One Day in August
Page 10
The change in fortune was in large part directly attributable to the new-found ability of the Operational Intelligence Centre to locate U-boats at sea and redirect vulnerable convoys away from potentially disastrous collisions—a move that saved more than three hundred merchant vessels from the clutches of these deadly underwater predators.17 It also provided the Admiralty with the “tremendous advantage” of knowing “continuously and in minute detail” how German naval authorities were reacting to the various anti-submarine weapons and operational tactics the British were trying out.18 All these developments had a huge impact on Dönitz, eventually forcing him to pull his U-boat fleet out of the Atlantic to regroup.19 Although the inexperience of his new crews and the growing demands of other theatres of battle such as the Baltic and the highly charged Mediterranean played a role, his decision to withdraw stemmed largely from his crews’ inability to find and sink merchant vessels.
The turnaround in British fortunes was stunning. It was explained in part by the sheer guts, determination and skill of the commanders and crews of Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships and aircraft. In practical terms, the success was the cumulative result of superior strategy and doctrine, sound convoy organization, increased air support, and a greater number of escort forces, including destroyers and corvettes. Added to this mix were the development and improvement of new and existing anti-submarine technologies such as ASDIC (sonar), radar, and high-frequency direction finding (HF/DF or “Huff Duff”), all of which were used to track U-boats at close range above or below the surface.
Most significant of all, Special Intelligence had now exploded onto the scene. The cryptographic abilities of Bletchley Park, buttressed by the other forms of signals intelligence and by the deft work of the staff of the Operational Intelligence Centre in translating all this information into focused activity, had led to unparalleled success on the high seas by the middle of 1941—something that Ian Fleming and John Godfrey in NID, not to mention Alan Turing, Peter Twinn and Frank Birch at Bletchley Park, could only dream of after the postponement of Operation Ruthless in October 1940.
The cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park recognized that the dramatic success they were enjoying did not result, at this point, from any major technological breakthrough. Rather, it stemmed directly from the concerted efforts by the NID and Bletchley’s Naval Section, backed by the Admiralty, to implement a uniform and systematic approach to pinching.
By the end of 1940, the British had acknowledged the crucial importance of pinched material to cryptographic breakthroughs. Theoretically, there was no limit to the complexity possible in cryptography: with every alteration, tweak or fundamental change in the messaging systems, the cryptographers’ difficulties increased, and their chances of breaking into the codes by analytical means dropped further. The only way they could make progress was through a steady supply of pinched Enigma machines or parts and the supporting code books and setting sheets. Fortunately, because the German navy relied heavily on radio communications to coordinate its actions, equipment of all kinds was widely distributed on shore and to U-boats and ships of all kinds at sea, making it vulnerable to seizure and exploitation so long as it could be stolen without the Germans catching on.20
For years after the war, the only information historians had about pinch raids came from anecdotal evidence or from the limited number of after-action reports written by a few participants in pinch operations. Documents related to the pinch policy and doctrine—the framework or “playbook” for carrying out these operations—remained classified until 2013, when GCHQ agreed to release a set of Ultra Secret documents to me that established just how the British planned to carry out these operations. What I soon discovered was that, following the “tentative and crude” attempts in 1940, a clear and distinct pinch policy began to emerge early in 1941, which, as the year wore on, proved “well-informed and practical.” Thereafter the British spared no effort in developing techniques they could use whenever the opportunity for pinching arose.21
Pinch operations, I learned from these released documents, were loosely divided into categories—by chance, by opportunity and by design—reflecting a more mature and systematic approach than previously suggested. The first type, “pinch by chance,” involved the incidental capture of enemy intelligence material during the course of an unrelated action. As the Admiralty gained more experience with these opportunities, it published a series of general advisories in the form of a Confidential Admiralty Fleet Order (CAFO), laying out the ground rules for British crews, whether boarding parties or raiders, to follow so they could exploit chance discoveries as they arose and cover their accomplishments with plausible excuses or security measures.
These advisories had two objectives: to create a general awareness among the crews of the importance of this material within the context of the overall war effort, and to make clear the vital need for crews not only to capture the materials but to bring them safely home, protecting them from overzealous boarding parties bent on looting or ransacking vessels (as had occurred on one ship, the Polaris, in early 1940). These orders included detailed photographs and diagrams to assist boarding parties in their tasks, with suggestions about possible locations where they might find what they were after on a particular vessel. The orders also gave strict instructions for the safe delivery of the Enigma machine, if one was captured, and its ancillary code books and setting sheets into British hands. The Enigma machine “should be carefully packed and forwarded to the Director of Naval Intelligence [John Godfrey, in London] … by the quickest possible route” under officer guard and “should not be touched or disturbed in any way, except as necessary for its removal and packing.” 22
The second category, “pinch by opportunity,” called for quick planning when a particularly attractive target or set of targets came into reach as the result of a planned operation on sea or land. Usually that meant piggybacking the pinch onto an existing operation or one in embryo, allowing the size and scope of the planned operation to provide both the convenient delivery vehicle and the security cover for the pinch.
In the third category, “pinch by design,” the pinch itself formed the imperative or main driver for the entire mission. In other words, the pinch was not the caboose or passenger car hitched to the locomotive for the ride—it was either one of the locomotives or the only locomotive pulling the train. In this case, to ensure surprise and cover, a much larger operation was built up around the pinch to conceal the truth.
The essential precursors to any successful pinch operation, whether by opportunity or by design, lay in surprise, shock and security. As soon as the first contact was made, the clock began to tick in a race against time between the force attempting to pinch the material and the defenders bent on destroying whatever sensitive equipment and paperwork they possessed. To reduce the German defenders’ chances of success, the British plans instructed the raiders to appear suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, to close in at top speed, and to employ heavy firepower either to kill the defenders or to create enough confusion so they could be overwhelmed before they destroyed anything of value. In this respect, the British hoped to exploit what they interpreted as the “cultural characteristics” of their German enemy. As one observer noted: “Theirs is the normal occidental attitude, personal safety first. Hence, under surprise attack, only a certain amount of classified material is destroyed, only as much as can be accomplished without endangering the individual responsible.” 23
For reasons of security, the raiders had to cover both the true intent of the mission and any success they might achieve. The Germans must never be able to discern what they had been after or if they had succeeded in capturing any vital materials. So John Godfrey’s Naval Intelligence Division in the Admiralty designed operations that provided elaborate covers for the pinch—an approach akin to using a steamhammer to crack a nut. They surrounded the pinch with disproportionate force, to give the appearance that anything they stole had simply come by chance or that their objectiv
e was something much larger or more orthodox in nature. In theory, this reasoning was sound: no enemy would ever suspect that the allocation of such large amounts of resources was merely a cover for a different purpose. And that disbelief was exactly what the British were counting on.
Because of the sensitive nature of all these pinch operations, responsibility remained firmly in the hands of Godfrey and his well-organized Naval Intelligence Division in London. But Bletchley Park’s highly secret Naval Section, housed in Huts 4 and 8, was designated to receive the captured enemy naval documents immediately after they arrived in England so the code-breakers there could put them to use. In some cases Frank Birch, the director of the Naval Section, and members of his staff drafted and revised the Confidential Admiralty Fleet Orders or suggested possible targets for pinches.24 One of the most gifted of the highly accomplished experts in the Naval Section was the young Cambridge history undergraduate Harry Hinsley, whose skills in interpreting decrypts and the other fruits of signals intelligence were unrivalled, as was his ability to sense that something was afoot from an accumulation of tiny clues.
In general, though, Godfrey and the NID controlled the drawstrings for any pinch operation, and input from Bletchley’s Naval Section was secondary and responsive in nature. Other than noting what the experts in the Naval Section required, the NID was under no obligation to act on the methods suggested by Frank Birch to obtain the desired material. Together with Ian Fleming, who had a firm understanding of cryptography and a key role in Section 17 “to co-ordinate intelligence” and liaise between the NID and the other intelligence bodies, Godfrey could move ahead confidently to organize and launch pinch operations without the knowledge of the Naval Section.25 In an effort to maintain that authority and channel Birch’s increasing demands, Godfrey created an official liaison position with Bletchley Park to reinforce the direct link already handled by Fleming, who visited there regularly. Early in 1941 Godfrey posted several representatives from his NID to Bletchley; they were expected to find out precisely what the Naval Section and the cryptographers needed for their work, help plan the pinch operation, and physically go into action with the attacking forces and bring the critical stolen material home.
Harry Hinsley (later Sir Harry) at his desk in Cambridge, where he was a history undergraduate before being recruited to Bletchley Park at the age of twenty-one. His skills in interpreting decrypts and analyzing enemy wireless traffic patterns were unrivalled, and he had an uncanny ability to sense that something was afoot. (photo credits 4.2)
Code-breakers using modified British Typex cipher machines in Hut 6. On September 6, 1941, Winston Churchill made a rare visit to Bletchley, visiting Huts 3 and 6. As Anne Hamilton-Grace would write in her diary: “In came the PM himself, smoking the proverbial cigar and looking very well and pleased with life,” and after reviewing their work he announced, “Well, if we don’t win the war with information like that I don’t know how we shall win it!” She reported him saying in his speech outside the main house that day: “It is amazing that a place that looks so simple can really be so sinister.” (photo credits 4.3)
Very few people have heard of, let alone ventured to, the Lofoten Islands—a tiny snow-swept archipelago just inside the Arctic Circle off the coast of northern Norway. On March 4, 1941, five hundred of the newly formed British commandos, supported by fifty-two Norwegian Marines and a section of Royal Engineers, swept ashore from Royal Navy landing ships as part of Operation Claymore. In a matter of hours they had captured more than two hundred German prisoners and destroyed fifteen fisheries-related factories as well as a bunker crude-storage facility. In the process, they also sank ten German trawlers and captured one, the Krebs. Not only were these results good for public relations, they also provided the Naval Section with a landmark pinch—the first since it had put the Operation Ruthless and the Bernhard Von Tschirschky pinches on permanent hold.
The Lofoten Islands presented a chance for Combined Operations Headquarters—another Churchill creation—to conduct its first sizable amphibious raid of the war. Established in the summer of 1940 during the final days of the war in France, Combined Operations had yet to make much of a splash, having engaged so far in only a few pinprick raids of little or no consequence on the French Channel coast. Exasperated with this lack of aggressiveness on the part of its original commander, General Alan Bourne, a career Royal Marine, Churchill pressed for larger and bolder attacks. He replaced the cynical Bourne with Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the hero of the daring Zeebrugge Raid in 1918 during the First World War. Keyes appeared to be the man Churchill was looking for—someone who could establish a thoroughly aggressive raiding program that would not only signal Britain’s will to fight on alone but placate in a responsible fashion what John Godfrey later called Churchill’s appetite for “wildcat” operations—such as the Gallipoli landings in the last war.26 The opportunistic Godfrey seized the chance to wed his pinch requirements to this enticing vehicle for raiding.
Under Keyes’s command, Churchill ordered the creation of a “band of brothers,” as he called them, a highly trained but lightly armed elite force designed for raiding enemy shore facilities in amphibious operations. They were known as commandos—a name he pilfered from the Boer raiders he had witnessed during his time in South Africa at the turn of the century. Drawn at this point from army volunteers, the commandos—forerunners of today’s Special Operations and other elite units—planned to make their combat debut at Lofoten.
The squadron of five destroyers and two landing ships crowded with commandos managed to sail the roughly eight hundred miles from Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands undetected by the Germans. Code-named “Rebel,” this task force arrived at its destination at dawn on March 4 in a surprise attack. Quickly, both commando units were able to land and take their objectives with little or no enemy resistance, grabbing prisoners with ease. At sea, the Krebs, a German trawler outfitted for harbour defence, put up a short fight, but the Tribal-class destroyer HMS Somali knocked her out, running her aground and killing her captain in the process. When the boarding party arrived, however, they discovered that the captain had tossed the Enigma machine overboard seconds before his death—but had left other “valuable cypher material” in place, which was seized by the commandos.27
It was this haul of pinched material that allowed Bletchley Park, after almost a year in the dark, to read Enigma-enciphered messages on the Dolphin key (the principal Kriegsmarine naval key used by all vessels other than U-boats) for the months of February and April. And the information Turing gleaned from the material enabled him to reconstruct the current bigram tables—a breakthrough that eventually helped Bletchley Park unlock the naval Enigma code.28
Right from the start, the planners of Operation Claymore made the capture of seemingly innocent German trawlers their prime objective, simply because the evidence collected through traffic analysis and radio finger printing indicated that these vessels either used the Enigma machine in their work or maintained other material that Bletchley could use for cribs in its efforts to crack the codes.29 On that basis, although Claymore was “planned with this end in view,” with Churchill fully aware of the pinch imperative, other objectives naturally found a seat on the Combined Operations train that provided the necessary cover.30
Fires burning in the small town of Stamsund on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands, as British commandos leave following the first of two pinch raids on March 4, 1941. (photo credits 4.4)
For instance, two of Churchill’s other pet projects were both part of Ian Fleming’s liaison portfolio in NID and made their debuts in Operation Claymore. The first project, the highly secretive Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was sometimes called Churchill’s Secret Army or the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, had been formed in July 1940 by amalgamating various sections from the Foreign Office, the War Office and the Secret Intelligence Service. It was established specifically to coordinate subversion and sabotage against the enemy in Europe and in countries occup
ied by Germany. The express purpose of the second project, the clandestine Political Warfare Executive (PWE), established in August 1941 and reporting to the Foreign Office, was to attack the economic heart of Nazi Germany by direct means or by radio or print propaganda designed to lower morale. Because the Lofoten Islands had several small fisheries and large oil-storage tanks for fish oils and bunker crude, they naturally caught the interest of the PWE. As for the SOE, Lofoten also offered an opportunity to score propaganda points by demonstrating the organization’s destructive capabilities in a grand fashion while rounding up quislings (Norwegian collaborators with the German occupiers), providing weapons to the local resistance and fulfilling Churchill’s cry to “set Europe ablaze.”
The NID also hoped to score a propaganda triumph from the Lofoten raid. Fleming was responsible for public relations too, and once again he had full support from Godfrey—perhaps the only high-ranking Royal Navy officer to grasp the need for a cooperative press. Godfrey, sometimes accompanied by Fleming, called regularly on editors from most of the London papers, just as he had from the time he was appointed Director of Naval Intelligence in early 1939. In addition, he held weekly conferences at the Admiralty for naval correspondents, designed to draw them in as unofficial members of the NID team.31 According to Godfrey, the newspapers generally “played the game,” led along with tidbits of specially fed “off the record” information that they used in formulating their background material. The journalists soon learned not to question too closely what they were told.32