In early 1952, 1 (Canadian) FSS had been reduced to a warrant officer and five NCOs. On 31 March, Captain David Devitt assumed command of 904 FSS and in February 1953 was kept waiting for four days by the Canadian GSO 2 (Intelligence) and then suggested that while the Division may have lost confidence in 904 FSS, the Divisional counter-intelligence strategy was almost non-existent; he then recommended that 904 FSS be reinstated to address Divisional counter-intelligence and nothing else. With the Canadians added to his command, Devitt raised morale by despatching detachments to the two brigades, the Forward Maintenance Area in Seoul and to Pusan and reverted to standard Field Security operations of conducting periodic sweeps for agents, guerrillas and stay-behind parties and carrying out protective security surveys. Gaining ‘hearts and minds’ of a peasant population that was not infrequently bullied by the Republic of Korea (ROK) units helped to create an effective Human Intelligence strategy. At one stage, orders were issued for the arrest of ROK intelligence personnel. The Joint US/British Special Forces Divisional Agent Detachment of Technical Liaison Officers on Cho-Do Island trained and managed Korean ‘runners’, who crossed the front line to collect information. Serving with the unit was Acting/Sergeant C. Jackson, who would be awarded the Military Medal and the US Silver Star. Interrogation was largely the responsibility of the Americans.
During heavy fighting around The Hook in 1953, daily photographic sorties covering the front allowed 104 Army Photographic Interpretation Section to make daily comparisons of imagery to a depth of two miles into the enemy rear areas, enabling it to assess enemy intentions. The results were briefed at the daily Divisional Headquarters ‘Morning Prayers’. Captain Hamish Eaton frequently predicted attacks. Second Lieutenant Brian Parritt (Royal Artillery), later to become one of its most distinguished Directors of the Corps, was serving with 12 (Minden) Field Battery when he was wounded in a 1 Kings raid on several 76mm self-propelled guns located in fifteen caves spread between three re-entrants:
The photos supplied by 104 APIS were invaluable in planning our route as it was dominated on both sides by hills held by the Chinese. I carried an annotated print with me during the attack.
Meanwhile, 904 FSS remained in Korea dealing mainly with security to prevent the theft of stores until September 1954 when its rear party, led by Sergeant Les Maisey, left with the Divisional rearguard. Thereafter, the Intelligence Corps in Hong Kong supported Commonwealth units with regular visits.
Among the prisoners freed after the armistice was signed at Pyongyang on 27 July 1953, was Corporal William Westwood of 1 Glosters, who had been captured when the Battalion surrendered at the Imjin River in April 1951. A former member of the Intelligence Corps, he had been transferred from the Motor Transport Platoon to the Battalion Intelligence Section. Since the Orderly Room and its files had been captured, Westwood was singled out because the Chinese believed him to be Intelligence Corps, which he denied by claiming he was a driver. Held in three Chinese prison camps, he underwent the ‘brainwashing’ phase of indoctrination and conditioning, and the ploy of ‘wearing down’ resistance by long aimless night marches with no apparent destination and being placed in camps where amenities were basic. The Geneva Conventions were not recognized by the Chinese and there was always the threat of being bombed by UN aircraft.. Although conditions improved during 1952 and 1953, rules still governed the prisoners, to the extent of whistles being blown at each stage of a meal – sit down, pick up utensils, commence eating. Nevertheless, Westwood resisted and while in Camp No 2, was one of twenty British and ninety US prisoners, graded as ‘enemies of the people’ after they had secretly planned and then openly celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in May 1953, by making a Union Flag and a Stars and Stripes, parading in their ‘shabby best’ for a short church service and singing the National Anthems as loud as they could. The camp authorities told them they had benefited from leniency but future rebellion would be dealt with harshly. Westwood rejoined the Intelligence Corps after repatriation and recovery but, after the George Blake spy scandal, always believed he was under suspicion as a communist sympathizer because of his captivity. Blake had been held in a Korean detention camp.
Major G.D. Gimblett was part of an American, British and Canadian inquiry into the experiences of prisoners captured by the communists and then formulating a resistance to interrogation strategy. The investigation into the conduct of British prisoners published in the Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea (1955) concluded that while there had been interrogation, indoctrination had been predominant. This led to the recommendation that the British should adhere to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Conventions of releasing only serial number, rank, full name and date of birth with all other questions answered by ‘I cannot answer that question’, a response carefully crafted to mean:
• I cannot answer that question (because I do not have to).
• I cannot answer that question (because I have been told that I do not have to give you the information that you require).
The Intelligence Corps had retained responsibility for interrogation training of the three Armed Forces from first-line battlefield tactical questioning to in-depth interrogation, the principles of ‘no hands on’ developed by Colonel Stevens at Camp 020 maintained. The Corps also became responsible for managing the resistance to interrogation of prone-to-capture service personnel, which in practical training exercises, meant simulating some techniques used by communist interrogators during the Korean War, including using ‘white noise’, hooding, periods of stress positions and rationing sleep, food and water in holding centres and under strictly controlled conditions to ensure that ‘prisoners’ are not exposed to physical and mental suffering. They collectively became known as the Five Techniques. Interrogators were trained not to use them during the debriefing process. Part of the training included the powerful black-and-white film I Can’t Answer That Question, in which aircrew and interrogators were filmed on a practical exercise. An updated version using actors produced in 1985 did not have the same impact.
West Germany
By 1951 the Corps establishment of 472 officers and 1,071 other ranks was bigger than the War Office anticipated in 1948; however, most were National Servicemen deployed in operations, in West Germany and overseas garrisons. The mainstay remained Field Security, Photographic Interpretation and Signals Intelligence, but inadequate numbers of Regulars and career officers meant that the continuity of wartime experience slowly faded. The crisis led to Field Security sections in West Germany struggling with inexperienced officers and limited resources to provide security advice, vet locally employed civilians and liaise with the national and local police agencies. That they continued to function efficiently in a long period of limited recognition is a tribute to the Intelligence Corps esprit de corps. Many demobilized Intelligence Corps returned to the Intelligence Division as civilian intelligence officers in an era when de-Nazification and occupation standards were being replaced by memoranda of understanding and contractual agreements governing British intelligence activities in the sovereign state of an ally, West Germany. While effective relationships had been established with the emerging West German intelligence and security services, many of whose officers had direct experience with Soviet methods, low morale among civilian intelligence officers, perceiving themselves to be cheap Civil Service labour, led to Major General John Kirkman CB CBE, then commanding the Intelligence Division and former deputy to Major General Davidson, negotiating that they should fill intelligence posts on Civil Service pay scales. He also recommended that the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch be transferred to the War Office and covert operations to MI6. By this time, MI5 and MI6 had transferred to Home Office and Foreign Office control as the Security Services and Security Intelligence Services respectively. In 1952, Northern Army Group, which was British-commanded and reported through Allied Forces, Central Europe to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, was formed in Bad Oyenhausen from 1 (British) Corps and a Corps each
supplied by Belgium, The Netherlands and West Germany. The three divisions of 1st (British) Corps had reinforcements earmarked from Great Britain.
Major R.T. Brown reformed existing Intelligence Teams and eight Field Security sections into HQ Field Security (BAOR) at Herford and deployed 1 FSS to Osnabruck, 72 to Hamlen, 93 to Luneburg, 100 to Dusseldorf, 273 to Bunde, 309 in Berlin, 902 at Hamburg and 905 FSS at Krefeld. In 1948 Sergeant Schwartz of 100 FSS had tracked and arrested the former Nazi Governor of Cologne in the US sector. Formed in Rangoon in 1947 from sections disbanded in Burma, and moving to Hannover in 1951, 905 FSS had provided Boundary Intelligence Teams detachments at Lübeck, Lauenburg and Helmstedt. In 1953 the Krefeld Field Security section assumed responsibility for providing lines of communication security from Great Britain to the Hook of Holland, Antwerp and the West Rhine military area, which included covering the troop trains. The Berlin Intelligence Staff was commanded by a Principal Intelligence Officer subordinated to the Intelligence Division and acting as security advisor to the Berlin Garrison commander and intelligence co-ordinator with the American and French military and civilian intelligence and security agencies. In 1954 West Germany and Italy joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Next year, the Soviet forces in East Germany, reformed as the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, were absorbed into the Warsaw Pact military alliance. Third Shock Army, with its Headquarters at Magdeburg, was of particular interest to the British.
While Field Security suffered, Photographic Intelligence and Signals Intelligence was becoming increasingly important to BAOR, a permanent cause of anxiety being the huge former Nazi training area bisected by the border of Letzlinger Heath in East Germany and Lüneburg Heath and Soltau in West Germany providing a platform for an armoured thrust. No. 1 Wireless Regiment at Bunde maintained an electronic watch on the Soviets but its nearest voice-intercept station to the border was 101 Wireless Troop at Hildesheim, but it was insufficiently close to Letzlinger Heath. In 1951 the Troop, which included Intelligence Corps analysts masquerading as Royal Signals, pitched tents in a field near the hamlet of Langeleben on the Elm feature midway between Brunswick and Helmstedt. Pleasant in the summer, wet in the autumn and bracing in winter, initially the only heating was in R series box body lorries and a tin shed doubling as the cookhouse. In 1953 the Troop sent an advanced Detachment to the opulent comfort of the former Luftwaffe officers mess at RAF Gatow in Berlin, but it suffered from the defection of Corporal Brian Patchett which was announced by the East German News Agency on 6 July. Mystery surrounds his disappearance. An interim investigation discounted hostile intelligence agency involvement and suggested a breakdown after he had been rejected by a girlfriend; indeed, on 2 July he had written to her that he was defecting. In 1955 wooden huts and a cookhouse replaced the tents and life gradually became more comfortable. Operations remained a cruciform of box-bodied lorries. Welfare was initially limited to a truck taking off-duty soldiers to Königslutter. The 1956 Hungarian Uprising provided some excitement when plans were circulated to defend the camp against Russian tanks! In 1957 101 Wireless Troop reformed as No. 2 Squadron, 1 Wireless Regiment when it moved to Mercury Barracks, Birgelen near the Dutch border where, two years later, it reformed as 13 Signal Regiment (Radio) and transmitter of strategic information to the Government Communications Headquarters. As 2 Squadron it consisted of Intelligence Corps; 3 Squadron was co-located with the RAF in Berlin.
When a new joint BAOR and RAF (Germany) headquarters was built on marshland near the village of Rheindahlen, about ten miles west of Moenchengladbach, 273 FSS provided security support. In 1951, enlarged to about fifty NCOs, it had moved to the opulent house of the proprietor of the Herforder Pils brewery, complete with tennis court, oak-panelled dining room and Bechstein piano, but, within the year, it was ejected by the Postal Unit Officers Mess to a house in Bunde until May 1954, when it moved to Moenchengladbach. In 1955 905 FSS covered the move of HQ BAOR and NORTHAG to Rheindahlen. The archives record:
A farcical situation developing when section personnel were posted as guards at sensitive office locations throughout the new headquarters to prevent unauthorised individuals from gaining access. ‘Unauthorised personnel’ included the staff officers who would soon occupy these offices, but not the MSO and GCLO drivers and removers who nonchalantly carried uncovered Top Secret map boards past their owners, who were left seething at the entrances to their own corridors.
The following year the Intelligence Division reformed as the, now civilian, British Security Service Organisation (BSSO) and retained its primary counter-intelligence function against the Russian Intelligence Service and domestic threats. HQ BAOR agreed that the BSSO should be managed by the Security Services on the proviso that its Director was a Service officer, a concept that was agreed in 1961. The Berlin office was renamed Berlin Intelligence Staff in 1954 and remained charged with maintaining the protective security of military units and provision of counter-intelligence in the British Zone.
The Canal Zone (Egypt)
In 1936 Egypt had agreed a defence treaty against Italian aspirations that allowed the British to keep 10,000 troops in the country until 1956. GHQ Middle East Command covered a huge area. HQ Field Security Wing in Ismailia, commanded by Major Bickerton-Edwards, had, on paper, sixty-four FS sections including:
• Five sections in Egypt reflecting the importance of the Suez Canal.
• 24 FSS in Athens and Salonika in Greece.
• 3 (1st Infantry Division) FSS in Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya.
• 261 FSS in Asmara, Eritrea on port security duties and supporting operations against Shifta (rebels) until 1950.
• 299 FSS in Famagusta, Cyprus.
• Two sections in East Africa covering a million square miles that included Kenya and Somaliland encompassing 700 tribes and their associated dialects and several thousand European, Asian, Mauritian and Goan expatriates.
• Supporting British forces in Sudan.
After leaving Palestine, the Strategic Reserve, namely 3rd Infantry Division, moved to Egypt but nationalist demands led to the Egyptians abrogating the treaty. Serious anti-British disturbances led to the garrison moving from the comforts of Cairo and Alexandria to partially completed barracks and camps in the less salubrious Canal Zone centring on Ismailia and ill-named Sweetwater Canal. The Canal Zone quickly became a running sore as militant Liberation Battalions attacked Service dependants, ambushed patrols and vehicles along the Moascar/Abu Sueir/Tel El-Kebir road, kidnapped and murdered British servicemen and intimidated the 66,000 locally employed workforce. The only Intelligence Corps to be killed in Egypt was Captain Charles Kelsey, of the Air Photographic Interpretation Unit (Middle East), shot outside his married quarter on 18 November 1951. The quality of life of the self-styled ‘FS Types’ mirrored the experiences of the garrison – flies, overcrowded accommodation, tents, unreliable vehicles transferred from Palestine and learning the value of motor-cycles for escaping ambushes and incidents. At Port Said, 251 FSS took responsibility for the northern segment of the Suez Canal. Operating as the district section, 36 FSS was in the centre at Moascar, near Ismailia, with responsibility for the huge Ordnance Depot at Tel-el-Kebir and its 17-mile perimeter. Sergeant Maurice Oldfield supervised the security of families evacuated from Palestine living in the former military hospital at Helmiah. Thefts from depots were constant. At Camp Gordon at El Ballah, Field Security NCOs were not infrequently summoned to explain to commanding officers why they had tried to prevent officers leaving camp without signing out their female companions; some were Service dependants.
Meanwhile, 284 FSS at Port Tewfik and Suez, with a detachment supporting GHQ Middle East on the north-western shores of the Great Bitter Lake at Kabrit Point, were accommodated in a small house overlooking the Canal Road that teemed with dockers, stevedores and labourers. It was bombed in 1947 by the Muslim Brotherhood in one of the regular riots. Several NCOs accommodated in tents in the grounds were guarded by a terrier named De Gaulle who ambu
shed anyone unwise enough to approach their encampment. The section also patrolled the Oil Jetty and other parts of the harbour, including the Blue Nest night club, the Moses Wells refugee camp on the Sinai Peninsula and Suez town, using a 20ft flat-bottomed launch steered by an Egyptian coxswain struggling to prevent it from being buffeted off course by strong winds in case it ended up in the furthest reaches of the Red Sea. Working closely with 284 FSS was 253 FSS which, in 1948, shortly after reforming at Spearhead Camp in Moascar as the 3rd Infantry Division Field Security section, had its offices bombed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The section also provided railway security for the Cairo to Haifa trains, which involved liaising with the Train Security Officer, patrolling the carriages and sometimes clambering onto the roofs to deter Arab thieves and Jewish terrorists reaching through open windows to steal the weapons of sleeping soldiers. When Sergeant John Bisby shot a thief who had stolen a weapon, the military police were less than impressed when it emerged that it belonged to one of its NCOs who had failed to report the theft.
The Intelligence Corps connection with the Long Range Desert Group resurfaced in 1947 when the FSO, Captain A.W.R. ‘Pop’ Locke, who had served with the Group and with No. 1 Demolition Squadron, commonly referred to as ‘Popski’s Private Army’, convinced Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Fugelsang, at HQ Field Security, that the chances of apprehending Jewish and Arab arms smugglers could be improved by patrolling the Sinai Desert as far east as the Dead Sea and south to Aqaba in Jordan. Patrols usually consisted of four jeeps mounted with Bren guns, two Chevrolet 15cwt lorries and a Dodge half-track armed with two 2in mortars and towing a 250 gallon water trailer. The RAF resupplied patrols by parachute. The Suez Canal, Lakes Timsah and Manzala and the Bitter Lakes were scouted in the fast launch The Char with fishing boats checked for smuggled weapons. Wharves where ammunition and stores were landed were also checked. On one occasion the NCOs intercepted German prisoners of war separating a box of tinned fruit from a consignment they were unloading from a railway wagon.
Sharing the Secret Page 31
