Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service

by Hector C. Bywater

  British indignation, however, had very little effect beyond adding to the bitterness of feeling between the two countries, and even the pardon by the Kaiser – graciously timed as it was to coincide with the visit of the King and Queen to Berlin – did not remove the unpleasant impression produced by the whole circumstances of the case.

  Stewart, who was a keen Yeomanry officer, was promoted to a captaincy in the West Kent Yeomanry a few weeks after he returned to England. When war broke out he was appointed to the headquarters staff of Major-General Allenby, and went straight to France with the Expeditionary Force. This fulfilled the prophecy (it was more than a wish) he uttered at the close of his trial in Leipzig: ‘If your distinguished country ever attacks mine I hope to be among those who take part in the fight. Even if my own regiment is not called out I should endeavour to serve with another cavalry regiment.’

  He was serving in the intelligence branch of the Cavalry Division when, in September 1914, he was shot dead while reconnoitring up in the firing line.

  There were scores of other spy cases in Germany in the three years that preceded the war, but none possessed the dramatic interest of the two we have recorded above. Many of them were pettifogging affairs, several being due solely to indiscretion on the part of adventurous spirits. One case, which might well have led to an international incident of first-class importance, never came to a head.

  It arose out of an almost incredibly unwise rowing-boat excursion by the late Lord Brassey in Kiel Harbour.

  During Kiel Week, 1914, when the British Second Battle Squadron, under Sir George Warrender, with its attendant cruisers and small craft, was officially visiting Kiel, Lord Brassey was present in his yacht Sunbeam. The story was told, and, from the German point of view, very well told, by one of the liaison officers with the British staff, Commander von Hase:

  While rowing in one of the small boats from his yacht, Lord Brassey entered the submarine harbour of the imperial dockyard, where no civilians are admitted and where several of our latest submarines were lying. Here he was arrested by a dockyard policeman and detained for several hours in the guardroom. Not until he was able to establish his identity through a German officer known to him was he released by order of the dockyard representative. There was widespread indignation in Kiel at Lord Brassey’s gross tactlessness, and the Kaiser also expressed himself pretty sharply on the subject.

  To appreciate fully the ‘tactlessness’ to which Commander von Hase refers, it must be borne in mind that Lord Brassey was the founder and editor of what was then perhaps the most famous naval annual in the world. He was known as one of the keenest civilian students of international developments, and he was a foremost advocate of British naval strength.

  In view of these circumstances, there was little likelihood that he would try to act as a secret service agent, but the incident is worth recalling as an example of the kind of blunder that helped to keep spy fever alive in Germany.

  Glancing through the records of all the espionage trials that took place in Germany between 1911 and 1914, one very interesting fact reveals itself to those who know what was happening behind the scenes.

  The Germans, as mentioned elsewhere in these pages, never caught any of the men who were regularly doing naval intelligence work for Britain.

  This may fairly be claimed as a testimony to the skill of those men. The whole country was on the alert to detect ‘spies’. An extensive and well-organised counter-espionage bureau was continually on the watch. Snare after snare was laid for people who roused the slightest suspicion about their activities. The naval ports bristled with booby traps for their benefit.

  They escaped them all, and they got away with the news.

  Their names will never be known. Today the few survivors of that service find their only excitement in a debate in committee at the golf club, or in the purchase of a sweepstake ticket under the eyes of a local JP. That is about the wildest extravagance they can afford on their ‘savings’.

  Secret service work does not pay – whether you are caught or not.

  CHAPTER 12

  WATCHING THE HIGH SEAS FLEET

  HIDDEN AWAY IN the depths of the massive Blue Book (published in 1920) containing the despatches, reports, and signals relating to the Battle of Jutland, is an audacious disclosure of something that might well be regarded as an official secret of the first importance.

  As an introduction to the long record of signals and orders issued during the sixty hours or so that the Jutland operations lasted, from the time the Grand Fleet put to sea to its return to Scapa Flow, the following note appears in the Blue Book:

  On 30 May 1916, the admiralty received news that pointed to early activity on the part of the German fleet. Admiralty telegram No. 434 of 30 May 1916, time of origin 1740, sent to the Commander-in-Chief and repeated to the Vice-Admiral commanding battlecruiser fleet, contained the following instructions: ‘You should proceed to 1 Eastward of Long Forties ready for eventualities.’

  It is important to remember the time of origin of that message to Admiral Jellicoe. It was 5.40 p.m. on 30 May. The German High Seas Fleet did not begin to weigh anchor until 3 a.m. the next day, ten hours later. It follows, therefore, that twelve hours before a move was made by the enemy our intelligence department knew that it was going to be made. And after the war the admiralty had no scruple about making public the fact that they did know.

  This was but one of several occasions on which we had advance information of the enemy’s movements.

  The Battle of the Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915, was no mere chance encounter. On the day before the action the battlecruisers were lying at anchor in the Firth of Forth, having only just returned from a sweep down towards the Bight of Heligoland. They had been in harbour rather less than forty-eight hours when the ID got news that Hipper’s battlecruisers were coming out for a raid on the East Coast. Although that information was not received twelve hours before the enemy started, the Battlecruiser fleet reached the spot in plenty of time.

  It was due to a combination of several factors that our naval intelligence service was able to maintain a constant watch on the High Seas Fleet. A very useful element in the system was directional wireless, coupled with our possession of the German codebooks found in the wreck of the cruiser Magdeburg.

  Directional wireless enabled us to locate pretty accurately the position of the German Commander-in-Chief from day to day, and from hour to hour, as he communicated with his various squadrons and flotillas by wireless, while the code books enabled us to interpret what he was saying – as long, that is, as the Germans continued to employ the same code, which, to our astonishment, they did for over a year. It had been changed before Jutland, however.

  Directional wireless, of course, had its risks, as we found during the Battle of Jutland, when calculations based on this system placed Scheer still in Wilhelmshaven roadstead with his fleet when actually he was well out at sea in support of Hipper’s battlecruisers. The German Commander-in-Chief tricked us neatly that time. Probably he suspected the use we were making of directional wireless. Certainly, by that time the Germans themselves had made some progress in its use, though their methods were still elementary. Scheer took the precaution of transferring his flagship’s wavelength and code call to a depot ship that was still lying at Wilhelmshaven. And as we still got that call in the same strength from the same direction, we naturally assumed Scheer to be still in harbour.

  Although he caught us napping on this occasion, no particular harm was done, as it happened, because our own battle fleet was at sea in support of Beatty’s Battlecruiser Force, and there was consequently no fear of him being overwhelmed by the entire naval strength of Germany.

  Then again, our submarines in the Bight were very efficient news-gatherers. From midnight on 4 August 1914, till midday on 11 November 1918, the exits from Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven, and Emden were never for an hour without a British undersea sentinel. The intelligence department was largely concerned in the organis
ation of this patrol, for the real object of the boats in the Bight came to be, at the request of the department, the gathering of news even more than the taking of offensive action.

  As our submarines in the early days were equipped only with short-range wireless, any information they sent had to be relayed. It is perhaps hardly realised by the younger generation how rapidly wireless has developed since 1914. In that year the record range for transmission from a submarine was set up by the German boat U-27, which got a message through to her depot ship from a distance of 140 miles. And that happened under particularly favourable circumstances.

  By 1916, however, our submarines were equipped with high-power wireless, and thereafter their captains were strictly enjoined, when on patrol in the Bight, not to attack the German High Seas Fleet on its way out of harbour. They were to note the composition of the squadrons, their course, and other relative matters, and, when the ships had passed, rise to the surface and report by wireless at once.

  Then, if the enemy heard the wireless, guessed what was happening, and turned back, the submarines were free to do all the attacking they liked; but outward-bound ships had to be left alone, in the hope that they would fall into the hands of the Grand Fleet.

  The scheme worked very well as a whole, but sometimes the results were disappointing, as the following example will show. The German battle fleet put to sea on 23 April 1918, and steered northward towards Horn Reefs, just outside its mined waters. Submarine U-6 was on patrol in the vicinity. She observed the enemy ships approaching, but, mistaking them for British, allowed them to pass unmolested and sent in no report of any kind to the Commander-in-Chief. On the following day, however, the same submarine saw the High Seas Fleet returning, and this time identified it correctly. After watching its passage for several hours she flashed a message to Admiral Beatty.

  Meanwhile another submarine, E-42, had also sighted the German ships, and as they were obviously returning to port, she was at liberty to attack them. Four torpedoes were fired, one of which struck the Moltke. The damage was so serious that only after a precarious towing operation was the great battlecruiser able to reach port.

  Besides maintaining their watch on the High Seas Fleet, the British submarines in the Bight were also useful in keeping us informed about the German minefields.

  When German minelayers came out to lay a new field in some hitherto safe area of water, they were almost always seen, the whole of their operations followed, and the exact bearings and limits of the new field reported to the admiralty within an hour or two. Then another little red patch would be marked on the confidential charts, and all ships at sea were warned to avoid the new danger spot.

  When the Allies took over control of the German ports after the Armistice, the German Admiral Meurer, who negotiated the terms of surrender with Admiral Beatty on board the Queen Elizabeth, was required to produce charts of all the German minefields for our safe guidance. On comparing these charts with our own we found that we knew the exact position and extent of every German minefield then in existence. The Germans, on their part, were by no means so well informed.

  When Admiral Meurer was ordered to the Firth of Forth to open negotiations, we gave him a course to steer and fixed a rendezvous at which he was to meet our escorting cruiser. He was late at the rendezvous, and explained that he had had to make a wide detour to avoid a German minefield that lay right across the course we had given him. The Grand Fleet staff officers chuckled. That particular minefield had been swept up long before – and the Germans did not know it had gone.

  In another case, comedy blended with tragedy. A German minefield had been laid in the Straits of Dover. We had detected it, and were about to sweep it up when it became known that two U-boats were in the Straits. We immediately decided to carry out a ‘dummy’ sweep – that is, to go over the area as though we were sweeping, but actually to leave the mines where they were. The trick worked. One of the German U-boats, thinking to find a safe route through the perils of the Dover defile, closely followed the minesweepers – and blew up on a German mine! By chance the captain was rescued from the wreck, and was Teutonically indignant at the trick that had been played on him!

  Nor was it only at sea that a watch was kept on the German High Seas Fleet. There were British agents in the German naval bases from whom we received priceless information. The men who did that work deserved well of their country, and it would be interesting to know whether any one of them ever received a decoration.

  Needless to say, such work was far more hazardous in war than in peacetime. Moreover, it called for an even higher standard of reliability.

  In war false news can easily lead to disaster, yet there is neither the time nor the opportunity to verify it, as may be possible in peace. There were one or two false alarms during the war that caused grave anxiety at ID headquarters.

  One bad winter’s night our forces were sent dashing out into the North Sea on a definite course in chase of a reported enemy squadron, whose prospective movements for twelve hours had just been communicated to us. In point of fact, as we discovered much later, that particular squadron actually was at sea and followed the course indicated; but owing to fog our ships missed it by about 3 miles, and the enemy returned to harbour without us knowing for certain that he had really been at sea at all.

  The days following that abortive chase were trying ones for the ID.

  Had the whole business been a trap for certain of our agents in Germany?

  Had the news been allowed to leak out in certain directions for the purpose of enabling the German authorities to trace the sources of leakage and stop them for ever?

  It was a deadly, wearing week. We decided not to communicate with our men at all, even by the safest routes, lest they should be already under suspicion. If they were, anything we did might provide just the last scrap of evidence their watchers needed. We had to wait patiently for them to communicate with us again – if they could. Those at the head of the secret service went through keen mental torture during that week. It was not only the painful feeling that tried and devoted helpers might have paid the supreme penalty for their loyalty. There was the complex problem of replacing them, if the worst had happened.

  The tension was broken on a Sunday morning, when further news came through from the source from which we had been warned of the cruise.

  No reference was made to any trouble or any undue suspicion directed towards that source. The ID chiefs breathed again.

  These agents ashore did not always have to work at lightning speed. One of the noteworthy things about the German command at sea, which we came to recognise as time went on, was the length of the preparations they made for any sortie.

  For example, nine days before the Battle of the Dogger Bank we received definite information that ‘liveliness’ was to be expected. For some reason, both Kiel, which is on the Baltic, and Wilhelmshaven, in the Bight, were in a state of unusual activity. One report told us that two battlecruisers had left the Jade, but then followed a period of quiescence, and it began to look as though the alarm had been a false one. But on the morning of 23 January the thermometer went up again. More news, and urgent news, came through. The Bight was boiling up.

  Mr Winston Churchill, who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had unique opportunities of watching naval intelligence work from behind the scenes, tells the story in The World Crisis:

  It was nearly noon when I regained my room in the admiralty. I had hardly sat down when the door opened quickly and in marched Sir Arthur Wilson, unannounced. He looked at me intently, and there was a glow in his eye. Behind him came Oliver with charts and compasses.

  ‘First Lord, those fellows are coming out again.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight. We have just time to get Beatty there.’

  Mr Churchill then records the various telegrams of instruction sent to Commodore Tyrwhitt, Admirals Beatty and Jellicoe, and continues: ‘This done, Sir Arthur explained briefly the conclusions he had formed from t
he intercepted German message, which our cryptographers had translated, and from other intelligence of which he was a master.’

  The deduction made from the various items of information by the ID and the Operations Division was that another coastal raid was in preparation, though all that our reports told us was that a scouting expedition towards the Dogger Bank was in view. Accordingly, the Commander-in-Chief and the Vice-Admiral Commanding the Battlecruisers were both informed that four German battlecruisers, six light cruisers, and twenty-two destroyers were to sail that night to scout on the Dogger Bank, probably returning on the following evening. The British forces were therefore ordered to rendezvous in 55.13 N. 3.12 E. at 7 a.m. on the 24th.

  It may seem something like wizardry to those not versed in intelligence work that our agents should have been able to advise us so exactly of the composition of the German forces. Perhaps, in order to heighten the colour, it ought to be pretended that a British agent was working as confidential secretary on the staff of the German Commander-in-Chief!

  It was, however, not necessary to go to such lengths to discover what was in the wind. Activity in the dockyard and the basins in connection with certain ships, orders or counter-orders to certain purveyors of stores, the postponement of a Bier-Abend by the officers of a half-flotilla, the marshalling of drafts at the naval barracks – these were the straws that showed the skilled intelligence man the line of investigation to pursue.

  He knew some facts from which he could safely draw certain conclusions. Incidents, which to the simple German shopkeeper or the gossip in the Weinstube meant nothing, were full of significance to the man trained in naval observation.

  To take an example from our own experience: the night before the Dogger Bank battle it was known all over Edinburgh that the battlecruisers were going out, partly because of the sudden departure early in the afternoon of officers who were on shore and the procession of taxicabs taking them to Hawes Pier, partly because of the countermanding of orders for provisions from various messmen. The difference was that in our case no German agent seems to have got the news, or, if he did, was unable to transmit it to Germany in time to be of service to his side.