43 Arthur Bryant (ed), The Alanbrooke Diaries; London, Collins, 1957, p. 571. Jacob, op. cit.
44 Hugessen’s MS diary, CCC, op. cit.
45 PRO HW1/1346, BJ 113743, and ISOS (intelligence source Oliver Strachey, the GCCS cryptographer who solved the Abwehr cipher): Ankara to Berlin contain the aborted plan to poison Churchill and see earlier Chapter 1.
46 This text appears in a telegram from CSS (‘C’) ‘for Gibraltar’ encoded by B.L. at 13.30 hours on 4 February 1943. ‘Two copies based on VD [?SD] most secret material.’ Both the SD and Abwehr cipher systems had been broken and were referred to as ISOS. The text quoted above is supported in the HW1 files by intercept X111/31 Tangier to Berlin 1529 of 5 February, for PARSIFAL: ‘Schultze [2nd Press Attaché, Tangier] has despatched two Wasani men and one Torres, and he himself took one Wasani man, to the frontier at Alcazar, on 4th January [sic] with an assignment against Churchill. If the attack on Churchill does not succeed, they are to use the material given them for acts of sabotage. (signed) Schultze.’ ‘C’ passed this via SCU (special ?cipher unit) zzzzz as follows: ‘a) tested source reports at least four saboteurs with necessary material crossed frontier on February 4th to take action against Churchill. b) inform Brigadier and Eisenhower immediately. Distribution C.S.S. and Section s [i.e. at Bletchley Park]. Encoded by Baker at 2015 hours on 5 February.’ The text of two Isosicles (jargon for ISOS) was passed to ‘C’. ‘1) X111/31 Please dispatch urgently 20 to 50 machine pistols with ammunition, magnetic mines adhesive mines [Klebminen]. Also poisons for [adding to] drinks and effective upon bodily contagion. Some saccharine for a diabetic female relative of TONI MUH 2) 10 magnetic mines went off today to be used against USA tanks. Organisation for the housing of the material and distribution of required amounts, also immediate operation, taken care of at our end. MUHAM.’ PRO HW1/1346, BJ 113743.
47 PRO PREM3/446/14, PM to Stalin, 6 February 1943.
48 PRO FO371/37516, Cadogan to Department, 6 February 1943.
49 The document was written, on internal evidence, by Cadogan.
50 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 pp. 713–4.
51 It is to be found in HW1/1348.
52 PRO HW1/1346, BJ 113744, 4 February 1943: Ankara to Vichy.
53 PRO HW1/1210, BJ 112093: Sofia to Tokyo, decrypted 10 February 1943; ticked by Churchill.
54 PRO HW1/1348, BJ 113849: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 6 February 1943.
55 See also PRO HW1/ 1387, BJ 11439 of 20 February 1943: ‘Turkey’s role is to sound German views on how to avoid the Bolshevisation of Europe, and a separate peace between Germany and the Western Allies.’
56 Malcolm Muggeridge (ed), The Ciano Diaries 1939–45; New York, Doubleday, 1946, p. 71.
57 PRO HW1/1240, BJ 112341 and 112369: Ankara to Tokyo, both decrypted 20 February 1943.
58 PRO HW1/1240, BJ 112370/29: Berlin to all points south and east (Ankara, Vichy, Rome, Madrid, Berne). This BJ, like others in this period, was shown to G20 in Washington.
59 PRO HW1/1348: Ankara to all stations, decrypted 6 February 1943.
60 PRO FO371/37516, FO to MEW7301: ‘price not to be the determining factor. Both we and the Germans are going to pay heavily for the chrome but it will be the Turks who will fix the price.’
61 PRO FO371/34461: Clutton handwritten minute re Jackson, sent by the State Department to add muscle to the FO’s dithering over chrome shipments.
62 PRO FO371/37460 and PRO PREM3/446.
63 PRO FO371/37509 and PRO FO 371/37399. Sir Orme Sargent minuted ‘the great importance attached to chrome not only from the point of view of Anglo-Turkish relations but because it is also the touchstone of Turco-German relations.’
64 PRO FO371/ 37491, R/123/123/44, Clutton, minute of 8 April 1943.
65 PRO FO371/37509, FO371/37465 – including ‘we know from other sources’.
66 PRO HW1/1348, BJ 113731: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 6 February 1943. In the same files BJ 113849 carried Oshima’s report to Tokyo that no change was expected in Berlin in Turkish policy towards Germany (decrypted 6 February 1943); also PRO HW1/1348, BJ 113855: Ankara to Lisbon, decrypted 6 February 1943: ‘the Adana meeting was to urge Turkey into the war; and it failed. The plan was to polish off Tunisia, occupy Crete and the Dodecanese, attack the Balkans, occupy Thrace.’ Neutrality was a word to be avoided, but the Turks would plead lack of armaments. Churchill marked this ‘important’, for Alanbrooke to read.
67 PRO HW1/1377, to ‘C’: Moscow to Ankara, decrypted 13 February 1943.
68 PRO FO371/37509: Ankara to London, 1 March 1943.
69 PRO HW1/1627, BJ 115283/91: Bucharest to Lisbon; Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 15 March 1943.
70 PRO HW1/1346/2189, BJ 115249 decrypted 4 February 1943. PRO PREM3/446/2. PRO PREM3/446/4 of 3 March: PRO FO371/37466 of 22 March 1943. Knox Helm in Ankara pressed for a multilateral guarantee from Britain to Turkey, but the FO rejected the suggestion. Also in Ankara Adm Kelly observed that ‘an imperialistic Russia is more frightening than a thorough-going Communist Russia’ – to which Dixon minuted ‘good point’. Kelly was Churchill’s personal appointee in Ankara and continually riled the Southern Department – e.g. ‘we do not want a number of Admiral Kellys throwing spanners into the works in the course of independent conversations’. Meanwhile the air attaché in Ankara was having his nose put out of joint by the admiral and indulging in Schadenfreude.
71 PRO HW1/1638, BJ 115772: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 28 March 1943.
72 PRO HW1/1387, BJ 114391: Stockholm to Lisbon, decrypted 20 February 1943.
73 PRO HW1/1557/2831 BJ, decrypted 3 April 1943, HW1/1558/2832 decrypted 4 April 1943; HW1/1604 BJ 116456; BJs 116391, 116467, 116457.
74 PRO FO371/37460, FO to Ministry of Economic Warfare, 30 January 1943.
75 PRO FO371/37640: Sargent to Ankara, 7 February 1943; Deringil, op. cit., p. 147.
76 It is unlikely that Wilson would have access to these diplomatic comments on his Ankara visit, since GHQ Cairo received Boniface/Enigma but not diplomatic messages.
77 PRO HW1/1621, BJ 116615: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 20 April 1943.
78 PRO HW1/1621/3036, BJ 116613: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 4 April 1943. PRO HW1/1621/3036, BJ 11613: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 20 April 1943.
79 PRO FO371/37467, WO 208/892.
80 PRO FO371/36467, Cadogan to Department, 15 April 1943.
81 PRO FO371/R5310/55/44. FO371/34461, Sargent to Department.
82 PRO FO371/36467, Sargent, minute of 27 April 1943.
83 PRO HW1/1626, BJ 116723: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 22 April 1943.
84 PRO HW1/1626/3061, BJ 116723: London to Tokyo, decrypted 22 April 1943. PRO HW1/1632/3083, BJ 116798: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 24 April 1943.
85 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 4 pp. 782–99. Frank G. Weber, The Evasive Neutral: Germany, Britain and the Quest for a Turkish Alliance in the Second World War; Missouri, Missouri University Press, 1979, p. 47, and Gerard Mangune (ed), The International Straits and the World; Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1987. PRO HW1/1661/3171 BJ 117985, Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 2 May 1943.
86 PRO HW1/1702, BJ 11719: Rome to Ankara, decrypted 24 May 1943; PRO HW1/1703/118, BJ 117915: London to Baghdad, decrypted 25 May 1943; PRO HW1/1707, Ultra summaries for Commodore Spencer (Churchill) ‘to be handed over personally, then to retrieve document for destruction by yourself’. PRO HW1/1709, 445 (15R), sent 30 May 1943; PRO HW1/1715, BJ 118510: Rome to Ankara, decrypted 27 May 1943; PRO HW1/1716, BJ 118510: Rome to Ankara, decrypted 1 June 1943.
87 PRO HW1/1659/3171, BJ 117985: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 2 May 1943.
88 PRO HW1/1721, BJ 118658: Budapest to Tokyo, decrypted 7 June 1943.
89 PRO HW11/1715/3449, BJ 117650: Ankara to Moscow, decrypted 6 June 1943. PRO HW1/1716/3454 BJ of 6 June. HW1/1721/3465, BJ 118569: Vatican to Tokyo, decrypted 7 June 1943. HW1/1723/3476, BJ 118607: Rome to Tokyo, decrypted 8 June 1943. HW1/1721, BJ 118658, decrypted 7 June 1943. HW1/1729/55/3510, BJ 118730: Moscow to Ankara, decrypted 11 June 1943.
/> 90 PRO HW1/1914/44077, BJ 129892: Ankara to Rio de Janeiro, decrypted 4 August 1943. HW1/1921, BJ 122660: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 25 August 1943.
Chapter 7
1 Churchill, op. cit., vol. 5 Closing the Ring, p. 181. Churchill was determined that the world should know his version of events, organised his directives and memoranda into accessible form before the end of 1943 and published his account in 1952.
2 See Sheila Lawlor, Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940–1; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, for a definitive analysis of the part Churchill’s own war histories plays in the historiography of the Second World War. The author concludes (p. 11), ‘it is Churchill’s history which is reflected in much subsequent interpretation’.
3 Brig C.J.C. Molony, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. 5 and vol. 6 pt 1 The Campaign in Sicily and the Campaign in Italy: 3 September 1943 till March 1944; London, HMSO, 1973. Also F.H. Hinsley (with E.E. Thomas, C.F.G. Ransom and R.C. Knight); British Intelligence in the Second World War: its Influence on Strategy and Operations, vol. 3 pt 1 pp. 119–35.
4 John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, vol. 5; London, HMSO, 1956; Michael Howard, Grand Strategy, vol. 4 and his Strategic Deception in the Second World War; London, HMSO, 1990; Capt Stephen Roskill, The War at Sea, vols 1–3; London, Collins, 1954–61.
5 William Jackson, reviewing Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 3, pt 2 in The Sunday Times, 22 February 1992.
6 WO190/ 893 reference 22832.
7 Jeffrey Holland, The Aegean Mission: Allied Operations in the Dodecanese, 1943; Westport, Greenwood Press, 1988, pp. 167ff. See also Smith and Walker; War in the Aegean; London, Kimber, 1974.
8 PRO HW1/1800(3765), BJ 1196696: Istanbul to Tokyo, decrypted 6 July 1943.
9 By summer 1943 diplomatic intercepted traffic distributed in Whitehall had become known as Dedip.
10 Walker, op. cit., p. 58.
11 Soviet historians have given some of the credit for the Red Army’s great tank battle victory in the Kursk salient to (among others) a British cryptographer working at Bletchley, who supplied the Russians with priceless information, derived from Boniface, on the thickness of German tank armour, enabling Soviet war workers to produce armour-piercing weaponry capable of knocking out the German tanks. (He was not, of course, authorised to do so.) His name was John Cairncross. (See C. Borovik, The Philby Files; London, Little Brown, 1994, p. 377.)
12 Arthur Bryant (ed), op. cit.; Alanbrooke diary entry for 28 October 1943.
13 Hugessen’s manuscript diary entry for that date: typescript in Churchill College, Cambridge. Hugessen wished to appoint a British disabled ex-serviceman to the job but the FO said no (information from his daughter). See also F. von Papen, Memoirs; London, Deutsch, 1949, pp. 514ff: see also Chapter 8.
14 PRO W1/1881(3993), BJ 120354: Istanbul to Tokyo, decrypted 26 July 1943.
15 Churchill, op. cit., p. 84.
16 PRO HW1/1885(4003): Kuibyshev to Ankara, decrypted 27 July 1943. Kuibyshev was 500 km east of Moscow. The entire international diplomatic corps was relocated there in September 1941 on Stalin’s orders, returning to Moscow in late 1943.
17 See L. Marsland Gander in The Daily Telegraph of 9 November 1943.
18 See Beesly, op. cit., p. 80.
19 These telegrams can be found in PRO PREM 31319, pp. 67, 84, 99, 161–3, 164, 165, 166–72, 184, and in Principal War Telegrams and Memoranda pt 3; London, Kraus, 1976.
20 See Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 3, pt 1, p. 618.
21 Trumbull Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Second Front 1940–3; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1957, and Smith and Walker, op. cit., pp. 48 and 268ff.
22 Holland, op. cit., p. 168.
23 Churchill, op. cit., p. 182.
24 PRO HW1/2043(4450) naval headlines 810 of 25 July 1943.
25 The following PRO DIR/C HW1 files, all from 1943, contain messages directly relevant to British handling of the Dodecanese campaign: 2006; 2043(4550) of 25 July, naval headlines 810; 2051(4476) of 27 July; 2058 (4501) of 29 July; 2067 (4531) of 2 October; 2076 (4550) of 4 October; 2080 (4563) of 5 October; 2082 (4567) of 6 October; 2085 (4574) of 6 October; 2094 (4041) of 9 October; 2097, 2118 (4690) of 16 October; 2122 (4700) of 18 October; 2132 (4774) of 21 October; 2142 (4757) of 21 October; 2150 (4778) of 22 October; 2162 (4804) of 26 October; 2163 (4804) of 26 October; 2185, 2187 (4855) of 31 October; 2190 of 1 November; 2202 (4888) of 3 November; 2212, 2219 (4935) of 5 November; 2220 (4938) of 10 November; 2221 (4940) of 7 November; 2222 (4943) of 8 November; 2226 (4951) of 9 November; 2234 (4973) of 10 November; 2236 (4978) of 11 November.
26 1st Bn Durham Light Infantry, 29th Sqn RAF Regt with light AA weapons and 7th Sqn SAAF with seven Spitfires.
27 HW1/2051, intelligence report of Aegean situation, 27 September 1943.
28 TOO: Alternative acronym for OTP.
29 JP 5477: CX/MSS/ZTPGM 37717 to BB AM WO ADY (Broadway Buildings, Air Ministry, War Office, Admiralty): BJ 137725.
30 PRO HW1/2067 (4531) of 2 October 1943.
31 PRO HW1/2076 (4550) of 4 October 1943.
32 PRO HW1/2080 (4563) of 15 October 1943.
33 All from PREM 3/3/3 and Principal Telegrams and Memoranda: Middle East Vol. 2 last section; London, Kraus, 1976.
34 The legend B% here might indicate input from Broadway Buildings (MI6) or more likely Hut 3 at Bletchley Park – elsewhere ‘comment’. It is worth noting that the % symbol is also used regularly on those Venona decrypts which have recently been released by the National Security Agency on the Internet, indicating input from the cryptographic, assessment, discrimination or translation sections.
35 PRO HW1/2080 (4563) of 4 October and 2082 (4567) of 6 October 1943.
36 The report has the symbol C% indicating that ‘C’ had added his comment to the message.
37 Churchill, op. cit., p. 191.
38 Portal seems to have been too weak to deal with Tedder, as indeed he was with ‘Bomber’ Harris.
39 Principal Telegrams and Memoranda pt 3, document dated 1 November 1943.
40 PRO PREM 31319, D170/3:PM to COS: ‘In 48 hours we shall know whether it is necessary to throw in the sponge all along the line.’
41 PRO HW1/2097 of 9 October 1943. Naval headlines 827 reported the minelayer Bulgaria laying mines off Cos.
42 PRO HW1/2145 decrypted 22 October 1943.
43 PRO HW1/2190 decrypted 1 November 1943.
44 PRO PREM 31319, p. 99, T1616/3.
45 PRO HW1/2822 (4935) decrypted 5 November 1943.
46 PRO HW1/2085 (4574) decrypted 6 October 1943.
47 PRO HW1/2219 (4574) decrypted 6 October 1943. PRO HW1 2080, decrypted 5 October 1943, carries three pages on which nation occupied each island.
48 PRO HW1/2220 (4938) decrypted 10 November 1943.
49 PRO HW1/2221 (4940) decrypted 7 November 1943.
50 ‘C’ marked this ‘important’.
51 PRO HW1/2238 (4984) decrypted 12 November 1943.
52 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 3 pt 1 p. 127.
53 Ibid p. 134.
54 PRO HW1/2225 (4949), BJ 124726/406: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 11 November 1943.
55 Referred to by Churchill as ‘Boniface’.
56 Stephen Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals; Collins, 1977, p. 328. Adm Willis’s despatch on the Aegean operation was heavily censored before publication ‘in order to eliminate all references to the fact that British warships had made frequent use of Turkish territorial waters in order to prolong their patrols off the islands without returning to Alexandria to refuel.’ See Adm Willis’s Memoirs (Bibliography) and Supplement to the London Gazette of 8 October 1948.
57 A handwritten note at the head of the paper signed by CSS secretary requires ‘all copies to be destroyed after passing to addressee – Following from Duty Office Hut 3 [at Bletchley Park].’ The full Oshima paragraph is important enough to be worth quoting in its entirety: ‘Menemencioğlu stated that the Soviet Ambassador to Turkey also was to have taken part in the conversations but he w
as unable to do so for reasons connected with his aeroplane, and the talks [at Cairo] took place between the British, the Americans and the Turks. Having decided, at the Tehran Conference, on Turkey’s participation in the war, Roosevelt and Churchill pressed strongly for it, but there was considerable difference in the degree of their desire to secure it, for whereas Churchill’s stand was one of threatening to suspend the supply of goods to Turkey, Roosevelt took up no such attitude. Eden adopted a most menacing line. It is clear that the Soviet Union also earnestly desires Turkey’s entry into the war. When von Papen asked him whether, in the event of Turkey’s non-participation, Great Britain and America would, in practice, apply sanctions, Menemencioğlu replied that he was firmly convinced that even England [? was not so strong as to enforce sanctions at the risk of making an enemy of Turkey] and America in any case would have no part in them. He had further stated categorically that Turkey had not given any promise to the British and Americans at the said Conference that she would come into the war under any conditions. (Ribbentrop added the comment that realising that Turkey, while not directly participating in the war, might grant the use of land and air bases in Turkish territory, the German Government had made it clear to the Turks that in such an event they would consider that Turkey had entered the war.’ (Emphasis added.) PRO HW1/2292, BJ 12184: decrypted 16 December 1943; also PRO HW1/2279, BJ 126571: Berlin to Tokyo, decrypted 15 December.
58 Churchill, op. cit., Closing the Ring pp. 198–99 and 345–46.
59 Foreign Relations of the United States vol. 3; Washington, DC, Government Printing Office, 1964, pp. 476–82.
60 See Laurence Weisband, Anticipating the Cold War:Turkish Foreign Policy 1943–5; Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1973, pp. 173, 176.
61 The Earl of Avon, The Eden Memoirs: The Reckoning; London, Cassell, 1965, p. 419. See also Deringil, op. cit., p. 155.
62 Weisband, op. cit., p. 177 n 30.
63 PRO HW1/2145, decrypted 22 October 1943.
Churchill's Secret War Page 29
