps became associated with Commando Forces was through Captain Anthony Smith, who was Adjutant and Intelligence Officer in No. 4 Commando when it was commanded by Lord Lovat. The Commando had been formed in June 1940 and was the first to see action at Vaagso in December 1941. In 1942 Captain John Coates was appointed as the Intelligence and Security Officer, No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando. When Jews were permitted to enlist in mid-August, he, Lieutenant Colonel Williams, the Combined Operations Security Officer, and Captain Peter Lee met at the War Office to discuss a proposal to form a Troop of mainly Jews in addition to the French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Polish Troops. Coates interviewed applicants at the Grand Central Hotel, Marylebone, mostly German-speaking East European Jewish refugees, some recently released after internment on the Isle of Man and in Canada and Australia. Some had served with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps in France and described themselves as ‘The King’s Own Aliens’. The forty-four that Coates selected were sent to 10 Pioneer Corps Training Centre, Bradford and those that completed the Basic Commando Course were formed into 3 Troop, badged into infantry regiments and supplied with false personal histories capable of surviving interrogation that would give some protection from the 1941 Reich Citizenship Law in which Germans serving in enemy forces were categorised as traitors. The Troop was also variously known as X, English and British Troop. Just one senior War Office civil servant knew their real identities. Prior to the Dieppe raid in 1942, Lieutenant Goronwy Rees (Welsh Guards) was instructed by GHQ Home Forces G Intelligence to deliver a parcel containing thousands of francs to a commando sergeant waiting underneath the clock at Victoria Station. The money was to be given to five 3 Troop Czechs, who, with two Canadian Intelligence Corps Field Security sergeants, were tasked to collect documents and intelligence from Dieppe Town Hall. The Canadian Intelligence Corps had been formed in October 1942 and lost three killed at Dieppe. Rees turned out to be part of the Cambridge University Apostles spy ring along with Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt. Captain Smith landed with No. 4 Commando on the right flank and took a photograph of a landing craft at the base of a cliff evacuating troops. Captain Coates also ran a two-week Intelligence course at Llanllwni, near Harlech, for the Troop Intelligence Sections that consisted of an officer, sergeant and three privates, except for 3 Troop which had a lance-corporal and three privates. In mid-February 1943, he focused on German tactics, uniforms and insignia and vehicle recognition and then in the spring Coates requisitioned Roborough School, Eastbourne when the Commando moved to South-East England in preparation for raiding operations. In 1943, with landings in Italy imminent, he formed 7 (Yugoslavian) Troop in North Africa from the Royal Yugoslavian Army stationed in Egypt to provide interpreters for Nos. 4 (Belgian) and 6 (Polish) Troops scheduled to join 2 Special Service Brigade in Italy in December 1943. On 5 October, Coates handed over to Lieutenant Maidment and was posted to No. 30 Commando. In 1944, he parachuted in as part of the SOE Hungary Section mission to prevent the Germans destroying equipment as they withdrew, but was captured. After rough interrogations by the Germans and Hungarians, he organized the escapes of several fellow prisoners before escaping himself and reaching Soviet lines.

  To cater for US forces arriving in southern England and to meet the enlargement of the Intelligence Corps, the majestic Wentworth Woodhouse country seat of the Fitzwilliam family, six miles from Sheffield, was selected as HQ Intelligence Corps. The Corps establishment had risen from 492 officers and 2,427 other ranks in January 1941 to 1,560 and 3,492 within the year. In late October 1942, the Depot, Quartermasters and Other Ranks’ Wing moved into the magnificent stables near the main entrance of the estate while the HQ and Officers’ Wing moved into the main house six months later. The cookhouse and NAAFI were located in the riding school. Towards the end of the war, military training took place at Beaumaris in North Wales.

  Intakes of about eighty undertook a twenty-eight week course managed by 2 (Training) Company. After arriving at Rotherham Station on Tuesdays from training regiments, the new platoon were issued with bedding and allocated to double-tiered beds in Nissen huts. Furniture was sparse and the ablutions basic. After tea, the platoon was issued with leather motor-cycling coats, helmets and gauntlets from the Company Quartermaster and the next day were allocated their motor-cycles from a mix of about 120 machines that included BSA 500ccs, Norton 16s, Ariel 350ccs, 350cc Royal Enfields and Matchless GL3s from several sheds. Divided into sections of six under an instructor, the next three weeks were spent learning to ride on a cinder track and then roads and finally conquering the hazards of cross-country, negotiating obstacles from climbing slag heaps to streams and a bear pit. Only sand was missing, although mud and water was not. The last two days was spent on tests. In spite of crashes, spills and sometimes terminal damage to the bikes, only one soldier is thought to have been seriously injured when his machine caught fire. The course was generally considered to be great fun, as it had been in 1939. This intake was not expected to do guards or fatigues. The training schedule was usually 8.45am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday. Recreation was not forgotten, with lorries taking off-duty soldiers to Rotherham and Sheffield either for a night out or a weekend’s leave. The platoon then moved into rooms in the stables, each named after a famous British battle and more luxurious with single beds and hot and cold water, and a three-week phase of learning British Army organization and administration, weapon training, drill, physical fitness and obstacle crossing, report writing and map reading. The third phase of three weeks was reinforcing military training by exercising on the Yorkshire moors. Finally, an intensive fortnight was spent on Field Security at the School of Military Intelligence, first at Matlock and then, from 1945, at Frensham, near Farnham, Surrey. Some students spent a week with the Sheffield City Police Criminal Investigation Department learning investigation and the application of forensic evidence.

  On passing out from training the platoon was posted to 3 (Holding) Company in the Nissan hut complex to await their movement orders. Activities included further driver training. Among those who trained at Wentworth Woodhouse was Sapper Justin Brooke, a Finnish and Swedish speaker, who had been a member of the 1936 Public Schools Exploring Society expedition to Finland. When, in November 1939, the Soviet Union, then allied to Germany, attacked Finland, he was among several thousand volunteers who assisted the Finns defeat the Red Army. Many stayed after the ceasefire and deployed along the Soviet border; however, when the volunteers were demobilized in May 1940, many were trapped in Finland by the German occupation of Denmark and Norway. Brooke spent the next year learning Finnish and then, when Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the volunteers travelled by train to Sweden and were flown to RAF Leuchars on the weekly diplomatic flight. Brooke returned in April 1942 and when asked why he had not answered his 1940 call-up papers, he replied that he had been in Finland. After basic training with 1 Training Battalion Royal Engineers in Clitheroe, he took a language test in London with two corporals and passed out from Wentworth as a member of the Intelligence Corps.

  When air photographs showing a feature near a villa at Bruneval a few miles north-east of Le Havre landed on the desks of Captain Neil Simon and Lieutenant George Farmer in 1942, they believed, at first, that it was an artillery emplacement and then a machine-gun post. When Dr Reginald Jones, of the Air Ministry, saw the photographs, he identified the emplacement to be a Wurzburg radar used in the coastal air defence of the Atlantic coast. In preparation for a raid by C Company, 2 Parachute Battalion and 1 Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers, a RAF sculptor built a briefing model for the ultimately successful raid, while Captain Tom Churchill annotated imagery. When Churchill later joined the Commandos, R (Combined Operations) Section led the way in exploiting air photography as an intelligence aid to operations.

  Germany had used long-range artillery during the First World War but in 1931 the Treaty of Versailles forbade
further development, so her scientists exploited the fact that rockets were not mentioned and established a research centre, first at the Kummersdorf West Weapons Range, near Berlin and then, in 1937, at Peenemunde on the Baltic Coast. In 1939, MI6 learnt about Peenemunde but was uncertain about its function until 1942, when fragmentary reports reached London suggesting a test flight of a rocket in October 1941 that was capable of reaching London from northern France. This was the ramp-launched Fieseler Fi-103 Vergeltung-1 (V-1). Conversations between Generals Crüwell and von Thoma, who had both been captured in North Africa, were monitored at Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, Cockfosters in March 1943 revealed the latter mentioning rocket developments at Kummersdorf West. The possibility of rockets being launched from Europe led to an urgent campaign to neutralize the threat, which included Afrika Korps prisoners captured in Tunis and en route to prison camps in the USA being subjected to a three minute interrogation to identify any who had been to Kummersdorf or Peenemunde. Pay books, as always, proved useful in identifying postings. The first evidence of rocket developments at Peenemunde emerged when a Photographic Reconnaissance Spitfire returned with film showing long cylindrical objects. More sorties added detail and then, on 12 June, Flight Officer Constance Babington-Smith identified a V-1 rocket positioned on a trailer parked near an emplacement. Nearby was a vertical column identified as a water tower. Her nephew joined the Intelligence Corps in the 1960s and focused on Photographic Interpretation.

  Although concerns were raised that the observations could be a hoax, this was undermined when a German Air Ministry circular circulated to Luftwaffe experimental stations was intercepted at Bletchley Park giving revised instructions for applying for petrol coupons. Peenemunde was on the list. After Captain E. Espenhahn (King’s Own), who had led a team plotting the air defences protecting the Mohne See for the ‘Dam Buster’ raid by 617 Squadron in May, produced a report confirming a research establishment at Peenemunde, against the backdrop of a full moon during the night of 17/18 August, Bomber Command raided the establishment and killed some involved in the research and disrupted weapons development. Another raid a week later targeting the rocket laboratory attracted controversy because V-1 production had been moved to Kassel; nevertheless, Dr. Walter Thiel, who was in charge of V-2 engine development, was killed.

  In October, intelligence from France indicated that the Pas de Calais was connected with the rockets; however, it was not until early November that the dispersal of heavy cloud allowed RAF and US 8th Army Air Force air photographic reconnaissance aircraft to fly virtually every square mile of the French coast from Cherbourg to the Belgian border. At Medmenham, B2 Section, APIS commanded by Captain Simon scoured the French coast for evidence and when the Northern France Section, managed by Captain Robert Rowell, was unable to keep up with quantity, Simon stepped in to help. Their interpretations uncovered a sizeable concrete structure at Watten near Calais and two other locations connected by railway lines. Wing Commander Douglas Kendall, who had operational command of Central Interpretation Unit, reorganized his Army interpreters into a section commanded by Simon to deal with Bodyline, the codeword given to the interpretation of the V-Weapon capability. Next day, after Captain Rowell presented his findings to Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the Cabinet, it was agreed that the Germans had developed a missile. Major Falcon endorsed the conclusion and by Christmas his interpreters had identified 120 V-weapon sites in the Pas de Calais. After Rowell took responsibility for Bodyline, after Christmas 1944, his interpreters unearthed tactical launch sites that were far better concealed than before. Lieutenant Geoffrey MacBride joined B2 Section and described the scenario:

  From January to September 1944 I was exclusively specialized in V-weapons. During the early months I worked on the V-1. After the RAF had destroyed all but one of the Mark 1 V-1 launching sites, Mark 2 sites, which were very much harder to detect, began to proliferate like wildfire in France. There were no associated buildings apart from the little square building. This, the ramp and a little hardstanding, were built in woods and forests, close to the edge so that the projectile emerged from the ramp in open country. Many escaped detection until their first misfire, when a large shallow crater would appear in open country near the edge of a wood. Such launch failures were fortunately fairly frequent. You can imagine the pressure on our team to find these new sites was extremely heavy.

  As the months of 1944 passed, a second section commanded by Captain Rowell and supported by Major Espenham, began monitoring V-2 development in an operation codenamed Crossbow. In his team were three Auxiliary Territorial Service photographic interpreters. Both sections cross-referred their interpretations with intelligence from other sources, some of it of a clandestine nature – a conversation overheard in a Berlin café, information from a missile acquired by the Polish resistance, agents in France; an anti-Nazi industrialist boasting shortly before he fled to Switzerland. After being awarded the Military Medal for Dunkirk, Sergeant Jouault was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and joined MI6. For two years he worked in the forced labour Todt Organisation, mainly on the V-1 rocket sites in France, and sent intelligence by mailing postcards to an agent living in Avranches. His brother, Richard, who was killed in the Battle of Britain, was the first Jersey Distinguished Flying Cross of the war. Jouault was later awarded the Military Cross. An unexplained site near Calais turned out to be for a quick-firing long range gun. And then in the summer of 1944, MacBride wrote:

  So we were going mad looking at photographs for non-existent tubes or ramps. No-one on our side could, at this stage, conceive a rocket which could stand upright on its tailfins and slowly rise up without aids from any launching structure. The rather shaming truth was that we already possessed an excellent vertical stereo pair (of photographs) standing upright, taken at Peenemunde shortly before the RAF raid of July 1943, and casting a very revealing shadow. I well remember the shock we all had when we turned up this old sortie in the summer of 1944 and recognised it for what it was.

  The APIS was upgraded to the Army Photographic Interpretation Unit. Commanded by Major Simon, who had a severe stammer, the scientist in him prevented him from jumping to immediate conclusions and consequently the quality of Army interpretation improved dramatically. By 31 May, a week before D-Day, his organization consisted of sixty-one officers and thirty-three other ranks. In March, four interpreters were detached to RAF Benson to analyze imagery as soon as the aircraft landed. By D-Day, Allied air photographic had undertaken a detailed study of the German defences, had processed 1,093,500 prints and contributed to the production of specially printed 1:25,000 annotated maps for the assault divisions that showed navigation markers, underwater obstacles, beach defences, machine gun and artillery positions, strong points and pillboxes and minefields and beach exits, from which briefing models were made. Inland, ‘Rommel’s Asparagus’ of anti-glider poles was plotted so that airborne sappers could take sufficient explosive to breach the defences of batteries. Nevertheless, German counter-measures deceived the interpreters. Merville Battery, the objective of 9 Parachute Battalion, had no guns and the coastal guns at Ouistreham, the objective of No. 4 Commando, had been replaced with telegraph poles.

  When the landings in Normandy were agreed at the Tehran Conference in 1943, Churchill had said, ‘The truth is so precious that she must be protected by a bodyguard’. So was born Operation Bodyguard – a series of diversionary operations that were designed to allow the Germans to construct a misleading Allied order of battle. Operation Fortitude replaced the SOE Operation Cockade in three components. Fortitude North suggested that the non-existent British Fourth Army, based around the Firth of Forth, would land in Norway. In April eight Abwehr agents who landed in small boats to check out Iceland were arrested and sent to Camp 020. Fortitude South set out to delay the deployment of reserves from northern France and thereby isolate Seventh Army in Normandy by hinting, in Operation Quicksilver, that the Twenty-First Army Group and First US Army Group, the latter a fict
itious force commanded by General George Patton, would land in the Pas de Calais.

  The neutralization of German agents in Great Britain helped the deception, but other measures, such as controlled diplomatic leaks, proved less productive. Disinformation spread by the Double Cross using five German agents, two women and three men, to transmit disinformation proved successful. Roman Czerniawski was a Polish officer who had run an intelligence network in France until he was captured. Agreeing to be sent to England to develop a pro-German political party among exiled Poles and report on military activity, he volunteered his services to the Allies at the London Patriotic School. Codenamed ‘Brutus’ by MI5, his case officer was Major The Honourable Hugh Waldorf. A natural meddler, he created a fictitious network of agents and fooled the Germans into believing that he was serving with a Polish unit in First US Army Group. Intercepts at Bletchley Park helped judge the effectiveness of Fortitude. Although the deception was nearly compromised when a German intelligence officer of one of the five agents was smuggled into France from Lisbon by the Gestapo, the Germans were completely hoodwinked. In October 1944, Colonel Bevan, the Controlling Officer for strategic deception at the War Cabinet wrote to Brigadier Petrie: