Churchill's Secret War

by Denniston, Robin

  37 PRO HW1/79, BJ 095665: Vichy to Ankara, decrypted 20 September 1941.

  38 sic. PRO HW1/79, BJ 2019141: decrypted 20 September 1941.

  39 PRO HW1/79, BJ 095666: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 20 September 1941.

  40 PRO HW1/82, BJ 095748: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 24 September 1941.

  41 PRO HW1/79, BJ 095666/1609 and 1610: French ambassador to Ankara to Algiers, decrypted 20 September 1941.

  42 BM typed letter of 24 September 1941.

  43 PRO HW1/108, BJ 096091/3540: Greek chargé Cairo to London, decrypted 2 October 1941.

  44 PRO HW1/109, BJ 096081: Ankara to Rome, decrypted 2 October 1941.

  45 PRO HW1/110, BJ 096132: Stockholm to Berlin, decrypted 3 October 1941.

  46 PRO HW1/112, BJ 096137: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 3 October 1941.

  47 PRO FO371/30085: R8965/79/44, Clutton handwritten note of 9 October 1941.

  48 PRO HW1: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 3 October 1941. The Germans would not, of course, have had access to the cable facilities of Cable & Wireless in Istanbul, like the British.

  49 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 2 p. 84fn and PRO HW1/136 BJ, decrypted 19 October 1941.

  50 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 484.

  51 PRO HW1/110(7709) BJ: Stockholm to Berlin, decrypted 3 October 1941.

  52 PRO HW1/159 (7858), BJ 096774: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 21 October 1941.

  53 Trevor-Roper, op. cit., p. 546.

  54 PRO PREM3/446: Cadogan handwritten minute.

  55 PRO HW1/206, BJ 097561: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 11 November 1941 and HW1/207, BJ 097604: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 12 November 1941. Distribution: DIR 3, FO 3, PID, ADM, WO 3, IO 2, AIR, DoT, Sir R. Hopkins, MEW 2, Dominions Office, Colonial Office: 21 copies total.

  56 PRO HW1/–– BJ 095604: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 12 November 1941.

  57 PRO HW1/281, on BJ 098360, decrypted 11 November on BJ 098360 circulated 30 November 1941.

  58 Churchill, op. cit., p. 475.

  59 PRO HW1/314, BJ 098766: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 9 December 1941.

  60 PRO FO371/33133, Rendel to Department, 3 January 1942.

  61 Ibid.

  62 PRO FO371/33133. Sargent was another of Hugessen’s confidants, the latter writing regularly and at length to him, as much to clear his own mind on the appropriate British diplomatic response to Turkey as to inform the FO.

  63 PRO HW1/374 (8611), BJ 100577/69: Ankara to Rome, decrypted 27 January 1942; see also Deringil, op. cit., p. 61.

  64 PRO PREM3/445/4, 21 January 1942, Hugessen to department.

  65 PRO PREM3/445/4, PM to COS, January 1942.

  66 PRO FO371/R953/486/44: Telegram no. 290.

  67 Whether this was official witholding or a symptom of the developmental stage of the handling of DIR it is difficult to say, but both Hinsley and GCHQ think it is the latter.

  68 Private information from A.G. Denniston’s pocket diary for 1942. Both aspects of the truncated GCCS – diplomatic and commercial – were to flourish from then on, due to the needs of the FO in respect of diplomatic intercepts, and to those of the MEW for updatable economic information, particularly of Spanish exports of tungsten, wolfram and antimony to Germany.

  69 David Dilks (ed), op. cit., p. 433.

  70 Typed letter dated 26 March 1942 in BM Emrys Evans archive.

  71 PRO HW1/452, BJ 102680/82: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 27 March 1942. Distribution twenty including PID and Morton.

  72 PRO HW1/456/1311, BJ 102371/1191: Ankara to Chungking; and 102755/10: Kuibyshev to Ankara, both decrypted 29 March 1942.

  73 Deringil, op. cit., p. 119, quoting DGFP D/x11.

  74 PRO HW1/456, BJ 102755: Kuibyshev to Ankara, decrypted 24 March 1942.

  75 Trevor-Roper, op. cit., p. 378.

  76 PRO HW1/484/9155: Kuibyshev to Ankara, decrypted 9 April 1942.

  77 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 284.

  Chapter 5

  1 Trumbull Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Second Front 1940–2; New York, Oxford University Press, 1957. Higgins described Turkey in 1941 as a neutral state whose large and poorly equipped army would continue to attract Churchill’s encouraging smiles and ultimately futile favours for three full years to come.

  2 Higgins, op. cit., and John Ehrman, Grand Strategy vol. 5; London, HMSO, 1956.

  3 Italics added.

  4 PRO HW1/497 of 15 April 1942: ‘I shall shortly be going to America. Will you be willing to accompany me?’ The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara immediately concurred. Distribution to Director (Menzies) and Churchill only.

  5 PRO HW1/513, BJ 103496–26 of 21 April. Japanese ambassador in Berne of 17 April 1942.

  6 Italics added. PREM3/446/1D, p. 513.

  7 PRO FO371/33403. Peter Lawford minuted on 26 August: ‘The Prime Minister is the symbol of the national war effort in Turkish eyes, and a personal glimpse of their hero would undoubtedly “make” their visit to this country.’ Dixon minuted: ‘excellent’. The PM interview did not last more than fifteen minutes. He and M. Yalin spoke to each other in French, on WW1, Enver and Atatürk. Yalin asked that Turkey should be at the peace conference. ‘The PM’s reply satisfied the Turks less than Eden’s interview.’

  8 Deringil, op. cit., p. 117.

  9 PRO HW1/560, BJ 10472: Ankara to Rome, decrypted 10 May: De Peppo quoting Saraçoğlu verbatim.

  10 PRO HW1/563, BJ 104279: Ankara to Lisbon, decrypted 11 May 1942.

  11 PRO HW1/563, BJ 104284: Ankara to all stations, decrypted 11 May 1942. I·nönü proved the best survivor of the lot and was still active in Turkish politics until the late 1960s.

  12 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 p. 769; see also PRO PREM3/446/8, PM to Eden, 12 May 1942. ‘Your last sentence leads swiftly to our usual conclusion, viz to do nothing.’ Eden thought Churchill was attacking him because he thought saying anything to the Turks was risky. Churchill tried to pacify him by pointing out he said ‘our’ not ‘your’ – i.e. the FO. It was not difficult to see through this as brazen flannel – the puzzle is why Eden appears not to have done this.

  13 PRO HW1/577, BJ: Madrid to Ankara, decrypted 17 May 1942; and 589/9555: Madrid to Ankara, decrypted 22 May 1942.

  14 PRO HW1/631, BJ 105334: Madrid to Ankara, decrypted 17 May 1942.

  15 PRO HW1/689, BJ 106218: Ankara to Chungking, decrypted 2 July 1942.

  16 PRO HW1/700, BJ 106356: Ankara to Lisbon, decrypted 5 July 1942.

  17 Kurihara was ordered to stay in Istanbul and not move to Ankara, reflecting Japanese preference for the international information available in the former capital.

  18 PRO HW1/706, BJ 106428: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 7 July 1942.

  19 PRO HW1/718, BJ 106618: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 11 July 1942; PRO HW1/746, BJ 106837: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 17 July 1942; PRO HW1/721, BJ 106684: Madrid to Tokyo, decrypted 12 July 1942; and PRO HW1/729 of 14 July 1942; PRO HW1/729, BJ 106754: Vichy to Ankara, decrypted 14 July 1942.

  20 PRO HW1/793, BJ117213: Stockholm to Lisbon, decrypted 26 July 1942: ‘I was told from an official source that the Reich would accept [group missing ‘peace’?] based on the status quo conditional, however, on Germany’s retention of the territories captured from Russia.’

  21 PRO HW1/793, BJ 107221: Cairo to Ankara, 26 July 1942; reporting Saraçoğlu’s far running thoughts: ‘please keep the whole conversation absolutely secret.’

  22 PRO HW1/804, BJ 107357: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 30 July 1942.

  23 PRO HW1/814, BJ 107585: Kuibyshev to Ankara, decrypted 5 August 1942.

  24 PRO HW1/793, BJ 107221: Cairo to Ankara, decrypted 26 July 1942.

  25 PRO FO371/33376: Cadogan handwritten memorandum.

  26 PRO HW1/833(499), BJ 108167: Berlin to Ankara, decrypted 24 August 1942. There are no less than 23 BJs in this one DIR file; copies of all of them were sent to Washington.

  27 PRO FO371/33376: Hugessen to Department, 29 August 1942.

  28 FO371/33376 and PREM3/446/8.

  29 PRO FO371/33376: Clutton to Department
, 31 August 1942.

  30 PRO FO371/R4087/24/24: Clutton handwritten minute, 22 June 1942.

  31 Deringil, op. cit., pp. 140–1; FO371/, R5618/2713/44. 44 is the FO code for Turkey.

  32 PRO HW1/869, BJ 108656 28 August 1942. The day before British diplomatic cryptanalysis broke the ‘Floradora’ (German diplomatic) cipher and passed the results to Adcock of Berkeley Street to process for the FO. Prof Frank Adcock, a veteran cryptographer and long-term friend and associate of Denniston’s, moved with him (and many others) to Berkeley Street in February 1942. Adcock later became Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge. See P.W. Filby, in Intelligence and National Security, vol. 6 no. 3, 1988, pp. 272–84 which is the definitive article on Berkeley Street’s war work. See also Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Road to Victory 1941–5; London, Heinemann, 1986, p. 869.

  33 PRO HW1/892, BJ 109983: London to Ankara, decrypted 11 September 1942.

  34 PRO HW1/929, BJ 109491: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 27 September 1942.

  35 PRO HW1/895(707), BJ 14518: Berlin to Ankara, decrypted 14 September 1942.

  36 PRO HW1/896, BJ 109039/4446: Ankara to Cairo, decrypted 12 September 1942. This is an early appearance of a second number on a BJ. This number (typed rather than rubber-stamped as the main number invariably was) was the office number given to reassure recipients that they had a complete set of records of intercepts sent from one particular station, e.g. Ankara, to another, e.g. Tokyo.

  37 PRO HW1/899, BJ 109117/276: London to Ankara, decrypted 14 September 1942.

  38 PRO HW1/902, BJ 109152/849: Berlin to Ankara, decrypted 15 September 1942.

  39 PREM 3/446/8. Hugessen and the FO would have privately noted that this may have been true but was certainly not the whole truth.

  40 PRO PREM3/446/8: Churchill to Eden, 12 October 1942.

  41 PRO PREM3/446/8: Churchill to Eden, 12 October 1942.

  42 His staff in Ankara was of high calibre, especially Knox Helm and John Sterndale-Bennett, the former a career diplomat who had come up the hard way in the Levant Consular Service, eventually to become the last Governor General of the Sudan. But the FO thought his views on pressurising Turkey too radical.

  43 These letters were certainly not part of the ‘Cicero’ corpus, as he dictated them to an English secretary, Miss Brown, who would have got them into the diplomatic bag before they got back to the ambassadorial residence. See Hugessen’s notes on Cicero, Moyzisch and ‘his period of some difficulty’, kindly lent to me by his daughter.

  44 There are no files of DIR between numbers 929 and 1107.

  45 Elizabeth Barker, Churchill and Eden at War; London, Macmillan, 1978, p. 207.

  46 Churchill, op. cit., pp. 626–28.

  47 PRO FO371/37400. In fact there was little to be done about individual cases but pressure from both Allied and Axis countries combined to induce I·nönü to rescind the Tax law in October 1944.

  48 Harvey, War Diaries; vol. 2 p. 180.

  49 Barker, op. cit.

  50 PRO HW1/1107, BJ 110939: Rome to Tokyo, decrypted 16 November 1942, standard distribution. And BJ 111188/690: Rome to Tokyo, decrypted 16 November 1942.

  51 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 pp. 623ff.

  52 Ibid p. 625.

  53 PRO HW1/1125(1449), BJ 111327: London to Ankara, decrypted 20 November 1942.

  54 PRO HW1/1125, BJ: 111300: London to Ankara, decrypted 20 November 1942.

  55 PRO HW1/1145, BJ: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 24 November 1942 also PRO HW1/1148: Sofia to Tokyo; PRO HW1/1156, BJ: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 26 November 1942, and PRO HW1/1164, BJ 111598, decrypted 27 November 1942; also PRO HW1/1171/383 BJ: decrypted 27 November 1942.

  56 PRO HW1/1178, BJ 111713 and HW1/1142, BJ 111451: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 30 November 1942.

  57 PRO FO371/37491; exchange of memos and letters between Sir Alexander Hardinge, the King’s Private Secretary, George Clutton and Sir Alexander Cadogan.

  58 PRO HW1/1182, BJ 111767, 70, 71/ 383: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 2 December 1942.

  59 PRO HW1/1210, BJ 112093/249: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 2 December 1942.

  60 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 p. 625.

  61 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 p. 622.

  62 PRO HW1/1240, BJ 112341 and 369/400: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 20 December 1942, BJs 112341/369 and BJ 112370: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 20 December 1942.

  63 PRO FO371/37645: Sterndale-Bennett to Sargent, 18 December 1942. On 13 December GCCS broke the four-rotor key SHARK, so the blackout on U-boat traffic was over. (Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 1 p. 226 and vol. 2 p. 667.)

  64 The security of Ultra is a recurring theme of the DIR file. The main question was, what was and what was not, to be sent to the Russians, and through what channel. What no one at BP or the FO knew is that the DIR was available to the least mentioned but possibly most important member of the famous five Cambridge Soviet spies – John Cairncross. We may never know the volume and extent to which Stalin used his knowledge of DIR via this route, but it has been asserted that without it the Battle of Kersh would have been lost. See Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev; London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, pp. 248, 600. See also Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 602.

  65 PRO HW1/1286, BJ 112758: Bucharest to Lisbon, decrypted 5 January 1943.

  66 PRO FO371/37645.

  67 PRO HW1/1309, BJ 113201: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 5 January 1943.

  68 David Dilks (ed), op. cit., p. 394. Hugessen was nicknamed Snatch by the FO.

  69 PRO FO371/37505.

  70 PRO PREM3/446/1.

  71 PRO HW1/1325, BJs 11328 and 11329: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 21 January 1943.

  72 PRO HW1/1330, BJ 113489: Washington to Ankara, decrypted 25 January 1943.

  73 PRO HW1/1331, BJ 113524: Washington to Ankara, decrypted 25 January 1943; HW1/1332, BJs 113499, 519, 521, 540, 541, 545, 548, 557: Budapest to various capitals, decrypted 27 January 1943.

  74 PRO FO371/37503: Hugessen to Department, 28 January 1943.

  75 Ian Jacob, unpublished typescript journal in Churchill Archives, Churchill College, Cambridge, p. 122.

  76 PRO FO371/44148: PM to Eden, Eden to PM, 19 January 1943.

  77 PRO FO371/37466: Hugessen to department. ‘Modesty forbids me to tell you that my staff had nothing whatever to do with it.’

  78 PRO FO371/37503, R1084/265/44, no. 240, Hugessen to FO, 7 February 1943.

  Chapter 6

  1 Churchill, op. cit., The Hinge of Fate and Closing the Ring; London, Cassell, 1951 and 1952. Martin Gilbert, The Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill 1941–5; London, Heinemann, 1986, pp. 322ff.

  2 Churchill, op. cit., The Hinge of Fate, pp. 629–41.

  3 See e.g. David Carlton, Anthony Eden; London, Allen Lane, 1981, p. 207: ‘Eden’s difference with Churchill over Adana was to have considerable long term significance.’

  4 Churchill, op. cit., p. 627.

  5 PRO FO371/37645: War Cabinet to Churchill, 25 January 1943.

  6 Hugessen gives a vivid account of his and the president’s departure from a small town outside Ankara, to preserve secrecy, which the arrival of a snowstorm and many Turkish labourers to clear the roads and railway totally aborted. See Diplomat in Peace and War; London, John Murray, 1949, pp. 129ff. For the environs of Adana see Adrian Seligman, No Stars to Guide; London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1947.

  7 Typo in the printed text.

  8 PRO FO371/37465, R795/55 G44 and R709/TOO21302/3; Ivan Maisky to FO of 31 January 1943; Churchill, op. cit., p. 628.

  9 Churchill, op. cit., pp. 630–8.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Quoted in Arthur Bryant (ed), The Turn of the Tide: Alanbrooke 1939–45; London, Collins, 1957, pp. 572–3.

  12 This and following quotes are all from Ian Jacob, unpublished typescript journal of the Adana Conference, Churchill College Archives, Cambridge, JACB 1/16.

  13 Jacob made a sketch of this, available in the Churchill Archive.

&nb
sp; 14 Jacob, op. cit., p. 127.

  15 Jacob, op. cit., p. 128. See also PRO FO/371/44083 for George Clutton’s minute on problems of maintaining living standards for British personnel in Turkey – ‘a backward country and financially very dicky’. These are rare occurrences of Britons observing upcountry Turkey.

  16 Jacob, op. cit., p. 132.

  17 See Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, Diplomat in Peace and War; London, John Murray, 1949, pp. 112ff.

  18 PRO FO371/37645: Clutton handwritten minute.

  19 See Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, Diplomat in Peace and War; London, John Murray, 1947.

  20 Jacob, op. cit., p. 133.

  21 Jacob, op. cit., p. 135.

  22 Jacob, op. cit., p. 136.

  23 Interview with Falla. See also Churchill, op. cit., p. 636.

  24 Jacob, op. cit., pp. 137–8.

  25 Hugessen manuscript diary for 1943 in the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge.

  26 PREM3/446/10, p. 564.

  27 PREM FO371/37645, Churchill to Eden.

  28 Jacob, op. cit., pp. 139–40.

  29 Jacob, op. cit., p. 141.

  30 Jacob, op. cit., p. 143.

  31 Summarised in Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 636; in full in PRO FO954 and PRO PREM3/446 passim.

  32 Barker, op. cit., p. 208.

  33 Jacob, op. cit., pp. 147, 150–51, 152.

  34 PRO FO3711/37465 R709: Stratagem c/3 on 31 January 1943.

  35 Sir James Butler (ed), History of the Second World War; UK Military Series The Mediterranean and Middle East: Maj-Gen I.S.O. Playfair with Brig C.J.C. Molony et al, vol. 4 ‘The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa’; London, HMSO, 1966.

  36 David Dilks (ed), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan O.M. 1938–45; London, Cassell, 1971, p. 509.

  37 Irving, op. cit., p. 178. The document is dated 14 February 1943.

  38 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 p. 638.

  39 Deringil, op. cit., pp. 146 and 214.

  40 PRO FO371/30076.

  41 PRO FO371/37645 709: unparaphrased version of a Most Secret Cipher Telegram, February 1943, not One Time Table (=2130z/31 (NOCOP) 9 i.e. no copies).

  42 Lord Moran, The Struggle for Survival; London, Constable, 1966, pp. 83–6. He later noted that Churchill’s failure to induce I·nönü to declare war on the Axis at their next meeting at Cairo in November 1943 made him physically ill.